Tokyo Joe

A former GI (Humphrey Bogart) tries to rebuild his life in postwar Tokyo.

Tokyo Joe is a fairly sub-par Humphrey Bogart vehicle, notable only for it’s subject matter (postwar Japan) which, at the time, had not been addressed by Hollywood.

Bogart is solid, but the script backing him up has a laborious second act that drags the whole movie down. The screenwriters were likely trying to recreate the successfully mix of action and romance that had brought Bogart such success with Casablanca and Key Largo, but Florence Marly is hardly in the same league as Ingrid Bergman or Lauren Bacall.

Director Stuart Heisler does the best with what he has, and delivers a particularly memorable closing shot, but again, the script ultimately proves his undoing.