Become a Mother, Become a Woman
(“Haha nareba onna nareba”)
1952 / B&W / 16mm (orig. 35mm) / 100 min
Director: Kamei Fumio
Script: Tanada Goro
Based on the novel by Tokunaga Sunao
Photography: Segawa Junichi
Editing: Kono Akikazu
Sound: Maruyama Kunie
Music: Iida Nobuo
Art Director: Hirakawa Totetsu
Producers: Terada Shogyo, Kashikura Masami
Cast: Yamada Isuzu, Kanda Takashi, Kishi Hatae, Futakuchi Shinichi
Production Company: Kinuta Productions
Source: Dokuritsupuro Meiga Hozonkai
Kinuta Productions was launched with 2 million yen of the 6 million yen received as the settlement of the fourth labor dispute with Toho. This, Kinuta’s first film, was produced under less than ideal circumstances. A young widow who has lost a husband in war become separated from her eldest son during an air raid and then searches for her missing son. A brother and a sister from next door encourage her to work with a sewing machine. One day a burglar breaks into the brother and sister’s home and is caught by police, but he is, in fact, the widow’s son. The widow takes him home and begins family life anew. But while the brother was encouraging the widow, they become intimate and the brother proposes to her. Rumors about them circulate and again the son goes astray. The widow suffers between love for her son and marriage to her boyfriend, but once again chooses to retrieve her son and to begin life with him once again. This film does not have an especially strong reputation, but great actress Yamada Isuzu, star of Mizoguchi’s Sisters of Gion (“Gion no kyodai,” 1936) and Osaka Elegy (“Naniwa erejii,” 1936) among others, does a wonderful job in her troubled role.