Question from a Researcher in Berlin (1937 Die Tochter des Samurai/Atarashiki

[mccaskem at georgetown.edu]

Dear Friederike Felbeck & Katherine Mezur,

If you are looking for the oldest one on film, it's likely to be

Atarashiki tsuchi/Die Tochter des Samurai 1937

It was directed by Arnold Fanck. Fanck made very realistic mountain-climbing 
movies, etc. Some starring Leni Riefenstahl, whom Fanck "discovered," and who 
became a director perhaps partly inspired by him.

Fanck seems basically to have been a fairly nice person. He did not capitalize on 
"NS Film" very much, and was more successful before 1933 than he ever was 
afterward. LR probably used her influence, and helped him get this 1937 film 
project. 

It was billed as an international film. It was Hara Setsuko's first big role in film. 
Sessue Hayakawa was in  it, though not in a leading part. A Japanese actor 
named Kosugi Isamu played in  a sort of romantic triangle with Hara Setsuko and 
Ruth Eweler. Eweler was the German lead actress. Like Fanck, she did not thrive, 
and she died in her early 30s, probably of illness, a couple of years after WWII. 
Kosugi Isamu had a fairly long film career, but this 1937 film may have been the 
peak for him.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028028/combined

The YouTube extract below will provide a very good idea of the film. Hara and 
Hayakawa spoke their own lines in German, I believe. There is also a version with 
a fully Japanese sound track.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idpN4wBgpSc

Best Regards,

Michael McCaskey
Georgetown Univ.