Shima no musume is a characteristic example of a form of saundo-ban in which popular song takes centre stage. Like two other contemporary films, Tokyo ondo and Sakura ondo, it features a hit song recorded by the most popular female singer of the 1930s, Katsutaro. Katsutaro (1904-1974) came from the pleasure quarters of Yoshicho, Tokyo, where she worked as a geisha, performing in traditional vocal genres with shamisen accompaniment, before her discovery by a Victor executive led to her first recording for that company in 1931.
Such songs were significant both artistically and commercially in the history of Japanese popular music. They were not only “theme songs”, but were also “title songs” in the sense that their titles were also the titles of the films and were played over the opening credits. The “title song” was a special type of “theme song” – such a tie-up between a song and a film was common in the earlier kouta eiga (“little ballad films”), which incorporated a live or recorded song performance, sometimes with the lyrics of the song superimposed onscreen. As Shuhei Hosokawa writes, “The title-song system, or title-song association, suggests the centrality of song in the marketing campaign and the strong interdependence between the commercial sectors of the entertainment business. The film public would have recognized the song before they went to the cinema because the song could be heard on radio, in public spaces, and at home, intentionally or not. The song motivated audiences to see the film, and not the other way around.”
In the case of Shima no musume, the song’s success was unexpected, and no film versions had been planned. To capitalize on the song’s popularity, four film versions, three silent and one saundo-ban, were quickly produced. Nomura’s account of Okinu, a poor girl on a small Japanese island, who is loved both by sailor Ichiro and Tokyo student Okawa, was generally hailed as the finest of the four by contemporary critics.
Director Hotei Nomura (1880-1934) had been involved in cinema from its beginnings, serving as assistant to Katsutaro Inahata when he brought the Lumière cinématographe to Japan in 1897. His work spanned numerous genres, including comedy and period film, but he is best known for his female-centred melodramas, which were instrumental in developing the tradition of this genre at Shochiku. Nomura died only a year after making Shima no musume, at a time when his work was at its most popular and acclaimed. His son Yoshitaro Nomura (1919-2005) was to become a noted director of thrillers, also at Shochiku.

Alexander Jacoby, Johan Nordström