“Based on Soseki Natsume's 1908 novel of the same title, Poppy is an ornately complicated story of desire and ambition. Fujio is beautiful, talented, well-heeled, and engaged to Munechika, a rising young diplomat. She has promised him a gold watch, a family heirloom, as an emblem of their engagement. But she falls in love with Ono, a student employed to tutor her in English, who is attracted by her beauty and wealth. Ono is himself bound by an engagement to Sayoko, the daughter of his mentor, Professor Inoue. The self-centered Fujio is ready to forsake everything for Ono, but he is prevailed upon to go ahead with his marriage to Sayoko. Fujio then offers the watch to Munechika who, perceiving Fujio's true feelings, hurls the watch into the sea.
“...Mizoguchi enjoyed a lavish budget for this film that he had not been accumstomed to on other pictures. And though the film's heroine has been compared to other femme fatales such as Cleopatra and Yang Kwei Fei (a later subject of Mizoguchi's), the milieu of Meiji intellectuals was not exactly Mizoguchi's own....” --David Owens

(The Poppy will be repeated Sat. Aug. 15, at 2:00.)

The following is longer unpublished original note:

“Based on Soseki Natsume's 1908 novel of the same title, Poppy is an ornately complicated story of desire and ambition. Fujio is beautiful, talented, well-heeled, and engaged to Munechika, a rising young diplomat. She has promised him a gold watch, a family heirloom, as an emblem of their engagement. But she falls in love with Ono, a student employed to tutor her in English, who is attracted by her beauty and wealth. Ono is himself bound by an engagement to Sayoko, the daughter of his mentor, Professor Inoue. The self-centered Fujio is ready to forsake everything for Ono, but he is prevailed upon to go ahead with his marriage to Sayoko. Fujio then offers the watch to Munechika who, perceiving Fujio's true feelings, hurls the watch into the sea.
“This melodrama was the anniversary production of Dai-ichi Eiga, a company in severe financial trouble which had not had a hit film in several years. Their choice of projects and directors did not exactly ensure success, but Mizoguchi enjoyed a lavish budget for this film that he had not been accumstomed to on other pictures. And though the film's heroine has been compared to other femme fatales such as Cleopatra and Yang Kwei Fei (a later subject of Mizoguchi's), the milieu of Meiji intellectuals was not exactly Mizoguchi's own. The film flopped and Dai-ichi was soon out of business.” --David Owens