Yutaka Abe

{{Short description|Japanese film director and actor}} {{Infobox person | name = Yutaka Abe | image = Yutaka Abe.jpg | image_size = 250px | caption = As seen in ''The Golden Chance'' (1915) | birth_name = | birth_date = February 2, 1895 | birth_place = Yamoto, Miyagi, Japan | death_date = {{death date and age|1977|1|3|1895|2|1}} | death_place = Kyoto, Japan | occupation = Actor<br>Film director | years_active = 1915– | spouse = | partner = | website = }} {{nihongo|'''Yutaka Abe'''|阿部豊|Abe Yutaka|February 2, 1895 in Yamoto, Miyagi – January 3, 1977 in Kyoto}} 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.<ref name="kotobank">{{cite web|url=http://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%98%BF%E9%83%A8%E8%B1%8A|title=Abe Yutaka|work=Nihon jinmei daijiten|publisher=Kōdansha|language=ja|access-date=26 November 2010}}</ref><ref name="notes" />

== Career ==

=== Acting === He appeared in such films as ''The Wrath of the Gods''<ref name="notes" /> and ''The Cheat'' with Sessue Hayakawa. He was often billed as "Jack Abbe" or "Jack Yutake Abbe."<ref name="notes" />

=== Directing === He returned to Japan in 1925, finding work at the Nikkatsu studio, and soon made his debut as a director.<ref name="kotobank" /> Among his early works was the 1926 silent film ''The Woman Who Touched the Legs'' (Ashi ni sawatta onna), a comedy about a writer and a woman thief. This film, along with most of Abe's early work, is now lost.<ref name="jacoby3">{{cite book|last=Jacoby|first=Alexander|title=A Critical Handbook of Japanese Film Directors|year=2008|publisher=Stone Bridge Press|location=Berkeley|isbn=978-1-933330-53-2|page=3}}</ref> Before and during World War II, Abe directed a number of nationalistic propaganda films including ''Moyuru ōzora'' (''Flaming Sky'') and ''Ano hata o ute'' (''Fire on That Flag'').

After the war, he directed the 1950 film adaptation of Jun'ichirō Tanizaki's ''The Makioka Sisters'', a film which brought him commercial success.<ref name="jacoby3"/> His later films include the 1959 satirical comedy ''Season of Affairs'' (''Uwaki no kisetsu'').<ref name="jacoby3"/>

==Filmography== ===Actor=== * ''The Wrath of the Gods'' (1914)<ref name=notes>{{cite book|title=Writing in Light: The Silent Scenario and the Japanese Pure Film Movement|date=1 January 2001|publisher=Wayne State University Press|isbn=9780814340097|page=316|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IPyoo6icDZIC&q=Wrath+of+the+Gods+1914&pg=PA316|author=Joanne Bernardi|access-date=14 May 2014|chapter=Notes}}</ref> * ''The Cheat'' (1915) * ''Her American Husband'' (1918) * ''The Tong Man'' (1919) * ''The Pagan God'' (1919) * ''A Tale of Two Worlds'' (1921)

===Director=== * ''A Mermaid On Land'' (''Riku no ningyo'') (1926) * ''The Woman Who Touched the Legs'' (1926) * ''Five Women Around Him'' (''Kare o meguru gonin no onna'') (1927) * ''Children of the Sun'' (''Taiyō no ko'') (1938) * ''Moyuru ōzora'' (燃ゆる大空) (1940) * ''Ano hata o ute'' (あの旗を撃て−コレヒドールの最後) (1944) * ''The Makioka Sisters'' (1950) * ''Koibito no iru machi'' (1953) * ''Battleship Yamato'' (''Senkan Yamato'') (1953) * ''Hanran: Ni-ni-roku jiken'' (1954) * ''Nihon yaburezu'' (''Japan Undefeated'') (1954) * ''Season of Affairs'' (''Uwaki no kisetsu'') (1959)

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== * {{IMDb name|0008394}} * [http://www.jmdb.ne.jp/person/p0024860.htm Abe Yutaka's JMDb Listing (in Japanese)] {{commons category}} {{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abe, Yutaka}} Category:1895 births Category:1977 deaths Category:Japanese film directors Category:Japanese male film actors Category:Actors from Miyagi Prefecture