Osaka Elegy

Mizoguchi's first collaboration with long-time screenwriting colleague Yoshikata Yoda tells of a company telephone operator who, out of a desire to help her impoverished father and student brother, embarks on an affair with her boss, with disastrous results. A tale of lecherous, exploitative businessmen, ungrateful families, and a feisty but self-sacrificing woman, with a savage sting in its tail, the film prefigures Mizoguchi's later work in its angry emphasis on double standards, its visual precision and its engaged but never preachy tone.