Identify This Movie

[JSC]

Here's an interesting challenge.

In John Huston's Across the Pacific, at about the hour and twenty-minute mark, Humphrey Bogart
goes into a movie theater (in Panama City) to meet a contact. The theater is showing a Japanese silent
film with a post-synchronized soundtrack (not sure if the soundtrack is real or was added by the production).

The film being screened is a comedy with two students who are pretending not to ogle a young woman
in Western attire. It's definitely a product of the silent era and not something filmed for the production
beforehand.

Any ideas about what film is being shown?

[brundlefly]

Here's the full scene from the Bogart film.

[Aunt Peg]

This is a hard one because I've only been shown one scene from the film that a friend working in a video shop showed me back in the late 1980s.

The film is most likely from Europe - could be 70's but more likely 80's and dubbed into English. The video cover was clearly produced by the local distributor and pictured a woman clearly identifiable as a prostitute and drug addict. It had the tag-line on the cover "She earns her money between her legs and spends it up her arm" so there was no mistake what the film was about (no wonder I never remembered the title of the film with that written on the cover).

The scene I saw from the film (the friend played it in the video store for me once it had closed) showed a woman (probably late 20's to early 40's) being bent over whilst dressed in a very short skirt revealing a bare bum and then (to my shock) the man fishing a packet of something (I'd assume drugs) out of the anus. It was probably not a graphic as my memory recalls it but I am curious as to what the film was from all these years later.

[Mr. Deltoid]

This is a hard one because I've only been shown one scene from the film that a friend working in a video shop showed me back in the late 1980s.

The film is most likely from Europe - could be 70's but more likely 80's and dubbed into English. The video cover was clearly produced by the local distributor and pictured a woman clearly identifiable as a prostitute and drug addict. It had the tag-line on the cover "She earns her money between her legs and spends it up her arm" so there was no mistake what the film was about (no wonder I never remembered the title of the film with that written on the cover).

The scene I saw from the film (the friend played it in the video store for me once it had closed) showed a woman (probably late 20's to early 40's) being bent over whilst dressed in a very short skirt revealing a bare bum and then (to my shock) the man fishing a packet of something (I'd assume drugs) out of the anus. It was probably not a graphic as my memory recalls it but I am curious as to what the film was from all these years later.

Driving Miss Daisy?

[DeprongMori]

Here's the full scene from the Bogart film.

There is a movie poster repeated twice as Bogart enters the theatre picturing a woman in left side profile that also has text (in Japanese) at the top — presumably a title — clearly visible. Has anyone pursued that angle?

[JSC]

According to the source below, it's a Japanese poster for the 1923 film Merry Go Round which
Erich von Stroheim (uncredited) and Rupert Julien directed.

http://www.filmsinfilms.com/across-the-pacific/

Addendum: I stand corrected, I thought you meant the poster at the ticket window. The other
poster with the woman in profile I haven't been able to find any info on.

[DeprongMori]

The theater is showing a Japanese silent
film with a post-synchronized soundtrack (not sure if the soundtrack is real or was added by the production).

Another thought on this, which unfortunately won’t help with the identification, is that the film depicted in Across the Pacific is not post-synched, but rather has Benshi accompaniment.

[brundlefly]

Here's the full scene from the Bogart film.

There is a movie poster repeated twice as Bogart enters the theatre picturing a woman in left side profile that also has text (in Japanese) at the top — presumably a title — clearly visible. Has anyone pursued that angle?

A commenter on the YouTube video posted, "I notice the Japanese on the movie poster. It says "Fujin Kouron"(婦人公論）。It's the title of the very famous monthly magazine for women. Fujin Kouron was first published in 1916 and is still published today."

[JSC]

Another thought on this, which unfortunately won’t help with the identification, is that the film depicted in Across the Pacific is
not post-synched, but rather has Benshi accompaniment.

That's interesting. Puts me in mind of that anecdote of Spaulding Gray's from Monster in Box, about when he was showing
Swimming to Cambodia at a film festival in Moscow. They couldn't afford to have subtitles added to the prints of the movies
so they had people acting out the speaking parts on stage. Imagine that for The Empire Strikes Back, which was one of the
films showing!

[mteller]

Another thought on this, which unfortunately won’t help with the identification, is that the film depicted in Across the Pacific is
not post-synched, but rather has Benshi accompaniment.

That's interesting. Puts me in mind of that anecdote of Spaulding Gray's from Monster in Box, about when he was showing
Swimming to Cambodia at a film festival in Moscow. They couldn't afford to have subtitles added to the prints of the movies
so they had people acting out the speaking parts on stage. Imagine that for The Empire Strikes Back, which was one of the
films showing!

Correction: they had ONE GUY doing all the speaking parts!