Achieved International Notoriety
Imai's films sometimes drew on the works of modern writers trying to break through Japan's postwar cultural and social malaise. Nigorie (1954) is a three-part film based on the short stories of Ichiyo Higuchi. Here Imai casts a penetrating gaze on the difficulties faced by three young Japanese women: one is cruelly abused in an arranged marriage; another is a prostitute thwarted in her efforts to gain respectable employment; and yet another is a young servant whose rich employers make her life hellish.
In the mid-1950s, Imai directed Koko Ni Izumi Ari and then Mahiru No Ankoku, the second film which first gained him significant attention in the United States under the titles Darkness at Midnight, Darkness at Noon or Darkness at Midday. A crime thriller and courtroom drama, the film concerns a young loner who confesses to the grisly murder of an older married couple and then fingers two men as accomplices. Their cases are railroaded through the legal system and are all found guilty before the full truth about the murder is known.
By the mid-1950s Imai had gained a reputation as a filmmaker who championed the working classes.
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