Re: RARA-AVIS:Hammett and Kurosawa & Analytic Methods

From: Bob Toomey ( btoomey@javanet.com)
Date: 19 Apr 2000


Keith Alan Deutsch wrote:

> In any case, for a variety of rights reason's, film people are hesitant to give
> acknowledgment to influences. As I mentioned before, in the post that may not
> have gotten through, George Lucas has stated that Kurosawa's Castle of Blood
> was the primary inspiration for the first Star Wars film.

You're probably thinking of KUMONUSU JO (1957), Kurosawa's version of Shakespere's MACBETH, best known in this country as THRONE OF BLOOD (aka CASTLE OF THE SPIDER'S WEB/ COBWEB CASTLE/ SPIDER WEB CASTLE). But this isn't the Kurosawa film Lucas cited as an influence on STAR WARS. That film was the delightful comic adventure KAKUSHI TORIDE NO SAN AKUNIN
(1958), best known in the US as THE HIDDEN FORTRESS. It involves, among other things, a headstrong princess and two comic peasants, one tall, one short, who were the obvious inspiration for R2D2 and C3PO.

BobT

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