Anatahan (アナタハン), also known as The Saga of Anatahan, is a 1953 black-and-white Japanese film war drama directed by Josef von Sternberg, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. The World War II Japanese holdouts on Anatahan, then part of the South Seas Mandate of Imperial Japan, now one of the Northern Mariana Islands of the United States, also inspired a 1998 novel, Cage on the Sea.
Anatahan (film)
Josef von Sternberg was an Austrian-born filmmaker whose career successfully spanned the transition from the silent to the sound era, during which he worked with most of the major Hollywood studios. He is best known for his film collaboration with actress Marlene Dietrich in the 1930s, including the highly regarded Paramount/UFA production, The Blue Angel (1930).
Josef von Sternberg
Josef von Sternberg and Mary Pickford at the Pickfair Estate, Beverly Hills, California, in 1925. Dubbed "Mary Pickford's New Director", photos of Sternberg and Pickford were widely circulated in the press, "but the entente was short-lived."
The Exquisite Sinner (1926 film). M-G-M studios set. Director von Sternberg seated (right).
A measure of The Blue Angel's European marketing and its "instant international success": Danish movie poster.