Escapade in Japan (1957) - Turner Classic Movies

Brief Synopsis

After his plane crashes in Tokyo, an American boy tries to find his way home.

Cast & Crew

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Arthur Lubin

Teresa Wright

Cameron Mitchell

Richard Saunders

Jon Provost

Tony [Saunders]

Roger Nakagawa

[Asa]Hiko [Tanaka]

Philip Ober

Photos & Videos

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Escapade in Japan - (Original Trailer)

Film Details

Also Known As

Take My Heart

Genre

Adventure

Drama

War

Release Date

Nov 1957

Premiere Information

World premiere in San Francisco: 17 Oct 1957

Production Company

RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.

Distribution Company

Universal Pictures Co., Inc.

Country

United States

Location

Japan; Japan

Technical Specs

Duration

1h 33m

Sound

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Color

Color (Technicolor)

Theatrical Aspect Ratio

2.35 : 1

Synopsis

In Tokyo, Japan, American diplomatic attaché Richard Saunders and his wife Mary await their seven-year-old son, Tony, who is flying to meet them. While Mary, who has learned that Dick had an affair at his last post, informs her husband that she is planning to leave him, Tony's plane experiences engine failure and plunges into the ocean. By morning, Dick and Mary are frantic with worry, and the American embassy sends Col. Hargrave to keep them updated on the rescue operation. After fifteen hours, the first record of survivors is released, but when Tony's name is not among them, Hargrave reluctantly reveals that a heavy fog over the ocean is making the rescue difficult. Meanwhile, while sailing off the Japanese coast, fisherrman Kei Tanaka and his wife Michiko spot an unconscious Tony floating in a life raft, and pull him onboard. They nurse him back to health, aided by their young son Asahiko, nicknamed Hiko, who speaks halting English. Soon, Hiko teaches Tony to use chopsticks, while Tony teaches Hiko to play with a yo-yo. Once they reach the Tanakas' village, however, Hiko overhears his parents discussing the imminent arrival of the police, and wrongly assuming that Tony is in trouble, runs away with his new friend. When the Saunderses learn of Tony's rescue, they race to the village, only to find that both boys have disappeared. Although Mary and Michiko cannot converse, they feel connected in their mutual concern for their sons. The two boys hop on a truck, hoping to reach Tokyo, which Hiko vaguely knows is "over the mountains." When the truck gets a flat tire, they find a nearby farmhouse, where the kind residents feed them. They sleep in the barn, and are at first frightened by the dark but finally fall asleep in each other's arms. In the morning, they illegally board a train and talk about why their eyes have different shapes. Meanwhile, Mary grows more anxious, but after the farmers report having seen the boys, Japanese policeman Capt. Hibino publishes Tony's photograph in all of the country's newspapers and vows that they will be found soon. The children jump off the train in Kyoto and spend the day wandering past temples and through the marketplace. They dodge the police by slipping into a burlesque theater, where they worry that the women may be cold without their clothes. That night, the boys are welcomed into a geisha house, but after Hiko overhears the head geisha plan to call the police, the boys slip out at dawn. To avoid the increased police activity, they board a school bus, and there meet pretty schoolgirl Dekko, who agrees to hide them. After the teacher leads the children on a tour of important temples, they share Dekko's lunch. By the end of the day, however, the other children see Tony's photograph in the paper and inform the teacher. He calls the police, who notify the Saunderses and Hibino. As Hibino orders a search of Kyoto, however, the frightened boys hop on another train. There, an American G.I. buys them ice cream, but when he sees the newspaper story about the missing boys, calls the embassy. Hibino sets up a roadblock at Nara, the end of the train line, but the children escape into the city. Chased by the police, they climb several flights of stairs at a pagoda, stopping only when they have scrambled out onto the slanted roof and are perched high above the street. The Saunderses arrive as a crowd gathers below, and Dick races up to save the boys. Aided by the police, he crawls onto the ledge and pulls the boys to safety. Dick carries Tony to Mary's waiting arms, and while looking into Dick's eyes,she promises the boy that no one will separate the family again. When Dick turns to Hiko, however, the still-frightened boy runs away, and Dick catches him once again. Soon, everyone gathers at the Tanakas', where Dekko arrives to reunite with her new friends.

Director

Arthur Lubin

Cast

Teresa Wright

Cameron Mitchell

Richard Saunders

Jon Provost

Tony [Saunders]

Roger Nakagawa

[Asa]Hiko [Tanaka]

Philip Ober

Kuniko Miyake

Susumu Fujita

Katsuhiko Haida

Tatsuo Saito

Hideko Koshikawa

Urego Egawa

Chief of Kyoto police

Frank Tokunaga

Ayako Hidaka

Clint Eastwood

Pfc. Steve Mcgrover

Leticia Bahia

Father Francis Caffrey

Alice Cunningham

Capt. L. Reday

Mary Gilchrist

Miss Fukuha

Apprentice geisha

Miss Hisayo

Apprentice geisha

Tsuyako Okajima

Sheri Kuni

Keiko Yashioji

Yoshiko Terao

Rintaro Fujima

Burlesque theater tenor

Koryu Sunagawa

Junjaku Ichikawa

Mari Maki

Striptease dancer

Bob Nakai

Hirotaro Hori

Schinichi Gomi

Dr. Masahiko Kitahata

Doctor at embassy party

Capt. Ross F. Purdy

Air Defense Control officer

Peggy Reday

Ryoichi Ohkura

Pagoda policeman

Eiji Kawanami

Pagoda policeman

Teruo Sawamura

Bicycle policeman

Shinichi Kaji

Kei Nagashima

Jack Takeuchi

Train conductor

Anthony Radecki

Don C. Harvey

Mid-Pacific co-pilot

John Close

Mid-Pacific pilot

Mila Del Sol

Filipino stewardess

Crew

Al Baalas

Assistant Camera

Frank Beetson

Wardrobe master

Ben Chapman

Unit Production Manager

Murray Cutter

George W. Davis

William Dozier

In charge of prod

Joan Hathaway

Dial Supervisor

Walter Holscher

Shinz Isa

Lewis Jarrard

Script Supervisor

Terry Kellum

Jack Lannan

Photography Effects

Hal Lierley

Anthony Lombardo

Arthur Lubin

Otto Ludwig

Gordon Mclean

Assistant Director

Winston Miller

Winston Miller

Associate Producer

Kei Nagashima

Technical Advisor

George Nogle

Camera Operator

Anthony Radecki

Production Assistant

Francis J. Scheid

William Snyder

Director of Photography

Max Steiner

Ira Stewart

Assistant Director

Charles Termini

Assistant Camera

Stewart Thorne

Prod unit Director

Videos

Escapade in Japan - (Original Trailer) After his plane crashes in Tokyo, an American boy tries to find his way home in Escapade in Japan (1957) starring Cameron Mitchell and Clint Eastwood as Pilot "Dumbo."

Film Details

Also Known As

Take My Heart

Genre

Adventure

Drama

War

Release Date

Nov 1957

Premiere Information

World premiere in San Francisco: 17 Oct 1957

Production Company

RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.

Distribution Company

Universal Pictures Co., Inc.

Country

United States

Location

Japan; Japan

Technical Specs

Duration

1h 33m

Sound

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Color

Color (Technicolor)

Theatrical Aspect Ratio

2.35 : 1

Articles

Escapade in Japan

June 8, 2010

Blink and you'll miss Clint Eastwood in Arthur Lubin's Escapade in Japan (1957), in which the up-and-coming actor goes unbilled despite his character having an actual name: Dumbo. The role and the film were typical of Eastwood's lot at the start of his career, a period of apprenticeship in which he played a jet pilot who tangles (successfully) with a giant Tarantula (1955) and a comic relief laboratory assistant in Revenge of the Creature (1955) who is upstaged by a white rat. Unable to pay his rent entirely though acting, Eastwood supplemented his income with menial work; while laboring off the books at a gas station, he met the first man in Hollywood to see promise in him: Arthur Lubin. A veteran director of several Abbott and Costello comedies, Lubin thought Eastwood had potential but lacked a tangible craft. He urged the young hopeful to take acting classes and brokered a $75 a week contract from Universal, as well as auditions (albeit unsuccessful) for bits in The Seven Year Itch (1955) and Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Kops (1955). (Universal dropped Eastwood in October 1955, kicking him out of the studio gates alongside fellow contract players David Janssen and Burt Reynolds.) Lubin eventually slotted the actor into one his "Francis the Talking Mule" films and gave Eastwood his first significant role, as a love-struck Rough Rider in the comic western The First Traveling Sales Lady (1956).

Arthur Lubin had played a pivotal role in grooming Clint Eastwood into a bankable star yet Eastwood would leave his mentor behind as soon as his career gained momentum. Escapade in Japan was Eastwood's last film for Lubin and his services were tendered in the space of a single day, netting him $175. (By point of comparison, Eastwood earned $750 for Ambush at Cimarron Pass, in which he was billed below star Scott Brady, who earned $25,000.) Top-billed were Academy Award® winning actress Teresa Wright and stage and film actor Cameron Mitchell, cast as the parents of a young boy (Jon Provost) who has survived a plane crash off the coast of Japan. His scenes shot entirely within the confines of Universal Studios, Eastwood did not join the cast and crew for the transatlantic trip on a TWA Constellation on September 26, 1956. Billeted in Kyoto, the cast worked exhaustively on location six days a week. In their scant off-time, Wright toured the Japanese countryside with her cameras, Mitchell learned kendo and was made an honorary captain of the Kyoto Racket Club tennis team, and juvenile star Jon Provost missed Halloween, Thanksgiving, both his father's and older brother's birthdays, and the start of first grade. Like Eastwood, whose luck would soon change with a featured role on the weekly western Rawhide, Provost would find lasting fame by joining the cast, and later assuming the lead, of the CBS series Lassie in its fourth season.

Hanging over the production of Escapade in Japan like the proverbial dark cloud was the fact that parent studio RKO was on its last legs. Howard Hughes had bought a controlling share of stock in 1948 and his eccentricities and indulgences had kept the profit margin in the red under his ownership. Unable to gain full control of the studio, Hughes sold off his interest to the General Tire Company, which recouped two-thirds of the $25 million sale price by offering the RKO film library for TV broadcasts. Uninterested in making movies, General Tire ceased production in 1957 and sold the RKO lot to Desilu Productions for $6 million. While all this business was still in the negotiation stages, Arthur Lubin was speeding up the pace of principal photography for Escapade in Japan to ensure that his cast and crew's return airfare would be covered. Lubin got his people back to Hollywood, where the passengers were informed upon landing that they no longer had studio contracts. Universal picked up distribution rights for the orphaned Escapade in Japan, which had its world premiere in Clint Eastwood's home town of San Francisco in October 1957.

Producer: Arthur Lubin
Director: Arthur Lubin
Screenplay: Winston Miller
Cinematography: William Snyder
Art Direction: George W. Davis, Walter Holscher
Music: Max Steiner
Film Editing: Otto Ludwig
Cast: Teresa Wright (Mary Saunders), Cameron Mitchell (Dick Saunders), Jon Provost (Tony Saunders), Roger Nakagawa (Hiko), Philip Ober (Lt. Col. Hargrave), Kuniko Miyake (Michiko Tanaka), Susumu Fujita (Kei Tanaka).
C-93m. Letterboxed.

by Richard Harland Smith

Sources:
Clint: The Life and Legend by Patrick McGilligan (St. Martin's Press, 1999)
American Rebel: The Life of Clint Eastwood by Marc Eliot (Harmony, 2009)
Clint Eastwood: A Biography by Richard Schickel (Vintage, 1997)
Aim for the Heart: The Films of Clint Eastwood by Howard Hughes
Charles McGraw: Biography of a Film Noir Tough Guy by Alan K. Rode (McFarland & Co., 2008)
Cameron Mitchell interview by David Del Valle, Psychotronic Video No 19, Winter 1994
Timmy's in the Well: The Jon Provost Story by Jon Provost (Living Legends Publishing Group, 2009)
RKO Radio Pictures: A History of the Original Motion Picture Studio by James P. Snyder

Escapade In Japan

Escapade in Japan

Blink and you'll miss Clint Eastwood in Arthur Lubin's Escapade in Japan (1957), in which the up-and-coming actor goes unbilled despite his character having an actual name: Dumbo. The role and the film were typical of Eastwood's lot at the start of his career, a period of apprenticeship in which he played a jet pilot who tangles (successfully) with a giant Tarantula (1955) and a comic relief laboratory assistant in Revenge of the Creature (1955) who is upstaged by a white rat. Unable to pay his rent entirely though acting, Eastwood supplemented his income with menial work; while laboring off the books at a gas station, he met the first man in Hollywood to see promise in him: Arthur Lubin. A veteran director of several Abbott and Costello comedies, Lubin thought Eastwood had potential but lacked a tangible craft. He urged the young hopeful to take acting classes and brokered a $75 a week contract from Universal, as well as auditions (albeit unsuccessful) for bits in The Seven Year Itch (1955) and Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Kops (1955). (Universal dropped Eastwood in October 1955, kicking him out of the studio gates alongside fellow contract players David Janssen and Burt Reynolds.) Lubin eventually slotted the actor into one his "Francis the Talking Mule" films and gave Eastwood his first significant role, as a love-struck Rough Rider in the comic western The First Traveling Sales Lady (1956). Arthur Lubin had played a pivotal role in grooming Clint Eastwood into a bankable star yet Eastwood would leave his mentor behind as soon as his career gained momentum. Escapade in Japan was Eastwood's last film for Lubin and his services were tendered in the space of a single day, netting him $175. (By point of comparison, Eastwood earned $750 for Ambush at Cimarron Pass, in which he was billed below star Scott Brady, who earned $25,000.) Top-billed were Academy Award® winning actress Teresa Wright and stage and film actor Cameron Mitchell, cast as the parents of a young boy (Jon Provost) who has survived a plane crash off the coast of Japan. His scenes shot entirely within the confines of Universal Studios, Eastwood did not join the cast and crew for the transatlantic trip on a TWA Constellation on September 26, 1956. Billeted in Kyoto, the cast worked exhaustively on location six days a week. In their scant off-time, Wright toured the Japanese countryside with her cameras, Mitchell learned kendo and was made an honorary captain of the Kyoto Racket Club tennis team, and juvenile star Jon Provost missed Halloween, Thanksgiving, both his father's and older brother's birthdays, and the start of first grade. Like Eastwood, whose luck would soon change with a featured role on the weekly western Rawhide, Provost would find lasting fame by joining the cast, and later assuming the lead, of the CBS series Lassie in its fourth season. Hanging over the production of Escapade in Japan like the proverbial dark cloud was the fact that parent studio RKO was on its last legs. Howard Hughes had bought a controlling share of stock in 1948 and his eccentricities and indulgences had kept the profit margin in the red under his ownership. Unable to gain full control of the studio, Hughes sold off his interest to the General Tire Company, which recouped two-thirds of the $25 million sale price by offering the RKO film library for TV broadcasts. Uninterested in making movies, General Tire ceased production in 1957 and sold the RKO lot to Desilu Productions for $6 million. While all this business was still in the negotiation stages, Arthur Lubin was speeding up the pace of principal photography for Escapade in Japan to ensure that his cast and crew's return airfare would be covered. Lubin got his people back to Hollywood, where the passengers were informed upon landing that they no longer had studio contracts. Universal picked up distribution rights for the orphaned Escapade in Japan, which had its world premiere in Clint Eastwood's home town of San Francisco in October 1957. Producer: Arthur Lubin Director: Arthur Lubin Screenplay: Winston Miller Cinematography: William Snyder Art Direction: George W. Davis, Walter Holscher Music: Max Steiner Film Editing: Otto Ludwig Cast: Teresa Wright (Mary Saunders), Cameron Mitchell (Dick Saunders), Jon Provost (Tony Saunders), Roger Nakagawa (Hiko), Philip Ober (Lt. Col. Hargrave), Kuniko Miyake (Michiko Tanaka), Susumu Fujita (Kei Tanaka). C-93m. Letterboxed. by Richard Harland Smith Sources: Clint: The Life and Legend by Patrick McGilligan (St. Martin's Press, 1999) American Rebel: The Life of Clint Eastwood by Marc Eliot (Harmony, 2009) Clint Eastwood: A Biography by Richard Schickel (Vintage, 1997) Aim for the Heart: The Films of Clint Eastwood by Howard Hughes Charles McGraw: Biography of a Film Noir Tough Guy by Alan K. Rode (McFarland & Co., 2008) Cameron Mitchell interview by David Del Valle, Psychotronic Video No 19, Winter 1994 Timmy's in the Well: The Jon Provost Story by Jon Provost (Living Legends Publishing Group, 2009) RKO Radio Pictures: A History of the Original Motion Picture Studio by James P. Snyder

Teresa Wright (1918-2005)

March 14, 2005

Teresa Wright, a talented, Oscar&-winning leading lady of the '40s, and in later life, a versatile character player, died on March 6 at a New Haven, Connecticut hospital of a heart attack. She was 86.

She was born Muriel Teresa Wright in New York City on October 27, 1918. She showed a keen interest in acting in grade school, and by the time she was 19, she made her Broadway debut in Thorton Wilder's Our Town (1938); the following year she scored a hit as Mary, the weeping ingénue in Life with Father (1939). The word was out that New York had a superb young acting talent on hand, and Samuel Goldwyn soon brought her to Hollywood for William Wyler's adaptation of Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes (1941). She scored an Oscar® nomination for her film debut as Regina Giddens' (Bette Davis), honorable daughter, Alexandria.

She maintained her amazing momentum by scoring two Oscar® nominations the following year for her next two films: as Carol Miniver in Wyler's Mrs. Miniver (Best Supporting Actress Category), and as Lou Gehrig's (Gary Cooper) faithful wife Ellie in Pride of the Yankees (Best Actress Category), and won the Oscar for Miniver. Yet for most fans of Wright's work, her finest hour remains her perfectly modulated performance as young Charlie in Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece, Shadow of a Doubt (1943). Wright's performance as the self-effacing, impressionable young niece who gradually realizes that her beloved uncle (Joseph Cotton) may have murdered several widows is effective since Wright's air of observation, subtly turns from idol gazing, to a watchful air of caution as the facts slowly being to unravel. 60 years on, fans of Hitchcock still acclaim Wright's performance as an integral part of the film's classic status.

She proved her talents in comedy with the delightful Casanova Brown (1944), but then saw her schedule slow down due to domesticity. After she married screenwriter Niven Busch in 1942, she gave birth to son, Niven Jr., in 1944, and took two years off to look after her family. She soon returned to film with another Wyler project, the Oscar®-winning, post war drama, The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), playing Fredric March's level-headed daughter, Peggy, she again took some time off after giving birth to her daughter, Mary in 1947. On her second attempt to return to the big screen, Wright found her popularity on the wane. Her wholesome image was in sharp contrast of the tougher, more modern women in post-war Hollywood, and her stubborn refusal to pose for any swimsuit or cheesecake photos to alter her image led to her release from Sam Goldwyn's contract.

As a freelance actress, Wright still found some good roles, notably as a young widow in the thriller scripted by her husband, in The Capture; and as a faithful fiancée trying to help Marlin Brandon deal with his amputation in Stanley Kramer's The Men (both 1950). Yet within a few years, she was playing middle-aged mothers in film like The Actress (1953), and The Track of the Cat (1954), even though she was still in her early '30s. By the mid-50s she found work in live television, where she could apply her stage training, in a number of acclaimed shows: Playhouse 90, General Electric Theater, Four Star Playhouse, and The United States Steel Hour.

She took a break from acting when she married her second husband, the playwright Robert Anderson in 1959, (she had divorced her first husband, Busch, in 1952) and was out of the public eye for several decades, save for an isolated theater appearance. When she did return, it was intermittent, but she was always worth watching. In James Ivory's Roseland (1977), a portrait of the New York dancehall; she was poignant as a talkative widow obsessed with her late husband; and as an enigmatic old actress in Somewhere in Time, she nearly stole the picture from leads, Christopher Reeve and Jayne Seymour. She was still active in the '90s, appearing a few hit shows: Murder, She Wrote, Picket Fences; and a final film role in John Grisham's The Rainmaker (1997). She is survived by her son, Niven; daughter, Mary; and two grandchildren.

by Michael T. Toole

Teresa Wright (1918-2005)

Teresa Wright, a talented, Oscar&-winning leading lady of the '40s, and in later life, a versatile character player, died on March 6 at a New Haven, Connecticut hospital of a heart attack. She was 86. She was born Muriel Teresa Wright in New York City on October 27, 1918. She showed a keen interest in acting in grade school, and by the time she was 19, she made her Broadway debut in Thorton Wilder's Our Town (1938); the following year she scored a hit as Mary, the weeping ingénue in Life with Father (1939). The word was out that New York had a superb young acting talent on hand, and Samuel Goldwyn soon brought her to Hollywood for William Wyler's adaptation of Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes (1941). She scored an Oscar® nomination for her film debut as Regina Giddens' (Bette Davis), honorable daughter, Alexandria. She maintained her amazing momentum by scoring two Oscar® nominations the following year for her next two films: as Carol Miniver in Wyler's Mrs. Miniver (Best Supporting Actress Category), and as Lou Gehrig's (Gary Cooper) faithful wife Ellie in Pride of the Yankees (Best Actress Category), and won the Oscar for Miniver. Yet for most fans of Wright's work, her finest hour remains her perfectly modulated performance as young Charlie in Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece, Shadow of a Doubt (1943). Wright's performance as the self-effacing, impressionable young niece who gradually realizes that her beloved uncle (Joseph Cotton) may have murdered several widows is effective since Wright's air of observation, subtly turns from idol gazing, to a watchful air of caution as the facts slowly being to unravel. 60 years on, fans of Hitchcock still acclaim Wright's performance as an integral part of the film's classic status. She proved her talents in comedy with the delightful Casanova Brown (1944), but then saw her schedule slow down due to domesticity. After she married screenwriter Niven Busch in 1942, she gave birth to son, Niven Jr., in 1944, and took two years off to look after her family. She soon returned to film with another Wyler project, the Oscar®-winning, post war drama, The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), playing Fredric March's level-headed daughter, Peggy, she again took some time off after giving birth to her daughter, Mary in 1947. On her second attempt to return to the big screen, Wright found her popularity on the wane. Her wholesome image was in sharp contrast of the tougher, more modern women in post-war Hollywood, and her stubborn refusal to pose for any swimsuit or cheesecake photos to alter her image led to her release from Sam Goldwyn's contract. As a freelance actress, Wright still found some good roles, notably as a young widow in the thriller scripted by her husband, in The Capture; and as a faithful fiancée trying to help Marlin Brandon deal with his amputation in Stanley Kramer's The Men (both 1950). Yet within a few years, she was playing middle-aged mothers in film like The Actress (1953), and The Track of the Cat (1954), even though she was still in her early '30s. By the mid-50s she found work in live television, where she could apply her stage training, in a number of acclaimed shows: Playhouse 90, General Electric Theater, Four Star Playhouse, and The United States Steel Hour. She took a break from acting when she married her second husband, the playwright Robert Anderson in 1959, (she had divorced her first husband, Busch, in 1952) and was out of the public eye for several decades, save for an isolated theater appearance. When she did return, it was intermittent, but she was always worth watching. In James Ivory's Roseland (1977), a portrait of the New York dancehall; she was poignant as a talkative widow obsessed with her late husband; and as an enigmatic old actress in Somewhere in Time, she nearly stole the picture from leads, Christopher Reeve and Jayne Seymour. She was still active in the '90s, appearing a few hit shows: Murder, She Wrote, Picket Fences; and a final film role in John Grisham's The Rainmaker (1997). She is survived by her son, Niven; daughter, Mary; and two grandchildren. by Michael T. Toole

Quotes

Trivia

Notes

The working title of this film was Take My Heart. Difficult to read credits of the viewed print were completed by studio production records. The film begins with a written foreword stating that the picture was photographed entirely in Japan, and thanking the United States Far East Air Forces, the Japanese citizenry and public officials, and civil and religious authorities for granting permission for the first time to photograph their sacred spaces.
Although a May 1956 Daily Variety news item announced that Sam Wiesenthal would produce the picture, he was not involved in the final film. Studio press materials list Henry Okawa as "Capt. Hibino," but Katsuhiko Haida played the role in the final film. Nine-year-old Roger Nakagawa, who played "Ashiko Tanaka," made his feature-film debut in Escapade in Japan.

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