Yutaka Abe


Yutaka Abe was a Japanese film director and actor.

Early life

He went to America along with a younger brother to visit an uncle living in Los Angeles. There he enrolled in an acting school, and upon hearing that Thomas H. Ince was looking for Japanese extras to work in his studios, he applied and was accepted in 1914.

Career

Acting

He appeared in such films as The Wrath of the Gods and The Cheat with Sessue Hayakawa. He was often billed as "Jack Abbe" or "Jack Yutake Abbe."

Directing

He returned to Japan in 1925, finding work at the Nikkatsu studio, and soon made his debut as a director. Among his early works was the 1926 silent film The Woman Who Touched the Legs, a comedy about a writer and a woman thief. This film, along with most of Abe's early work, is now lost. Before and during World War II, Abe directed a number of nationalistic propaganda films including Moyuru ōzora and Ano hata o ute.
After the war, he directed the 1950 film adaptation of Jun'ichirō Tanizaki's The Makioka Sisters, a film which brought him commercial success. His later films include the 1959 satirical comedy Season of Affairs.

Filmography

Actor

  • The Wrath of the Gods
  • The Cheat
  • Her American Husband
  • The Tong Man
  • The Pagan God
  • ''A Tale of Two Worlds''

    Director

  • A Mermaid On Land
  • The Woman Who Touched the Legs
  • Five Women Around Him
  • Children of the Sun
  • Moyuru ōzora
  • Ano hata o ute
  • The Makioka Sisters
  • Koibito no iru machi
  • Battleship Yamato
  • Hanran: Ni-ni-roku jiken
  • Nihon yaburezu
  • ''Season of Affairs''