Anatahan (1953)
June 28, 1953Release Date
Plot.
Where to Watch.
Currently Anatahan is available for streaming online, rent, buy or watch for free on: FlixFling, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Vudu, Amazon Video, Kino Now
Streaming in:🇺🇸 United States
Cast & Crew.
Akemi Negishi
Keiko Kusakabe, the 'Queen Bee'
Tadashi Suganuma
Kusakabe, Husband of Keiko
Kisaburo Sawamura
Kuroda
Shoji Nakayama
Nishio
Jun Fujikawa
Yoshisato
Hiroshi Kondō
Yanaginuma
Shozo Miyashita
Sennami
Kikuji Onoe
Kaneda
Media.
Details.
Release DateJune 28, 1953
Original Nameアナタハン
StatusReleased
Running Time1h 31m
Genres
Wiki.
Anatahan (アナタハン), also known as The Saga of Anatahan, is a 1953 black-and-white Japanese film war drama directed by Josef von Sternberg, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. The World War II Japanese holdouts on Anatahan (then part of the South Seas Mandate of Imperial Japan, now one of the Northern Mariana Islands of the United States) also inspired a 1998 novel, Cage on the Sea.
It was the final work directed by noted Hollywood director Josef von Sternberg (although Jet Pilot was released later). Von Sternberg had an unusually high degree of control over the film, made outside the studio system, which allowed him to not only direct, but also write, photograph, and narrate the action. Although it opened modestly well in Japan, it did poorly in the US, where von Sternberg continued to recut the film for four more years. He subsequently abandoned the project and went on to teach film at UCLA for most of the remainder of his lifetime. The film was screened within the official selection during the 14th Venice Film Festival (1953).