What Made Her Do It?
What Made Her Do It? (何が彼女をそうさせたか, Nani ga kanojo o sō saseta ka) is a 1930 Japanese silent film directed by Shigeyoshi Suzuki. It was the top-grossing Japanese film of the silent era.[3][4] Notable as an example of the tendency film genre, it reportedly caused a riot upon its showing in Tokyo's Asakusa district.[3]
| What Made Her Do It? | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical Poster | |
| Japanese name | |
| Kanji | 何が彼女をそうさせたか |
| Directed by | Shigeyoshi Suzuki |
| Written by | Shigeyoshi Suzuki |
| Based on |
|
| Produced by | Teikoku Kinema Engei |
| Starring |
|
| Cinematography | Seiji Tsukakoshi |
Production company | Teikoku Kinema Engei |
| Distributed by | Kinokuniya |
Release date | |
Running time |
|
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
Plot
The plot centers on a schoolgirl, Sumiko, who has been sent to live with her uncle. Arriving to a harried household with many children, her aunt and alcoholic uncle are annoyed by her arrival. A note, which Sumiko cannot read, announces that her father has killed himself. After being denied schooling and placed into labor for the family, Sumiko is eventually sold to a circus where she suffers at the hands of its members and ringmaster. Sumiko escapes with another circus performer, Shintaro, but Sumiko joins a team of thieves and ends up arrested. She is given work in the home of a wealthy aristocratic family, who denies even the simplest of pleasures to their staff out of cruelty. She is sent to a Christian orphanage, where she is humiliated for writing a letter to an old friend, and must make a public speech renouncing her ways and accepting Christ into her heart. Given the opportunity, Sumiko instead denounces the church, and ends up burning it down.
Cast
- Keiko Takatsu as Sumiko
- Rintarō Fujima as Hiroshi Hasegawa
- Ryuujin Unno as Shintarō
- Yōyō Kojima
- Hidekatsu Maki
- Itaru Hamada
- Takashi Asano
- Saburō Ōno
Production and reception
After the commercial success of other tendency films such as Tomu Uchida's A Living Puppet and Kenji Mizoguchi's Metropolitan Symphony (both 1929), produced by the Nikkatsu studio, the entertainment-oriented Teikine (Teikoku Kinema Engei) studio produced What Made Her Do It?, introducing "vulgar elements" (Geoffrey Nowell-Smith) aimed at the audience to the story, thus lightening its social criticism.[5] The film was an enormous commercial success, with press reports of riots following its showing in Tokyo's Asakusa district.[3]
In his 2005 book A Hundred Years of Japanese Film, film historian Donald Richie titled the film "a melodramatic potboiler", at the same time acknowledging it for being "also extraordinarily film literate".[4]
Restoration
The film, thought to be lost after World War II, was restored in 1997 from an incomplete print found in the Russian Gosfilmofond archive in 1994.[6] The restoration, under supervision of Yoneo Ōta, replaced missing scenes at start and finish of the film with title cards.[6]
References
- "何が彼女をそうさせたか". Japanese Movie Database (in Japanese). Retrieved 24 May 2023.
- "何が彼女をそうさせたか". Kinenote (in Japanese). Retrieved 24 May 2023.
- Anderson, Joseph L.; Richie, Donald (1982). The Japanese Film: Art and Industry (Expanded ed.). Princeton (N.J.): Princeton University Press. p. 68. ISBN 0691007926. Retrieved 12 December 2017.
- Richie, Donald (2005). A hundred years of Japanese film : a concise history, with selective guide to videos and DVDs/ Donald Richie (Revised ed.). Tokyo, New York, London: Kodansha International. p. 91. ISBN 4770029950. Retrieved 12 December 2017.
- Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey, ed. (1997). The Oxford history of world cinema. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 416. ISBN 0198742428.
- Bernardi, Joanne (2001). Writing in light : the silent scenario and the japanese pure film movement. Detroit [Mich.]: Wayne state university press. p. 318. ISBN 0814329616. Retrieved 12 December 2017.