Event

THE HORIZON GLITTERS ()

The Horizon Glitters / Chiheisen ga Giragira / (1960) dir Michiyoshi Doi w/Jun Tatara, Shigeru Amachi, Ryuji Oki, Saburo Otsuji, Yuzo Harumi, Jerry Fujio [89 min; Digital; in Japanese w/English subtitles]
Michiyoshi Doi's black comedy about a prison break gone horribly wrong is unlike anything else Shintoho was making at the time. Released just before the studio's collapse, THE HORIZON GLITTERS is a brilliant one-off made with freedom and energy that verges on the anarchic. With the surly "Capone" (Tatara), as boss, a group of prison cellmates maintain a rough harmony until a new prisoner (Fujio) is tossed into their midst. When the new guy announces that he knows the whereabouts of a large cache of diamonds, escape is in order. Who will meet their fate before they reach the diamonds? What lies at the journey's end? The glitter draws our heroes on but the horizon keeps receding.