“You sacrificed someone’s life to protect your status.” This line crystallizes much of the psychological conflict in Ten to sen (US: Points and Lines), a muted-color, Japanese noir directed by Tsuneo Kobayashi, who is not to be confused with Masaki Kobayashi (Black River, 1957; The Inheritance, 1962). The film offers nothing new or innovative, but that’s the appeal: it’s a classic mystery structured around old-fashioned detective skills and even pairs up a young hotshot investigator, Kiichi Mihara (Hiroshi Minami), with an older, experienced cop, Jutaro Toriumi (Yoshi Katô). When a couple is found dead from cyanide poisoning on the crab-infested rocks of a small seaside town, police initially rule it a double suicide, but Toriumi suspects foul play. The detectives track down anyone who spotted either victim (a mid-level government agency employee and a cocktail hostess) in the hours leading up to their deaths, which ultimately connects them to the venal businessman Yasuda (the wonderfully sleazy Isao Yamagata) who had dealings with the government agency but was in another city at the time of the murders. Here’s where the film’s title comes in: Yasuda’s wife, who knows her husband is having affairs (“I’m so lonely; please don’t go”) because she’s nearly bedridden with tuberculosis (“I have to rinse my mouth,” he tells her insensitively after a kiss), which has led her to study the “points and lines” of train schedules as an avocation (“so many people are boarding right now”). Legendary Japanese actor and regular Kurosawa cast member Takashi Shimura plays a wizened police inspector named Kasai. Based on a novel by Seichô Matsumoto, the film ends with a brilliant dose of poetic justice.