Dandy Sashichi Detective Story: Six Famous Beauties

Famed detective Dandy Sashichi tries to solve who's behind the serial murders of six beautiful women under the aegis of local showman Ibaragiya. The film opens with the sextet humiliating a respected painter's portraits of them, driving the man to a suspicious suicide. Later, while celebrating his son's impending marriage into a wealthy family, Ibaragiya releases six pigeons from a pleasure boat, each with a rolled up drawing of one of the beauties tied to their legs. He offers a cash reward to whomever recovers the pictures, but they instead become death notices of which of the six are next to die. Novelist and mystery writer Yokomizo Seishi created such famous detective characters as Kindaichi Kosuke (sometimes referred to as the Japanese Columbo) and Ningyo "Dandy" Sashichi, who first appeared in 1938. Two Dandy Sashichi film adaptations were made in 1953 and 1955 by independent production companies, but it was the thirteen-film series, all starring Wakayama Tomisaburo in the title role, that brought the character into popular film consciousness. This first entry in the series is an enjoyable romp produced with a quality that belies its program picture origins. Most viewers would know Wakayama from the Lone Wolf and Cub series, but even in this early film, his deep voice and solid physicality lend the character a commanding presence.