On 25 April 1968, Suzuki received a telephone call from a Nikkatsu secretary informing him that he would not be receiving his salary for that month. Two friends of Suzuki met with Hori the next day and were informed that "Suzuki's films were incomprehensible, that they did not make any money and that Suzuki might as well give up his career as a director as he would not be making films for any other companies." At that time the student-run film society Cine Club, headed by Kazuko Kawakita, was sponsoring a major retrospective of Suzuki's films; meant to be the first in Japan to honour a Japanese director. It was scheduled to begin on 10 May, but Hori withdrew all of his films from distribution and refused to release them to the Cine Club. The students were told that "Nikkatsu could not afford to cultivate a reputation for making films understood only by an exclusive audience and that showing incomprehensible and thus bad films would disgrace the company," adding that, "Suzuki's films would not be shown for some time in theaters or by the Cine Club."