It is said that Fumio Niwa had Kinuyo Tanaka in mind to direct the film adaptation of his novel, which was based in turn on a famous newspaper story, about a young man who receives a letter from his lover saying that she must marry someone else. Ironically, they meet again after the war when he is employed as a letter-writer for Japanese women whose G.I. boyfriends have returned to the States. Tanaka appears as a boarding-house keeper. With advice from Naruse and Ozu, and a script by Kinoshita, Tanaka made an impressive directorial debut.