Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on January 2014

“Blondes make the best victims,” said Alfred Hitchcock. “They’re like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints.” The director liked his fair-haired actresses, and now the ongoing Screen Beauties series presents a trio of Hitchcock blondes at Shinjuku Picadilly (3-15-15 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku; www.shinjukupiccadilly.com) starting January 25. Grace Kelly plays a vacationing socialite romanced by Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief (1955), Tippi Hedren bleaches her locks as a disguise as the kleptomaniac Marnie (1964), and obsessed Jimmy Stewart transforms Kim Novak into a blonde in Vertigo (1958; pictured). www.screenbeauties.com… One of South Korea’s highest grossing films of all time is coming to Tokyo. The comedy Miracle in Cell No.7, screening from January 25 at Ginza’s Cine Switch (4-4-5 Ginza, Chuo-ku ; www.cineswitch.com) tells the story of a mentally-challenged man who’s wrongfully imprisoned with hardened criminals who help the man reunite with his daughter by smuggling the girl into the jail…The hardboiled newspaper reporter wasn’t limited to American film noir, also showing up in the Jiken Kisha series of Japanese crime reporter movies (1959-66) running through March 9 at Laputa in Asagaya  (2-12-21 Asagaya Kita, Suginami-ku; www.laputa-jp.com/laputa/).

Unless noted, Japanese films screen without English subtitles. Non-English language films are shown with Japanese subtitles only.