It's a common fantasy — being the only guy on an island of beautiful women. But to be the only woman on an island of men, including the good, the bad and the ugly? Somewhat different, isn't it?
That is the situation in which Okinawan Kazuko Higa found herself toward the end of World War II, when she was stranded together with nearly 30 Japanese men on the island of Anatahan in the Marianas group. The war ended, but the men refused to admit defeat — and continued to live a primitive life on the island. Higa deftly transferred her affections from suitor to suitor, while several died competing for her favors.
Higa escaped from the island in 1950 and three years later Josef von Sternberg, the directorial muse of Marlene Dietrich, made the daringly experimental (and commercially disastrous) "Anatahan" based on her story. Then, in 1956, the Shintoho studio released Toshio Shimura's "Onna Shinju-o no Fukushu (Revenge of the Pearl Queen)," a thriller also inspired by the Anatahan incident, starring voluptuous new discovery Michiko Maeda as the heroine and featuring the first-ever all-nude shot of an actress in a Japanese film.