Sweat (1929) is a slapstick riff on tendency-film themes, as a bored young millionaire has his clothes stolen by a tramp; dressed in the tramp’s clothes, he has to accept work as a labourer. As the hero ends up building the mausoleum he had himself commissioned.
Direction
Uchida's leftist satire dressed as Keystone chaos.
Practical Effects
Genuine construction footage, real sweat, real absurdity.
Director
Tomu Uchida
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
A 'tendency film' — 1920s Japanese cinema's brief obsession with leftist propaganda disguised as entertainment, soon crushed by rising militarism.
Director Tomu Uchida fled to Manchuria after this, his career interrupted for over a decade — the film itself nearly vanished, surviving only in fragments.
JP
