Discipline is initially enforced by a former warrant officer, but ends when he suffers a catastrophic loss of face, and a struggle for power and possession of the woman develops.

International interest, including an article in Life magazine on 16 July 1951, inspired Josef von Sternberg to adapt the story as a fictional film.

[5][6] By the end of 1951, lurid personal accounts surfaced describing deaths and disappearances on Anatahan arising from inter-male competition for the only woman on the island, Higa Kazuko.

Filmed entirely in Japan, the high-profile, big-budget feature was endorsed and promoted by Reich Minister of Propaganda Josef Goebbels in Nazi Germany, where it opened to critical acclaim in 1937.

Kawakita and Fanck were filming The New Earth at the time, and Sternberg visited them on location to discuss a possible collaboration, but the talks were suspended when war broke out in 1939.

When Japan was defeated in 1945, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCPA) designated both producers as Class B war criminals, barring them from the Japanese film industry until 1950.

[12] Sternberg reestablished contact with Kawakita in 1951, and in 1952 the producer agreed to finance a large-budget film based on the Anatahan incident, engaging the Toho company as distributor.

After arriving in Japan in August 1952, Sternberg examined numerous accounts of the Anatahan affair translated into English, some of which were dramatized and lurid, and decided to adapt the memoir of survivor Michiro Maruyama for the film.

[14] Unable to obtain permission to use the Toho studio facilities in Tokyo, producer Osawa moved the project to the Okazaki Industrial Park in Kyoto, where multiple open air sets were constructed.

Sternberg arrived at the ad hoc studios with two Japanese interpreters and launched a painstaking collaborative process, wielding control over every aspect of the production.

Ahead of Anatahan's release in Japan in June 1953,[18][15] Sternberg produced a pamphlet and issued press statements in which he promised his upcoming film would be an artistic endeavor, pleasing to Japanese audiences, rather than a forensic recreation of a wartime disaster,[6] and said his goal was to create a timeless tale of human isolation—a universal allegory.

Condemnation of the film was particularly harsh from critic Fuyuhiko Kitagawa, who accused Sternberg of moral relativism and being out of touch with Japanese post-war sentiments.