International photographer (Jan-Dec 1941)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

MIMURA IN JApAN October 31, 1940. Mr. Herbert Aller and Members of Local 659: "Long time no write — excuse me, sirs." It has been over three years since I visited Hollywood last and since then I presume that great improvements in the making of pictures have taken place. For myself, I'm kept quite busy most of the time shooting one picture after another. In our Toho Studios twenty-four cameramen are under contract at present and they are quite busy, too. Thirteen of them are for regular feature pictures; seven are assigned for short subjects and the rest work for the special effects department. Usually seven to nine features are scheduled daily throughout the year. Seven NC type Mitchell cameras, three standard Mitchells and nine other Bell & Howell and Super Parvo cameras are in use. I have shot three of the much talked about pictures this year, namely, "Princess Snake," "The Night in China" and "Son-Go-Cue." The first one is a costume play and broke the box office record in many years. The second was made mostly in China, where we were located nearly two months. The story was laid in Shanghai, with Japanese seamen and a Chinese girl taking the parts. One of the most popular Chinese stars, Lee Shang Lang, played the part of the girl. She made such a hit in this picture that we borrowed her again in "Son-Go-Cue." The story of "Son-Go-Cue" or "The Adventures of Western Travel" was taken from the famous old Chinese fantasy well known to the Oriental people, especially for the children. The three main characters are the monkey, the hog and the sea monster. Now I'm working on an amazing story of "The Horse." It resembles the popular book "Yearling," telling of the country people and their love for the animal. The shooting of this picture started the early part of September, 1939, because the story calls for four seasons: Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer, then back to Fall again. In Japan, under present conditions, we are not able to see the latest American pictures, but quite old ones are coming in one by one. "The Stage Coach" and "Stanley and Livingston" made great hits lately and the work of both Bert Glennon and George Barnes was praised by theatregoers here. In conclusion. I hope that you and the boys in the local are enjoying good health and here is wishing you all the best of luck. I am enclosing a few stills from my latest pictures and I hope you will enjoy them. Yours sincerely, HARRY A. MIMURA, Camera Dept., Toho Studios, 100 Kitami Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan Upper left: Marry Minium at the camera; right: Quocn of the harem enjoys the dancing; lower left: Itig Boj Hog and the popular Chinese star, Lee Shang I.ang; right: the fantastic woods of the fairy talc. JO