Futari no Hitomi

I discovered Hibari Misora, Japan's top recording star of the postwar era, a little over two years ago and have amassed a collection of her CDs and movies, including a color musical entitled JANKEN MUSUME (1955). In researching Misora's career, I was intrigued to learn that she'd co-starred in FUTARI NO HITOMI with American movie star Margaret O'Brien in 1952 and even happier to learn it was available from CDJapan. So I ordered it and watched it. It's quite an eye-opener. It turns out to be, as far as I can tell, the very first Japanese production to import an American movie star. O'Brien had been a child star in the 1940s at the MGM studio (MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS, LITTLE WOMEN, THE SECRET GARDEN), but her Hollywood career began to flounder when she hit adolescence. She has a very good role here as Katie, the daughter of an American diplomat in occupied Japan, ca. 1950. She speaks most of her lines in English, although she speaks a good many lines in carefully enunciated, American-accented Japanese. (Her character is learning the language.) The actress clearly worked hard on her portrayal and comes off as wholly sincere. Misora, who's the same age as O'Brien, plays an orphan in charge of four younger orphans, all of whom have refused to enter an orphanage because they would have to relinquish their dog. As a result, they sing and perform on the street for small change and live in an abandoned warehouse where they are subject to harassment by local thugs. Katie takes the children under her wing and, ultimately, works with a local Japanese Christian minister to raise funds to build an orphanage that will allow pets. Not the most exciting story, but it's fairly easy to follow despite the lack of English subtitles for the spoken Japanese dialogue. Most of the major plot points are provided in English. And Misora gets to sing a number of songs, always a good thing in my book. She and O'Brien have great chemistry together. They even do a charming non-singing dance number, with Misora in western dress and O'Brien in a kimono. The film offers a fascinating hybrid of Hollywood & Japanese cinema and I consider it a major discovery. I'm surprised it's so little-known. I only found one brief reference to it in one book on Japanese film. I'm curious to know if the film was ever released in the U.S. and if it ever had English subtitles for the Japanese-language scenes.