The Big Wave (film)

The Big Wave (大津波) is a 1961 disaster drama film directed by Tad Danielewski, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. Produced by Stratton Productions and Toho, it is based on Pearl S. Buck's 1948 novel of the same name. The film stars Sessue Hayakawa, Mickey Curtis, Kōji Shitara, and Hiroyuki Ōta. In the film, two boys living in a village that is occasionally threatened by a volcano and tidal waves fall in love with the same woman.

Four years after they developed The Big Wave into a television play and founded Stratton Productions, Buck and Danielewski started production on the film in 1960; Buck visited Japan on May 24 and held a meeting on the film's production. Principal photography began in September 1960 and was reported to have been completed on January 3, 1961.

The Big Wave was released in the United States in April 1962. The film was screened in Unzen, Nagasaki, Japan at Unzen Memorial Hall on October 29, 2005.

Development
Four years after they developed The Big Wave into a television play and founded Stratton Productions, Pearl S. Buck and Tad Danielewski started creating the novel into a film in 1960; Buck visited Japan on May 24 and held a meeting on the film's production.

Filming
Principal photography began in September 1960 and was reported to have been completed on January 3, 1961. The film was shot near Nagasaki on the island of Kyushu, at Unzen City and in Obama.

Special effects
The film's special effects were directed by Eiji Tsuburaya. Tsuburaya made sketches of the tsunami sequence he was appointed to stage for the film and presented them to Buck and the additional co-producers. Buck called the sketches as "startlingly accurate water colors of the rising horizon, the onrushing wave, and the towering crash of the crest." During the meeting, Tsuburaya also announced plans to recreate the fishing village depicted in the film by taking his cameraman along with him and photographing "everything".

While the crew was filming in Obama, Tsuburaya was staging the tsunami scene at Toho Studios in Tokyo. Buck stated that "twice he had come to Obama to consult and to take hundreds of pictures of Kitsu and the empty beach beyond. We knew that we were in safe hands, the tidal wave would be perfect, but we could not see it until we returned to the city. Ours was the task of creating the approach to the wave, and the recovery from it."

Tsuburaya's effects were the final section of the film to be completed. In A Bridge for Passing, Buck described the last day of filming: "The famous special-effects artist was waiting for me, debonair in a new light suit and hat and with a cane. He had the confident air of one who knows that he has done a triumphantly good job, and after a survey of the scene I agreed with him. In a space as vast as Madison Square Garden in New York, which is the biggest place I can think of at the moment, he had reconstructed Kitsu, the mountains and the sea. The houses were three feet high, each in perfect miniature, and everything else was in proportion. A river ran outside the studio and the rushing water for the tidal wave would be released into the studio by great sluices along one side. I looked into the houses, I climbed the little mountain, I marveled at the exactitude of the beach, even to the rocks where in reality I had so often taken shelter. The set was not yet ready for the tidal wave. That I was to see later on the screen in all its power and terror. I had seen everything else, however, and I said farewell, gave thanks, and went away."

Release
The Big Wave was released in the United States in April 1962. The film was screened in Unzen, Nagasaki, Japan at Unzen Memorial Hall on October 29, 2005.