Sessue Hayakawa

Wed Feb 6 12:11:40 EST 2008

And on more news concerning Sessue Hayakawa, the Nederlands Filmmuseum 
announced the finding of one complete film of his as well as fragments from two 
others. See below.

We're also bringing out a Hayakawa dvd (The Dragon Painter with The Wrath of 
the Gods) next month.

Best regards,
Dennis Doros
Milestone Film & Video / Milliarium Zero
PO Box 128
Harrington Park, NJ 07640
Phone: (800) 603-1104 or (201) 767-3117
Fax: (201) 767-3035
milefilms at aol.com
www.milestonefilms.com?
www.killerofsheep.com??????????????????????
www.wintersoldierfilm.com

Amsterdam, January 2008

Nederlands Filmmuseum discovers unique films starring the silent Hollywood 
star Sessue Hayakawa 

Inspired by the renewed academic interest in the Japanese-Hollywood actor 
Sessue Hayakawa's career, research within the archive of the Nederlands 
Filmmuseum has revealed the only extant prints in the world of The Man Beneath (1919), 
His Birthright (1918) and The Courageous Coward (1919) - all three of them 
with Hayakawa in the leading role, and produced by his own company Haworth 
Pictures. 
Sessue Hayakawa (1889-1973) is better remembered today for his appearance as 
the Japanese Colonel in David Lean's The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). Less 
widely known is the fact that he was the first non-white Hollywood 
star-cum-producer in the first decades of the previous century. Unfortunately, many of 
his silent films are presumed lost.   

Hayakawa's best known screen appearance is undoubtedly in David Lean's war 
film The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), where he appears as the cold-blooded 
Colonel Saito. That the same Hayakawa had already had an exceptionally 
successful career in the early days of Hollywood, had largely been forgotten, already 
at the time of his Oscar nomination for best supporting actor in 1957. 
However, as early as 1915, Hayakawa had already established himself as a Hollywood 
super star earning $5.000 a week; the first non-caucasian matinee idol to 
conquer the screens (before other exotic figures such as Rudolph Valentino or Ramon 
Novarro) and making his female admirers swoon with his good looks and intense 
gaze. His overnight success was partly due to the director Cecil B. DeMille, 
who cast Hayakawa - at the insistence of Hayakawa's wife, the actress Tsuru 
Aoki - as the cruel and exotic lover in the extraordinarily popular silent movie 
The Cheat (1915). 

Following the publication of Sessue Hayakawa: Silent Cinema and Transnational 
Stardom by film scholar Daisuke Miyao (Durham: Duke University Press) in 
2007, the history of Hayakawa, as 'the first Asian Hollywood star' was revived in 
the public memory. Miyao also researched the holdings of the Nederlands 
Filmmuseum and in his book refers extensively to His Birthright (1918), preserved by 
the Nederlands Filmmuseum. In 2007 the Museum of Modern Art in New York 
(MOMA) organised a Hayakawa retrospective and drew the audience's attention to the 
remarkable position of this Japanese actor and film producer in Hollywood and 
his willingness to negotiate between cultures and to disseminate American 
values. 
Hayakawa at the Nederlands Filmmuseum
Anticipating this revival, the Nederlands Filmmuseum decided to re-assess its 
Hayakawa related holdings in the past years. This comprehensive research 
revealed that the holdings of three films, namely The Man Beneath (1919), His 
Birthright (1918) and The Courageous Coward (1919) represented the only remaining 
footage of these films in the world. 
All three titles, produced by Hayakawa himself, reflect the constant 
negotiation between different cultures and identities in their plot, starring Hayakawa 
as the lead character in the centre of the action.
The nitrate prints, acquired through private donations in the eighties and 
nineties, are Dutch theatrical release copies, carrying Dutch intertitles. 
Despite their overall good condition, and well-preserved tinted colours, the prints 
are missing footage. Only The Man Beneath can be considered to be complete. 
While the first and fourth reels of His Birthright are missing, nothing but the 
last reel of The Courageous Coward (co-starring Tsuru Aoki) survives. 
Considering their historical importance, the Filmmuseum has decided to make 
new prints of all the three titles, adding explanatory intertitles, in order to 
be able to present the films to new audiences.

About Sessue Hayakawa
Sessue Hayakawa (1889-1973) was born on the island Honshu into an 
aristocratic family. When he was declared unfit for the military because of hearing 
problems he joined his uncle's theatre group. At nineteen he left Japan for the 
United States. He graduated in political science at the University of Chicago 
(1913) and was cast (together with his wife Tsuru Aoki) by film producer Thomas 
H. Ince for a role in The Typhoon (1914). Hayakawa grew quickly to be the first 
non-white Hollywood star; his restrained, un-theatrical acting style was 
especially praised. 

In 1918, joining forces with the director William Worthington, Hayakawa 
founded his own production company; Haworth Pictures, where he produced about 
twenty films which broke through the type-casting of Asian characters as the 
'eternal villains'. It is also remarkable that Hayakawa played the romantic hero 
opposite white women, as in the Hollywood of those days interracial relationships 
were very controversial. 

In 1923 Hayakawa left Hollywood and worked in Britain and France. In 1931, 
back in Hollywood, he made his talkie debut with Daughter of the Dragon 
(director: Lloyd Corrigan) but his strong accent proved a serious handicap. 
His appearances in later American productions such as Tokyo Joe (1949, Stuart 
Heisler), Three Came Home (1950, Jean Negulesco) and House of Bamboo (1955, 
Sam Fuller) assured him again of a respectable career in Hollywood, culminating 
in his Oscar nomination (best supporting role) for David Lean's Bridge on the 
River Kwai (1957). 

Hayakawa continued to act to a very late age; appearing in the adventure film 
Swiss Family Robinson (1960, Ken Annakin) and the war film Hell to Eternity 
(1960, Phil Karlson). In 1966 he returned to Japan, where he died in Tokyo in 
1973. Hayakawa apeared in around a hundred films and wrote many scripts, a 
novel (The Bandit Prince, 1926), a stage play (The Life of the Buddha, 1949) and 
his memoirs Zen Showed Me the Way (1960). 

About the Nederlands Filmmuseum
Nederlands Filmmuseum is the national film archive of the Netherlands with a 
commitment to preserve and present the cinematic culture of the country. The 
Filmmuseum is well-known worldwide for the extraordinary range of its film 
collection, varying from unique silent films to recent experimental cinema. 
Internationally acclaimed for its state-of-the-art preservations and restorations, 
the Filmmuseum is the recipient of various prizes, the most recent one being 
the Prix Henri Langlois, awarded by 'Rencontres Internationales du Cin?ma de 
Patrimoine et de Films Restaur?s 2008' in France. In 2004 the Nederlands 
Filmmuseum was featured in numerous publications and websites, following its 
spectacular discovery and restoration of Beyond the Rocks (1922), starring Rudolph 
Valentino and Gloria Swanson.   
For more information please see: http://www.filmmuseum.nl/english

* The American distribution company Milestone Films is releasing the restored 
versions of   Hayakawa's The Dragon Painter (1919) and The Wrath of the Gods 
(1914) on DVD in March 2008. For more information and an electronic press-kit 
with detailed information, please see:
www.milestonefilms.com

* A tribute to Hayakawa will shortly take place at the Berkeley Art 
Museum/Pacific Film Archive in California, presented by Daisuke Miyao on February 9th 
and 10th, 2008.
http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/filmseries/readings_hayakawa

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More information
For further information about the Hayakawa films, and/or to book the prints 
please contact:
Mrs. Elif Rongen-Kaynakci, at the Nederlands Filmmuseum
tel. +31-204622010      e-mail: erongen at filmmuseum.nl 

For high-resolution film stills please contact perssupport at filmmuseum.nl. 
Film stilss can also be directly downloaded from the Filmmuseum 'image bank' 
(www.filmmuseum.nl/beeldbank). The online image bank is only intended for the 
press and for theatres. Please ask for a log-in name and a password at 
perssupport at filmmuseum.nl.

Synopses and credits

His Birthright 
William Worthington (USA 1918) 
Silent, Dutch intertitles, 48 minutes, reproduced with original tints.
Young Yukio (Hayakawa) travels to US from Japan, to revenge the American 
admiral who he holds responsible for his mother's suicide. Yukio gets involved in 
the scheme of a gang of spies who order him to steal secret documents from the 
admiral. Yukio does what is asked of him, but regrets his deeds as it becomes 
clear that the admiral is his long lost father. Reels 1 and 4 out of 5 are 
missing. 

The Courageous Coward
William Worthington (USA 1919)
Silent, Dutch intertitles, 14 minutes, reproduced with original tints. 
The Japanese-American law student Suki Iota (Hayakawa) investigates a murder.. 
He lives with his guardian and is secretly in love with his ward's niece Rei 
(Tsuru Aoki). When he discovers that Rei's American friend Tom Kirby is the 
murderer, he withdraws from the case in order not to embarrass Rei. Suki is 
called a coward, but when Tom confesses publicly a rehabilitation follows and Suki 
is regarded as a valuable member of American society. Only the last reel of 
The Courageous Coward is known to have survived. 

The Man Beneath 
William Worthington (USA 1919)
Silent, Dutch intertitles, 66 minutes reproduced with original tints.
The Indian doctor Chindi Ashutor (Hayakawa) falls in love with the Scottish 
Kate Erskine. Kate's sister Mary is engaged to Ashutor's fellow student James 
Bassett. Kate refuses to marry Ashutor because she fears the social 
consequences of a mixed marriage. In the meantime Bassett falls under the spell of a 
religious sect. Ashutor intervenes but cannot prevent a death. The honoured 
scientist returns to India without any illusions about the British class dominated 
society. The Man Beneath has survived almost completely. 

Other Hayakawa titles in the Nederlands Filmmuseum collection:

The Dragon Painter (USA 1919; director William Worthington)
Atarashiki Tsuchi (JAP/GER 1937; director Arnold Fanck/Mansaku Itami)
Temp?te sur l'Asie (FR 1938; director Richard Oswald)
Higegi no shogun yamashita yasubumi (JAP 1953; director Kiyoshi Saeki)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (GB/USA1957; director David Lean)
The Geisha Boy (USA 1958; director Frank Tashlin)
Green Mansions (USA 1959; director Mel Ferrer)

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