Giants and Toys

Hitomi Nozoe

Yasuzô Masumura's Giants and Toys is a 1958 Japanese satire of consumer capitalism. The film's plot machinations are centered around three generations of men who work as flacks for the publicity department of a Tokyo based sweets company. Their company, World Confectionary, has hit a sales slump and the P.R. whizzes must concoct a new It girl to center their next campaign around. They happen upon Kyōko (Hitomi Nozoe), an innocent gamin from a poverty stricken family. Kyōko has the raffish charm of a tomboy, we even see her playing stick ball at one point, that translates well through the lens of a beatnik photographer played by the marvelous Yûnosuke Itô. Kyōko becomes a media sensation, but loses her innocent charm in the process. The advertising men who engineered her rise all suffer from their devotion to their career at the expense of their personal lives.

Jonathan Rosenbaum has noted that Giants and Toys is evocative of Frank Tashlin's work which is an understatement, if anything. Masumura's color, wide-screen compositions resemble the cartoonish elasticity of Tashlin's work. Furthermore, the screenplay for Giants and Toys intersects with those of The Girl Can't Help It and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? on so many themes that one can't help but think that this is a case of imitation standing in for flattery: the films all share critiques of the modern capitalistic work ethic, satirize advertising and modern media (especially television), and utilize pop music. Giants and Toys even steals a bit of milk jug japery that Tashlin employed to draw attention to the bust size of Jayne Mansfield. The shadow of American culture is acknowledged by the characters in Giants and Toys. The lack of nationalist self-esteem is striking from a culture that bristled with chauvinism before its defeat in World War 2. "America is Japan," one character remarks ruefully.

Giants and Toys also shares the major flaw of Tashlin's work: its cartoonish visual dexterity is stressed to the detriment of the dimensionality of his characters. Very few of the characters in Giants and Toys exist beyond their one dimensional functioning within the plot. I cared very little for those caught up in corporate espionage and subterfuge in the film. Still, the visuals are occasionally dazzling. Giants and Toys is currently streaming on Kanopy.