The Eleventh Hour

Movie

The Eleventh Hour

Drama

Based on a 1956 television feature on Japan’s national network, NHK, this is one of Uchida’s rarest films. A socially conscious drama with a contemporary backdrop, Dotanba focuses on the attempts to rescue a group of trapped miners. The title is a figure of speech — (essentially “last minute” or “eleventh hour”) — that refers to a situation of peril. The film boasts a script co-written by Uchida and Akira Kurosawa’s frequent screenwriter, Shinobu Hashimoto, and stars Kurosawa’s frequent star Takashi Shimura.

Date: 11/24/1957

Rating: 7.2

Cast: Takashi Shimura, Shinjirô Ehara, Kokuten Kōdō, Eiji Okada, Eijirō Tōno, Chōko Iida, Jiro Takagi, Yoshi Katō, Shin Tonomura, Yoshifumi Tachibana, Ei Iwagami, Jun Mita, Koji Takishima, Kazuo Nakano, Takashi Kanda, Rinichi Yamamoto, Shiko Saito, Kentaro Taki, Masako Nakamura, Motoharu Ueki, Tokue Hanazawa, Kyoko Shinobazu, Yōyō Kojima, Itaru Hamada, Akiko Kazami, Eri Tsuruma, Hisako Takihana, Rikiya Iwaki, Akikane Sawa, Susumu Namishima, Tokio Kozuka, Yuji Kitamine, Tadashi Minamikawa, Hiroshi Asahina, Masazumi Okabe, Tadashi Suganuma, Kyosuke Makino, Kyoji Sugi, Yoshitaka Kosugi, Katsuya Ishimaru, Hidesuke Sone, Kōji Sekiyama

Takashi Shimura