Taisho film

[Sarah Frederick]

Thank you for the information about the Montreal Film Festival Anne - 
always very tempting.

I'm sorry to pursue an obscure topic, but I was wondering if early 
film people might have heard of a silent film from 1925 called Nirin 
no yukiwarisou (Twin-leafed Primrose).  I don't know if it's extant, 
but thought someone might have run across it, or reference to it. 
The film has an interesting origin -- Shufu no tomo magazine ran a 
contest for the best "eiga monogatari" from a reader.  The winning 
submission was then really made by Shochiku Kamata (Tsutami Taeko 
dir.) with some fairly  major actors, and according to the Japanese 
Movie Database played at Denkikan in 1925.  I am not really familiar 
with them, but Mimura Chiyoko and Hanabusa Yuriko (O-Yuki in Wife Be 
Like a Rose) seem to be the best known of the actors in it. 
Magazines often encourage "amateur" contributions for a number of 
reasons, but I was slightly surprised to see such an example 
involving film given the expense of the medium. Are there other 
examples?  In this case, the magazine ran a four page narration of 
the story with stills along with a "the making of" type article.

Not being entirely familiar with the film industry, I wondered if 
"treatment" would be an apt translation of "eiga monogatari" or not.

Sarah Frederick
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