1. – Yoko Tani, The Wind Cannot Read, 1958. Novelist Richard Mason’s “great love story” of an RAF pilot and a shy Japanese girl in wartime India was a cherished project of the British film-making legend David Lean in the mid-50s. Producer Alexander Korda financed a trip via the Singapore Film Festival where Lean saw one film only and was “absolutely astounded” by its eventual Best Actress, met her again in Tokyo. where she was so keen to join the film. Korda cancelled everything months before he died in 1956 – 12 days after Keiko arrived in London to study English. One week later, Lean was discussing River Kwai with Sam Spiegel. The”bitterly disappointed” Keiko left London after the Rank Organisation also passed… until buying the Korda script for producer Betty Box and director Ralph Thomas. Lean always fancied a cut of the profits of what Thomas saw as a woman’s magazine story with Dirk Bogarde – and Yoko Tani, who like Keiko, married a French realisateur.
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