Hideko the Bus Conductor

Okoma is the conductor on an old and rattling bus. The bus runs in Kōfu, in Yamanashi. A rival company charges more but its buses are cleaner and faster. The passengers drift over there. The company is close to going under. Okoma’s job is at risk with it. Then she has an idea. She will recite a guide to the local sights along the route. She talks her driver and a writer visiting the town into helping. The text gets written and the bus turns into a sightseeing tour. The whole story takes place along one route. The film is adapted from a short novel by Masuji Ibuse. It is the first work Mikio Naruse made with Hideko Takamine. They went on to make sixteen more films together. Hideko Takamine and Kamatari Fujiwara appear in the fifty four minute film, a Japanese production Naruse finished in 1941.