If by "a lot," you mean one scene, then yes, "a lot" is based on The Glass Key. Yojimbo borrows bits and pieces from many Western influences...films noir like The Glass Key and westerns like High Noon being obvious ones. But in terms of its structure and scenes, it is as original a work as most. All plots are recycled...every last one of them in the history of storytelling.
To contrast the case of Yojimbo and Red Harvest, consider the case of Yojimbo and A Fistful of Dollars. Aside from adding two action sequences (done solely because Leone believed in having an action climax at regular intervals of roughly ten minutes), Fistful is a scene-by-scene, blow-by-blow retelling of Yojimbo. Aside from the general game of ping-pong between the anti-hero protagonist and the rival gangs playing out virtually point-for-point in both films, we have:
A dominant matriarch in one clan, despite this being uncommon in either culture
Three main anchors for the anti-hero: tavern keeper, cooper, and bell-ringer/constable
Telling the cooper to prepare coffins
The estranged wife, lost by her husband as a gambling debt
Hostage exchange...wife returned to her "owner" in exchange for the son of the rival clan
Rescue of the wife by the protagonist, disguised as the work of many men
Wife's reunion with husband and child
The beating administered when the truth of this becomes known
Protagonist hiding under the floorboards after escaping from captors
Cooper sneaks protagonist out of town in a coffin
Protagonist asks cooper to pause along the way to view ensuing carnage
Protagonist takes time to heal from his injuries
Returns to town, kills all remaining gangsters
Bests his final rival despite having an "inferior" weapon (katana vs. pistol/pistol vs. rifle)
I could have listed more. Everything from Fistful, in fact, aside from the slaughter of the Mexican soldiers and the follow-up cemetery shootout (hell, Eastwood even scratches his chin in the same fashion as Mifune). But I think that covers the major points pretty well. Saying - as I've seen many do - that Yojimbo is a retelling of Red Harvest, in the same sense that A Fistful of Dollars is a retelling of Yojimbo, is simply untrue.
reply
share
14 years ago
[deleted]
james_oblivion
14 years ago
Indeed. The internet has proven to me time and again that it's generally easier for people to repeat what they've been told than it is for them to read a book.
reply
share
GrantZilla
14 years ago
I'm a huge Hammett fan, and read and own the book. And to say this movie didn't borrow heavily from Red Harvest is stupid.
Hammette's famouse Man of No Name detective, shows up in a corrupt town, turns rival gangs against each other, has a thing with one of the mobster's girl, I mean come on. Even the dynomite scene where rival gang dynomites the other gangs hideout and machine guns whoever comes out.
reply
share
Wakanohana
13 years ago
I just finished reading "Red Harvest" and I think it would be tremendously difficult to turn into a film. Too many gangs, too many important characters, too many plot twists that make sense in the novel but would be hard to explain on the big screen.
Kurosawa reduced the story to its essential elements and to a handful of important characters, and in my opinion made a much better film than if he had tried to adapt the original story. Both before and after "Yojimbo" he made some contemporary gangster movies and they were okay, but not in the category of film classics.
As I noted in another thread, the only direct borrowings I could spot were: 1) the main character's real name is never revealed, and 2) one of the gang hideouts is fire-bombed and a gang leader is shot down as he tries to surrender. Nothing else from "Red Harvest" seems to have made it to "Yojimbo". And the entire subplot with the woman hostage with the kid, who is rescued and returned to her husband, does not appear in "Red Harvest". Also, the main character is never imprisoned or beat up or interrogated, though he does escape at least two attempts on his life.
reply
share