Tokyo Joe (1949 film)

Tokyo Joe is a 1949 Film Noir film directed by Stuart Heisler from a story by Steve Fisher, adapted by Walter Doniger and starring Humphrey Bogart, Florence Marly and Sessue Hayakawa. This was Heislers first of two features starring Bogart, the other was Chain Lightning that also wrapped in 1949 but was held up in release until 1950.

Joe starts up an air freight business, fronting for Baron Kimura Sessue Hayakawa, former head of the Japanese secret police. Joe believes Kimura is using the airline to smuggle penicillin and other drugs into the country, but discovers he is actually intending to smuggle in former senior officers of the Imperial Japanese Army and the leader of the Black Dragon Society in order to organize a Communist coup against the new democratic government. When he balks, Kimura kidnaps Anya to force him to comply. Joe rescues Anya and foils the Barons plot, but is fatally wounded in the ensuing struggle.The film was Sessue Hayakawas first postwar project and served as a revitalization of his career. From 1937 to 1949, Hayakawa had been in France, first as an actor and then was caught up in the German occupation, living ostensibly as an artist, selling watercolors. After joining the French underground, he aided Allied flyers during the war. When Humphrey Bogarts production company tracked him down to offer him a role in Tokyo Joe, the American Consulate investigated Hayakawas activities during the war before issuing a work permit. ........

Source: Wikipedia