The Quiet Duel (1949)

The Quiet Duel
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Written by Akira Kurosawa, Senkichi Tanaguchi, and Kazuo Kikuta
1949/USA
Daiei Motion Picture Company, Daiei Studios, Film Art Association
First viewing/YouTube

[box] Dr. Konosuke Fujisaki: If he had been happy, he might have become just a snob.[/box]

Toshiro Mifune, in an early restrained performance, is just excellent as a doctor with a conscience that is eating him up.

The exhausted Dr. Kyoji Fujisaki (Mifune) is doing surgery in a dimly lit operating room during the war.  He removes a glove to get a better grip and then accidentally cuts himself with a scalpel.  He learns the next day that his patient is ill.  Tests later confirm that the patient has syphilis and has passed it on to his surgeon.

Segue to post-war Tokyo where Kyoji and his father Konosuke, an OB/GYN run a clinic and hospital.  Kyoshi has thrown himself into caring for the poor.  The practice has taken in unwed mother-to-be Noriko as a probationary nurse.  She mightily resents the doctors for refusing to give her an abortion.

Kyoji has announced to his fiancee of six years that he cannot marry her.  He refuses to tell her why leaving her understandably heartbroken.  Kyoji knows that she would willingly wait another five years for him to finish his treatment if he told her.  He cannot bear to see her give up her childbearing years for his sake.

In the meantime, Kyoji runs into the man that infected him.  He has returned to his wife. who is now expecting a baby.  The man has none of the scruples that are making Kyoji suffer so much.

This is still early Kurosawa, with some pretty heavy-handed rain and transition shots and a lot of melodrama.  It is no masterpiece but I still really enjoyed it for Mifune’s performance. He gets to let loose toward the end but is quite subtle for most of the movie.  I loved a little moment where he and Shimura, as his father, awkwardly fumble with lighters not being able to decide in the moment which will light the other’s cigarette.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAAx-eElNdc

Clip – not often you get to see Mifune in despair