More on Ozu

[kiseko minaguchi]

Michel,
Let me add to the previous email that my article on ICONICS vol.6, "Yamamoto 
Satsuo's Hahanokyoku:Making a Father's Story of Stella Dallas" is written in 
English.
Minaguchi
----- Original Message ----- 
??? : "Michael McCaskey" <mccaskem at georgetown.edu>
?? : <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
???? : 2006?7?13? 0:10
?? : More on Ozu


> (Apologies if you get two, or even three of these--from a notification 
> from our computer center, it looks as if the sending did not go through 
> the first or even the second time, for some reason--but one or both 
> somehow may have somehow reached you after all.)
>
> Dear Alex,
>
> Thank you very much indeed for the confirmation and the new additional 
> Stella Dallas information.
>
> What I have found so far is as follows:
>
> Yamamoto Satsuo’s 1937 film Haha no Kyoku, with a 149-minute script by 
> Kimura Chiyo’o and Yasumi Toshio, released by Toei in two parts, on Dec. 
> 11 and Dec. 21, 1937, with the actress Hanabusa Yuriko as Stella, and Hara 
> Setsuko as her daughter, was based on a novel with the same name by 
> Yoshiya Nobuko (1896-1973). This novel in turn was a Japanese adaptation 
> of Stella Dallas, by the American popular novelist Olive Higgins Prouty 
> (1882-1974). The American original by Prouty, as well as its Japanese 
> derivative by Yoshiya, was yet another saga of a parent, a mother in this 
> case, sacrificing everything for a child, a daughter. (It seems that many 
> of the Ozu films from the same era also used this "sacrificing, silently 
> suffering" parent image.)
>
> Yamamoto was also influenced by the 1925 American film version of Stella 
> Dallas, directed by Henry King. Another American film version was made in 
> 1937, directed by King Vidor, with Barbara Stanwyck as Stella. Yet another 
> American remake, Stella, appeared in 1990, with many changes to the 
> original storyline, written by Robert Getchell (Mommie Dearest) and 
> directed by John Erman, with Bette Midler as Stella. Stella Dallas was 
> also used as the basis of a soap opera of the same name, a perennial 
> standby which was on the radio in America for 18 years, broadcast on NBC 
> every weekday, from June 6, 1938 through Jan. 6, 1956 
> (http://www.old-time.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=74&), accessed July 8, 
> 2006.
>
> Yoshiya Nobuko was a prolific and highly popular fiction writer, and from 
> 1922 to 1968 a total of 58 films were made based on her stories and 
> novels, albeit that a number of two-part and remake films are included in 
> the total (http://www.jmdb.ne.jp/person/p0073580.htm, accessed July 8, 
> 2006). Haha no Kyoku was remade in 1955 by Shin Toei, with a new 99-minute 
> script by Sasahara Ryozo, directed by Koishi Ei’ichi. It starred Mimasu 
> Aiko (1910-82), an actress who played the role of the matriarch in many of 
> the 50 movies she subsequently appeared in through 1981. Hanabusa Yuriko 
> (1900-1970), the mother in the 1937 version, also played a maternal role 
> in many of the 117 subsequent films she was in, through 1970.
>
> Minaguchi-san also has a very good new book out on Mimasu Aiko, her 
> mother-roles in films, and comparisons with US film material, which I've 
> ordered from Amazon Japan:
> &#26144;&#30011;&#12398;&#27597;&#24615;&#8213;&#19977;&#30410;&#24859;&#23376;&#12434;&#24033;&#12427;&#27597;&#35242;&#20687;&#12398;&#26085;&#31859;&#27604;&#36611; 
> (&#21336;&#34892;&#26412;)
> &#27700;&#21475; &#32000;&#21218;&#23376;
> &#21336;&#34892;&#26412;: 268&#12506;&#12540;&#12472;
> &#20986;&#29256;&#31038;: &#24425;&#27969;&#31038; (2005/04)
> ASIN: 4882029804
> Minaguchi-san was too modest to mention it, I think, so I thought it would 
> be good for me to mention it here. I hope you and she will correct any 
> errors or omissions there may be in what I wrote above.
>
> Thanks Once Again for Your Very Helpful Information,
>
> With Best Wishes,
>
> Michael
>
>
>