Release date: February 17, 1954
Director: Seiji Maruyama (adapted from a short story by Shigeko Yuki)
Studio: Toho
Cast: Yaeko Mizutani, Ineko Arima, Rentaro Mikuni, Nobuo Kaneko, Akihiko Hirata, Kyoko Koyama et al.
Availability: No known DVD or VHS release; no internet availability; no known recent screenings. Apparently referenced in a 1987 publication compiling notes from a lecture series held at Kyoto Kaikan Annex Hall titled "Reading Japanese Movies: Messages of the Soul".
Some information about the plot is available here.
So we're starting out with a film that I haven't seen and have very little hope of seeing. This movie was directed by Seiji Maruyama, a Toho director who made several other films in which Akihiko Hirata was part of the cast. This is, however, the only one of those that is not a war movie. Hirata plays a character named Miyoshi, and since he's not mentioned in the synopsis, I'm assuming this is one of those small, peripheral characters he played so often. Since I haven't seen the film, there's not much else I can say other than the simple facts of its production and release, but stick around to the end of the post for something really interesting.
I'm including some images from a promotional pamphlet I've found online. I'm going to try to source all of my images as I move forward with this blog, but in this particular case I am unable to do that. Clicking on the URL from Google Images gives me a 404 error, and trying to go straight to the parent website takes me to... a website for a spaghetti company? (I swear I'm not making this up; this is just how it goes when you're constantly doing internet archaeology like this.)
Anyway, the pamphlet presents both Itsuko and Her Mother and a second film, Young Eyes, which I suppose were probably released on a double bill. Unfortunately, the pages concerning Itsuko are not in good enough quality for me to do a camera translation of them. From what I can pick out, it seems to be outlining the sponsors, producers, and staff of the film. The front page just lists the titles of the two movies, and the small vertical text reads "The joys and sorrows of the young generation". I would love to get my grubby paws on this thing for real to flip through it, but for now we must make do with grainy photos from a pasta company's website. Also, the cover of the pamphlet is what gets used as a poster on Letterboxd and IMDb. I've never seen an actual official poster for this film.
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| (verso: Young Eyes; recto: Itsuko and Her Mother.) |
Here is another advertising spread for this movie and several others. The right-hand side shows a film called Mother's Diary, and Young Eyes below it. On the left-hand side we have not just one but three movies Hirata had a role in! Farewell Rabaul at the top, and Tonight for One Night and Itsuko and Her Mother on the bottom. I don't ever wish I was alive in the 1950s, but... occasionally I wish I was alive in the 1950s.
Now for the entire reason why I wanted to post about this movie.
In trying to find more information, I dug up two articles in a Hawaiian newspaper from 1955. It would appear that this film screened at the Toyo Theater, which itself has an intriguing history that I urge you to look into. The first article talks about the film after it's been released and issues some corrections to the previous article, which came out three days before.
I didn't even realize this until later, but the paper is dated July 7th, 1955. Godzilla, King of the Monsters! would not be shown in the United States until 1956. The first film in Hiroshi Inagaki's Samurai trilogy got its U.S. release in November of 1955. Which makes Itsuko and Her Mother, as far as I'm aware, the first time American audiences would ever have seen Akihiko Hirata. In fact, if we want to go further, this is (again, as far as I'm aware; I could be wrong about this) the first time American audiences would have seen anybody from the main cast of Godzilla. Takashi Shimura had been acting the longest of any of them, but I don't believe any of his earlier films saw American release until at least after 1955.
I don't know. I just thought that was really cool. Plausibly, there could have been people in the audience watching Godzilla, King of the Monsters! for the very first time and thinking "hey, it's that guy from that thing with Ineko Arima that we watched last year."
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source of newspaper article: https://hojishinbun.hoover.org/?a=d&d=tht19550725-01.1.2&e=-------ja-10--1--img-------
source of advertising spread: https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/r1115531486
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