Episode 193: GIRLS OF THE NIGHT (1961)

Content warning: Discussions of sex work, abuse, and suicide. Kuniko is a woman stuck between who she was – a prostitute – and who she wants to be: an accepted member of a society that’s actively cracking down on people with her history. In asking whether it’s society’s responsibility to accept Kinuko or her responsibility to ‘reform,’ GIRLS OF THE NIGHT doesn’t go as far as you might want in normalizing sex work and the women who do it. But the fact that it raises the question, and that it showcases the failures of the systems meant to give them mobility, makes it hard to dislike as a film. THE PRECISE COMPOSITIONS OF KINUYO TANAKA (Sept 2022 at the Trylon): https://www.trylon.org/films/category/the-precise-compositions-of-kinuyo-tanaka/ CRACKING OPEN THE DISNEY VAULT (Sept at the Trylon): https://www.trylon.org/films/category/cracking-open-the-disney-vault/ Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/trylovepodcast and email us at [email protected] to get in touch! Buy tickets and support the Trylon at https://www.trylon.org/. Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro music by Hikaru Hayashi from GIRLS OF THE NIGHT. Timestamps 0:00 - Episode 193: GIRLS OF THE NIGHT (1961) 3:00 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary 5:21 - The uncomfortable conservatism of GIRLS OF THE NIGHT 21:57 - The directress and failing systems of reform 32:17 - How far the movie goes in indicting those systems 35:19 - The ending