Olympia Japan edition?

[Michael McCaskey]

Dr. Janine Hansen's expertise has provided excellent and highly pertinent information, as always. Dr. Hansen's essay on Japanese-German film connections,

"Celluloid Competition: German-Japanese Film Relations, 1929-45" in
Cinema and the Swastika
The International Expansion of Third Reich Cinema 
Palgrave Macmillan 2007
ISBN 1-4039-9491-9

is a must-read item. Dr. Hansen has also written an in-depth book study about the making of the unique 1937 German-Japanese feature film Die Tochter des Samurai/Atarashiki tsuchi, which should be published in English.
 
In a desultory attempt to find out something about Japanese newsreels covering the 1936 Olympics, I came across some rather less pertinent information about live NHK Radio Japan 1936 Olympic coverage, which might nevertheless be of some interest.

Kasai Sansei(1898-1970) was the famous NHK Radio announcer/sportscaster who covered the 1936 Olympics on site in Berlin. One of the biggest Berlin Olympic events in Japanese remembrance was the women's swimming 200 meter race competition. The Japanese athlete in the event was Maehata Hideko(1914-1995). Maehata won a Gold Medal in this event.

Kasai got so excited during the race that he lost his NHK broadcaster's cool, and cheered Maehata on excitedly. In fact, he is supposed to have yelled "Maehata ganbare!" (Go Maehata!) more than twenty times during the broadcast. The NHK live radio relay coverage was heard in Japan after midnight Japan Time. The story is that an employee of the Nagoya Shimbun became so excited listening to Kasai cheering Maehata on that he collapsed and died on the spot.

It seems that this broadcast was so popular back in 1936 that it was put out by NHK as a phonograph record, with only thing cut out - the dramatic win-or-lose point in the race when Kasai screamed "Maehata Abunai!" (Maehata, Watch Out!). 

Information on Maehata at:
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%89%8D%E7%95%91%E7%A7%80%E5%AD%90

A Japanese transcript of Kasai's famous 1936 Maehata swimming event broadcast is available online at:

http://archive.hp.infoseek.co.jp/1936Maehata.html

Best Wishes,

Michael McCaskey

----- Original Message -----
From: Janine Hansen <hansen at hanzie.de>
Date: Thursday, May 29, 2008 5:26 am
Subject: RE: Olympia Japan edition?

> Hi all,
> 
> 
> 
> it seems there were quite many versions of the two Olympia films, 
> prewar and postwar. As far as I know English, French, and Italian 
> export versions were made simultaneously to the German one. After 
> WW2, there was at least one more German version which was even 
> shown on TV under a different title and with all the references to 
> Hitler cut.
> 
> 
> 
> I haven't read it yet but maybe the following article can be helpful:
> 
> 
> 
> Masumoto, Naofumi
> 
> Interpretations of the Filmed Body: An Analysis of the Japanese 
> Version of Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia
> 
> Critical Reflections on Olympic Ideology
> 
> Centre for Olympic Studies
> 
> 1994
> 
> pp. 146-158
> 
> 
> 
> Best wishes
> 
> Janine
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>