[KineJapan] information wanted on late Japanese silents (1936-41)

[Johan Nordstrom]

This is a very interesting topic. I scratched the surface a bit in my
research on the Japanese sound-version films and the resulting article,
that was published in the Routledge Handbook of Japanese Cinema, presents
some data and context.

As far as I could see, many of the silent films produced after 1936 were
sound-version films, and it was common that their soundtrack included
benshi narration (sometimes utilising several benshi at the same time for
one film). Most of these films were made by second-rung production studios
and after a certain point not reviewed properly, for instance Kinema junpo
were highly dismissive of them before ignoring them completely. As to why
it ended in 1941, Joseph Anderson claims in his article 'Spoken Silents in
the Japanese Cinema; or Talking to Pictures' that it was due to "the
government prohibited silent film production on the grounds that they had
no redeeming social or moral values and their swordfighter heroes were
subversive of official ideology. A military procurement agency denounced
these cheap movies as a waste of precious resources because the raw
materials could be used to make explosives." Interestingly, he writes in
the footnote that the sources were 'lost' but states that he read it at the
Waseda Enpaku. If anyone on the list has also come across this information
and/or knows the source for Anderson's claim, I would be thrilled to know
more.

Regarding the survival ratio of these films, the situation is abysmal.
There are a few at the NFAJ, and when I was looking at unidentified
Japanese prints at the Gosfilmofond a few years back, I remember spotting a
few single reels of what I believed to be unidentified late
silent/sound-version films as well. One that stood out featured the
Shinsegumi in what looked like a time-slip or teleportation plot, where
they found themselves in Africa, complete with "borrowed documentary
footage" of lions and semi-naked African women dancing. Another short
jidaigeki fragment featured a gun wielding tengu. I hope someday someone
will get the chance to go through all those reels properly.

Johan

On Sat, Jan 27, 2024 at 2:11 AM Roger Macy via KineJapan <
kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:

> Very much an unploughed film, I think, William, and there is little I can
> say.
>
> Looking briefly at those director names, I could only find Masuda Haruo in
> the ’76 Kinejun directors’ dictionary, and then seemingly mostly talking
> about a continuing career. And the data seems largely absent from JMDb.
> JMDb isn’t perfect by any means but I think of it as far more complete on
> early Japanese films than IMDb.  I wonder what sources IMDb used.
>
> And, if they were mainly made for benshi, is it possible they were also
> partly made by benshi ?
>
> Roger
>
>
> On Friday, 26 January 2024 at 07:37:35 GMT, William M. Drew via KineJapan <
> kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:
>
>
>
> One part of Japanese cinema history I've found particularly elusive has
> been the late Japanese silent films over a five-year period from early 1936
> to early 1941 when production finally ceased. How many of these late
> silents are extant? Have there been any documentation in articles and books
> in Japan providing detailed information about them? There is apparently
> almost nothing in English about these films. The sole exceptions are the
> lost two-part *The King Kong That Appeared in Edo *(1938) and the extant *Soto
> Ashuragai*, known as *Bloody Town *in English, also released in 1938.
>
> This void is part of a wider traditional Western-centric presentation of
> film history in which the standard texts always stated that after the US
> transition to sound by late 1929 and Western Europe's similar conversion by
> the middle of the following year, the silent cinema was a thing of the past
> everywhere save for Chaplin. In reality, the years from 1930 to 1935 saw a
> final flowering of silent cinema in Latin America, the Soviet republics,
> the Balkans, the Middle East, and Asia, resulting in the production of
> hundreds and hundreds of films beyond the Western horizon. By the end of
> 1935, the Soviet Union, China and Japan were the last major film-producing
> countries still making silents. But while the USSR and China finally made
> the transition the next year, Japan, with its huge annual output of films,
> made well over 600 silents from 1936 until 1941. Undoubtedly, the major
> reason for this continuing production of silents in Japan was due to the
> popularity of the *benshi*.
>
> Although in recent decades there has been far more published in Western
> languages about the prewar Japanese cinema than in the past, there still
> seems to be a kind of mystery about the silents produced after Ozu became
> the last major director to adopt sound. From online sources including the
> IMDb, I have found that by the end of the '30s and the start of the '40s,
> there were three small independent companies making most of these last
> silents--Daito, Kyokuto, and Zenkatsu a.k.a. Zensho Cinema. Joseph L.
> Anderson had told me years ago that the last Japanese silents were released
> in 1941. The IMDb lists the following silent releases from 1941: *Hatsunobori
> choshichiro kago*, *Shuju*, *Moyuru tamashi*, all produced by Kyokuto,
> and *Arashi no naka no kenshi*, produced by Zenkatsu. But without an
> exact release date for any of these, I have no idea which one might have
> the distinction of being the last Japanese silent film apart from
> experimental works in later decades.
>
> As to what finally brought an end to 35mm. theatrical silents at Japan at
> this time, I think it might have been due to the ever-increasing power of
> Japan's militarist dictatorship on the eve of the Pacific War. I know that
> as part of their attempt to control the culture, the militarists oversaw
> the folding of small companies into large organizations such as when Daito
> was swallowed up by Nikkatsu. Also, I think the militarists' concern over
> possible "subversion" by radically-minded *benshis *may have played a
> role in killing off silent production. What remains a mystery to me is why
> virtually all the directors making these late silents--Yashiro Takeshi,
> Kumagai Soya, Kumagaya Kusaya, Masuda Haruo, Seigun Hiroshi and
> others--none of them were active in Japanese cinema in any capacity during
> the Pacific War and the postwar era if the IMDb credits for them are in any
> way complete. Does anyone have any information as to the seeming total
> disappearance of this group of filmmakers?
>
> I will very much appreciate any information researchers here can supply on
> this missing and fascinating chapter of Japanese film history.
>
> William M. Drew
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