Word: tora
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...took the nation's most ignominious military disaster since the burning of the White House in 1814, hired the man who planned it all to lend his expertise, and even enlisted the U.S. Defense Department's help in filming it. Then, to launch their $25 million epic, Tora! Torn! Tora!, a recapitulation of Pearl Harbor (see CINEMA), the producers held a premiere last week in Washington. Among the guests of honor: Technical Adviser Minoru Genda, the retired Japanese general who planned the attack, and Mitsuo Fuchida, the pilot who led it. Even at a remove of nearly...
...Tora! Tora! Tora! demonstrates, the infamy was double-edged. Late in 1940, American cryptographers cracked the Japanese code and predicted war-to deaf ears. An hour before the bombing, the Japanese raiders were detected as blips on a primitive radar screen-and were dismissed by American officers as "our B-17s." As a compound tragedy of omission and commission, the events leading down to Dec. 7 could provide the grossest scenarists with a wide-screen epic. Those, apparently, are the ones 20th Century-Fox hired...
Since Red Beard, Kurosawa has occupied himself by preparing his first American film, a dramatization of the events leading up to Pearl Harbor called Tora! Tora! Tora! Twentieth Century-Fox gave him absolute freedom, and Kurosawa revised the script 27 separate times before he felt that he was ready to proceed. Then late last month after only nine days of shooting, the director, 58, was overcome with exhaustion and forced to withdraw from the film. Said Kurosawa's wife, "My husband is no longer young." Unable to replace the irreplaceable, Fox has announced that it will halt production...
...unique. Kokichi Obata, 57, managing director of Japan's Nagano radio and television network, wanted to take a leave of absence. And for what reason, director-san? Why, to be a movie star-to play the role of Admiral Nomura, Japan's prewar ambassador in Washington in Tora! Toraf, Tora!, Darryl Zanuck's multimillion-dollar spectacular about the attack on Pearl Harbor. The board members were dumfounded. Eventually, says Obata, they agreed because "they were convinced that if I could help tell Japan's story in the great tragedy correctly, then I should...
Like Old Times. Zanuck and 20th Century-Fox may spend twice as much on Tora! Tora! Tora!* as on The Longest Day, which cost about $9,000,000. But the Japanese businessmen-actors will cost little, if anything. Several volunteered their services without pay; others plan to turn their salaries over to charities. A key participant in the Pearl Harbor events, former Staff Officer Minoru Genda, now a member of Japan's Upper House, looked the businessmen over and was filled with nostalgia. "It was fantastic," he said, "like a reunion with all my bosses and colleagues...