Chapter 1

Some issues in Early Indian Film Culture

1.1 Evans’ report and the early years of Indian cinema

In 1921 on 3rd March W. Evans submitted a report entitled Cinema Publicity in India to Sir William Vincent, a government official in India. Evans begins the report by pointing out two requirements for publicity of cinema in India, in absence of which, the propagandists would misuse cinema which Evans terms as “most powerful weapon” (1). Evans states the requirements as:

A. The extension of the industry which implies its release from the present improved facilities for bringing home the cinemas to the masses of the Indian population. B. Regulation of the programmes – a process which comprises on the one hand the negative aspect of barring out unsuitable, undesirable and useless films; and on the other, the positive aspect of supplying films of public interest, pleasure and utility. (1)

While dealing with the section ‘A’ Evans states that the number of cinemas is very small for the huge population of India. Evans mentions some numbers in his report. According to Evan’s report in 1921 there were one hundred and seventy theatres in India (2). Both the sections A and B yield interesting facts about cinema in India. I would like to quote this report in some details here. Evans puts forth three reasons for his observation of theatres being not enough in India and they are as follows:

First, practically, all the exhibitors are catering for the small European population who pay high prices for admission. The existing cinemas are generally out of date, and of small seating capacity. This considerably affects the nature of the audience for it has always been found that a theatre with 2500 seating capacity is more attractive to the masses than one which all will accommodate say 800, the more average size in India.

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Secondly, no programmes are available specially catering for Indian taste. The majority of films exhibited are quite unsuitable to the religious and a racial taste of India; and it should be noticed that where Indian produced films dealing with Indian subject are exhibited the theatres are not merely overcrowded but the producer of the film asks and receives 75 per cent of the total takings, leaving only 25 per cent, to the theatre proprietor. From this fact, some idea of the prospects before Indian-manufactured films may be gathered. (1-2)

While adding the third reason Evan appears a bit skeptical towards the monopoly formed by Messers. Madan as he owned 60 theatres out of 170 that existed in India. The implications of this for Evans are serious. According to Evans, Madan had the monopoly in the developing Indian film industry. Evans terms this situation as “serious tendencies” (2). An interesting fact that comes out of this report; the circulation of film was completely dependent on the purchase of the films. Evans observes that “Instead of a universal renting system, under which the renter obtains films from the producer and lets them out at competitive rates in the open market to exhibitors, there exists in Indian film business a system of purchase” (2). Madans being good in business were the only theatre owners who could afford the buying prices of the foreign film producers. Any new entrant in the business thus had to buy all the films or not get them at all. The solution suggested for this problem by Evans is complete control of government of India over film business. He urges the Indian government to control the importation of films from foreign countries and films produced in India as well. According to Evans this would result in providing “…small and new exhibitor an equal chance with larger existing companies” (3). Evans observes that a British organization with world connection should be given this responsibility which would be helped by available Indian firms for local distribution of films. An organization suitable for this concern according to Evans could be either a government owned company or a private firm guaranteed by government (4). For the growth of number of theatres, Evans suggests, the government should give concessions for construction of theatres to any person or company that abide by the government conditions. And one of the conditions Evans mentions is “In return for this, concessionaires might be asked to give in the course of the day, fee exhibitions of Governement films in schools, institutes etc” (4). While talking about the

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censorship issues in India Evans’ suggestions bring out some interesting insights regarding British government’s policy of controlling the content of the films. Evans observes:

At present when a film has passed the censors of Bombay, it is treated as suitable for exhibition in most parts of India. I am of the view that a film which can be exhibited with impunity in Bombay, might produce a most undesirable effect in, let us say, Bengal. I therefore feel inclined to urge that the censorship of films should be different and that the local Indian Boards should be left to pronounce upon the suitability of given films for exhibition in their particular area…It may be remarked in parentheses that the present Indian film market is so small that no one is likely to object to a general censorship for imported films being located in London. The great majority of films for India are today purchased in London. (6)

Evans’ concern with strict supervision of the imported films and films produced in India is emphasized when he reasons that the existence of undesirable films is enormous and censorship would curb the circulation and consumption of these films. He recommends encouragement of production of films of native literature and history by Indian firms. But mere control over production, circulation and consumption of films, Evans believes, will not suffice “to convert the cinematograph into a means of nativeal education; for I have already pointed out that the real need at present is for films produced in India dealing with Indian subject” (7). Evans believes in controlling the production of films in India as:

Roughly one-third of India is comprised by Indian states; and throughout this area at the present moment it must be stated on the authority of several experts in the film trade that the Indian states provide among the most profitable markets for indecent films. At present these films are smuggled in clandestinely from France and South America and are believed to fetch a very high price. As soon as film production in India becomes better organized there is every reason to fear that this illicit trade in indecent films may increase considerably…The Indian climate not only posseses great advantage from the point of the film producer but in addition the cheapness and celerity with which crowds can be collected for filming purposes constitute an extra-

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ordinary valuable asset from the point of view of the film producer. It does not seem unduly fantastic to suppose that as soon as film production in India becomes better organised, we may see conjunction with the production of harmless drama films, may also put upon the market films of a highly undesirable type. (12)

Evans here refers to the American films that portrayed European women in bad light. The common thread in all of Evans’ observations, suggestions and arguments is the mass appeal of cinema. And it was this mass appeal that helped cinema as an institution to establish in a very short period of time.

Michael Chanan’s book The Dream That Kicks begins with the paradox that film history contains. Chanan states:

In spite of the extensive documentation which exists concerning the early days of film there is a sense in which the origins of film are obscure. Film has taught us to see the world anew, but it seems that the one thing it could not properly picture was its own birth. What we see in the earliest films is the beginning of a new way of seeing. What we don’t seem to see is how that way of seeing was first seen. (5)

In the case of Indian cinema history the beginning is always attributed to Louis and Auguste Lumiere’s unveiling of “…cinematographe in the basement of the Grand Café in Paris on December 28, 1895” (Barnouw and Krishnaswamy, Indian Film 2). It is further speculated by Barnouw and Krishnaswamy that the possibility of short lived novelty of cinematograph might have propelled the French brothers to bring the machine to India. One more important factor that is mentioned in this book is the “activity of rival entrepreneurs” (2). The first advertisement of film in India appears in the news paper The Times of India published on 7th July 1896. It describes the cinematograph as “The marvel of the century. The wonder of the world. Living photographic pictures. In life-sized reproductions” (4). The films screened were, Entry of Cinematographe, Arrival of a Train, The Sea Bath, A Demolition, Leaving the Factroy, Ladies and Soldier on Wheels. Bombay residents had to be very curios to watch the moving picture as Times of India on 27th July announced “Bombay residents who have flocked recently in spite of bad weather to see the Kinematograph, the patentee has obtained a fresh lease of the Novelty Theatre for a few more nights”

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(qtd. In Barnow and Krishnaswamy 3). Lumiere brothers’ stint was followed by “ ‘Hughes Moto-Photoscope’…Professor Anderson and Mlle Blanche and their ‘Andersonoscopograph’ ” (5). There seems to be quick developments taking place regarding activities surrounding cinematograph. Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Paul Willemen edited Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema lists some important events in the history of Indian cinema. According to Rajadhyaksha and Willemen Hiralal Sen started making films in 1898. The year was important because Amritlal Bose screened “a package of ‘actualities’ and ‘fakes’ at the Star Theatre, Calcutta” (17). Harishchandra Sakharam Bhatavadekar, inspired by the films screened in Bombay, recorded a wrestling match and screened it. His later experiments with recording movements are believed to be “monkey circus”, “arrival of R. P. Paranjpye” and “coronation of Edward VII” (Indian Film 6). In the following years the number of theatres grew so did the import of the films. The credit for the development of the Indian film industry and beginning of it is given to Dadasaheb Govind Phalke. It is not just articles and books on the history of Indian cinema that would mention Phalke’s name but he himself has claimed this. In an interview recorded in the Indian Cinematograph Committee Evidence Volume iii, Phalake states:

Q. I suppose you began the film industry in this country?

A. Yes, I began the film industry in India in the year 1912.

Q. What was the company you started?

A. It was simply called ‘Phalke’s films’.

Q. How many years you worked at it?

A. I worked at it for nearly 6 years and then we formed a company called the Hindustan Film Company. (869)

But even before Phalke made his first film Raja Harishchandra in 1913, India was definitely considered as a market for the films to be distributed. Kristin Thompson in her book Exporting Entertainment, while talking about distribution strategies of American films, states:

But some small or underdeveloped markets could not afford many new prints. In India in 1910, for example, there were few permanent theatres – one in

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Calcutta, one in Rangoon and four in Bombay; other locales were served by about seventy touring cinemas. Pathé was the only distributor with direct sales there and it would not rent, only sell. The main theatres would buy Pathé films direct and sell them used at half-price to the travelling shows; some new topical and used prints were obtained via the post from London. (33)

Thompson’s description of India as a small market for films asserts the fact that Britain and America both looked at India as a possible place for selling their product. Madhava Prasad’s observation on this new technology’s effect on colonized India has to be considered here. Prasad describes the confrontation of this new technology as:

Film technology, developed in the capitalist centre, arrived in India during colonial rule and captivated audiences here as it had done elsewhere. It was as part of a movement to promote indigenous enterprise that the idea of an ‘Indian cinema’ was conceived. If Phalke is considered the pioneer of Indian cinema, it is not only because he made the ‘first’ Indian film, but because he conceived of film-making as a nationalist, specifically ‘swadeshi’ enterprise, and produced Indian images to occupy the screens. Film technology thus did not arrive in a vacuum. There was a cultural, political, social field from within which some people, encountering a new technology of representation, devised ways of putting it to uses that accorded with the field. The technology did not bring with it, readymade, a set of cultural possibilities which would be automatically realized through the mere act of employing it. At the same time, the technology is not neutral, simply sliding into the role assigned to it by the cultural-political field it enters. It has its own unsettling, re-organizing effects on the field. (2)

Phalke though can be considered as a pioneer, as Prasad suggests, who explored the possibilities of converting film making into an industry, we need not think of these events as a logical outcome of some cause. India was already a possible ground for the film making to become an industry. Harishchandra Bhatavadekar was also a part of the same condition. Phalke is credited to create indigenous images using the western technology because he could think and preserve his thoughts through writing “While the life of Christ was rolling fast before my eyes I was mentally visualising the Gods…could we the sons of India, ever be able to see Indian images on the

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screen?” (qtd. In Rajadhyaksha, The Phalke Era 49). In early 1910s there was no significant rise in the cinema halls in India. The number of cinema halls grew gradually and America was looking for markets to sell films made by their film makers. Various companies did compete to tap this market. American companies for example initially found it difficult to penetrate the Indian market that was dominated by Pathé. Thompson notes:

We have seen that prior to 1913 India could only support a few permanent theatres, supplied mainly by a Pathé office and by used prints obtained from London. This situation changed little over the next two years. By 1912 Bombay had gone from four theatres to five; Pathé was still the biggest supplier. Other brands that showed occasionally were Itala, Cines, Urban, Gaumont, Edison, and Vitagraph – mostly in used prints. More theatre construction took place in 1913. Calcutta gained three and there was at least one in Madras; their patrons were mostly Europeans. But the USA made no inroads into Pathé’s control; an occasional Edison film came in from London or New York. (43)

However, during the years 1915 and 1916 American exports increased in numbers. The reason for this was the decline of industries of other nations (Exporting Entertainment 71). Universal for example had opened branches in India in 1916, in March 1918 sales rights in India were obtained by Goldwyn (Exporting Entertainment 73). All these details explicate why Evans’ report was necessary for the British government. Pathé that established its Indian office in 1907 was dominant even in 1917. Thompson gives details of the kind of films that were popular in India around that period:

Pathé still largely controlled the Indian market, which also purchased films from Britain. Pathé’s Exploits of Elaine serial was a hit, as it was in most countries. Chaplin and Keystone comedies were also popular. By April 1917, Universal had an office in Calcutta. Within the next few years, however, India would rapidly fall under an almost complete domination by American films. (76)

The above mentioned events related to the history of Indian cinema give a vague sense of the industrial nature of cinema. Michael Chanan gives interesting insights in

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his book The Dream That Kicks regarding the processes of development of cinematograph. There are various reasons for the cinematograph to come into existence. There were many inventions and discoveries that contributed to the development of cinematograph. Chanan argues:

In the first place, any invention depends on prior discoveries of some kind- discoveries which in some way dictate the initial purpose the invention is intended to serve. In the second place, the step from discovering something to an invention which embodies it and thence to its application for purposes previously unimagined also has to be explained. The invention normally has to be motivated in some way. Very few inventions are ever the result of mere disinterested curiosity, and they’re usually impractical if they are. The primary motivation is usually either economic necessity, or, as in the case of cinema, economic opportunity. (7)

The stories revolving around Phalke’s innovations with the available technology push Chanan’s point further. Rajadhyaksha emphasizes how European technology was used innovatively by Phalke to make his films (66). In the interview given to the Indian Cinematograph Committee Phalke describes his experience of making films in the following way:

Q. What was your experience when you began the film industry in this country?

A. I had to do everything, I had to teach acting, I had to write the scenarios, do the photography and the actual projection too. Nobody knew anything in India about the industry in the year 1911. (ICC Evidence Vol.iii 870)

Rajadhyaksha considers frontal aspect of the image and gaze as an important element in Phalke’s films as “…the gaze wedged itself into the perceptive opposition between ‘Indian images’ and ‘industrial technology’” (69). The depiction of Indian gods in movement, according to Rajadhyaksha, was manifested with the frontal aspect of the image. Rajadhyaksha also points towards the influences of Ravi Verma’s style of painting and ‘Sangeet Natak’ from modern Marathi theatre. Thus modern technology and indigenous content become the two axes on which Rajadhyaksha forms his analysis of Phalke’s films and his position in the early Indian cinema culture.

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1.2. The Indian Cinematograph Committee Report and the Evidence Volumes

Priya Jaikumar in her book Cinema at the End of Empire: A Politics of Transition in Britain and India classifies studies of cinema of colonial India as follows:

Scholarship on British and Indian cinema in relation to colonial politics can be placed in three general categories: studies that analyze hegemonic versus resistant film reception (covering the jingoistic acceptance of empire films as well as colonial censorship); studies that analyze hegemonic and resistant film content (particularly cinematic manifestations of orientalism, racism, and Eurocentrism versus those of hybridity and diaspora); and studies that analyze hegemonic and resistant film production (including educational, documentary, trade and propaganda films, such as those made by British Empire Marketing Board; commercial British films about empire from the 1930s; the post-1985 Black British Film Collective; and contemporary politicizations of British minorities). While such oppositions of empire were certainly crucial to popular and official definitions of visual modernity in the metroplis and its colony, just as crucial was the contentiously shared space of imperium. Decolonization was a defining matrix for the conduct of state policy in both Britain and India. (21)

For Jaikumar, and as is evident in Evans’ report, the loss of colonial markets to American films was instrumental in changing the tactics of regulations by British government. Jaikumar claims that empire became a “…material reality for British film producers rather than an exclusively ideological construct in films; into the colonial filmmakers’ claims to autonomy and their critique of imperial bureaucracy that, in turn, influenced British film policy” (22). Arguments like these highlight the need to look at the processes of production, distribution and consumption practices of film and its technology. In the absence of actual footage of the early Indian cinema, the documents related to the film practice in early twentieth century become important sources to get some ideas of early film culture.

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Indian Cinematograph Committee Report and its five Evidence Volumes shed some light on the early Indian film culture. The Report of the Indian Cinematograph Committee was published in 1928 by Government of India. The decision to form a special committee to conduct a thorough enquiry of censorship exercised over cinematograph films in India was taken on 6th October 1927 by Government of India, Home Department (ICCR xii). Before this enquiry was conducted British government had already conducted such enquiry of “…the film-industry structures of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kindom in Detail, and read the 1927 report of the Royal Commission on the Moving Picture Industry in Australia…” (Jaikumar, Cinema at The End of Empire 21). The scope of the enquiry committee in India according to the report “…would also enable it to address itself to a question which may have a far-reaching influence on the development of the cinematograph in India, namely, the possibility of encouraging the production and exhibition of Indian films” (ICC Report xii). The terms of reference for the committee were as follows:

(1) to examine the organisation and the principles and methods of the censorship of cinematograph films in India; (2) to survey the organisation for the exhibition of cinematograph films and the film-producing industry in India; (3) to consider whether it is desirable that steps should be taken to encourage the exhibition of films produced within the British Empire generally and the production and exhibition of Indian films in particular; and to make recommendations. (12)

The committee comprised of six members. Diwan Bahadur T. Rangachariar, a Vakil at High Court, Madras, was the chairman of the committee. The other members were Khan Bahadur Sir Ebrahim Haroon Jaffer, Colonel J. D. Crawford, Mr. A. M. Green and Mr. J. Coatman who was the secretary to the committee. Mr. A. M. Green later produced a report titled “The Indian Cinematograph Industry,” based on the Committee findings. The inquiry produced five volumes of written and oral interviews in which 353 witnesses were interviewed and division of this number and further nature of enquiry was stated in the report as follows:

The number of replies received was 320. The total number of witnesses examined was 291 (counting a group of witnesses examined jointly as one).

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The total number altogether was 353. Of those examined, 114 were Europeans, Anglo-Indians or Americans, and 239 Indians of whom 157 were Hindus and 82 non-Hindus. Of the non-Hindus, 38 were Muslims, 25 Parsis, 16 Burmese, 2 Sikhs, and 1 Christian. Altogether 35 ladies were examined, of whom 16 were Europeans nad 19 Indians, Parsis and Burmese. Among the witnesses were 26 members of the Legislatures, 101 officials, and 98 persons connected with the cinema trade. Of the 353 witnesses, 59 appeared at Bombay, 13 at Karachi, 35 at Lahore, 13 at Peshawar, 18 at Lucknow, 72 at Calcutta (of whom 2 were from Bihar and Orissa and 1 from Assam), 53 at Madras, 38 at Rangoon, 11 at Mandalay, 1 at Jamshedpur, 14 at Nagpur, and 26 at Delhi.

The Committee visited some 45 cinemas and witnessed, in addition to a number of short-length or educational films, about 57 feature films, of which 21 were Indian or Burmese productions. Thirteen producing studios were inspected.

The total distance travelled was approximately 9,400 miles. The nature of the enquiry rendered it necessary to obtain the views of all sections of the public; of officials and non-officials; of residents of the towns and of the mofussil; of politicians, educational authorities, social workers, artists, businessmen, and, in particular, of as many members as possible of each branch of the trade and industry. (ICC Report 13-14)

The interviewees included people like educationists working in India, actors, film producers, exhibitors, distributors, newspaper editors and people from film censor board. The questionnaire prepared by the committee contains forty five questions some of which are being divided into sub sections. It would be useful to quote in details some of the questions from the Evidence Volume i. The basic division of the questions in the questionnaire is as:

Introductory.

1. Have you any special knowledge of, or connection with the Cinematograph industry either in India or abroad? If so, what?

General

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2. (a) In your experience to what extent do Indians (1) of the educated classes and (2) of the illiterate classes frequent Cinemas? To what extent is such attendance on the increase? (Please explain to what place or area your answer refers).

(b) Can you give an idea of the composition of an average Cinema audience in the locality of which you can speak? (c) What proportion of the audience consists of children under 14 or adolescents of impressionable age? (Evidence Vol i 5)

There were other questions like, the kind of films popular amongst the Indian audiences, the quality of Indian produced films and their content, monopoly of supply or exhibition of the films, system of block and blind booking, production and exhibition of films conforming to moral standards, sex films and crime films and their impact on the audience, films misrepresenting western civilization and operation of censor board. Variety, an American cine journal, published weekly from New York in its Vol. LXXXIX. Issue. No. 13 published on Wednesday, January 11, 1928, takes into consideration the ICCR. The news goes as follows:

INDIA’S 45 QUESTIONS: Britain’s First Move in Empire Censoring Survey…

In its endeavour to create new standards of censorship in India and at the same time find out whether or not American pictures are detrimental to the relationship between the British and the blacks, the Indian Cinematograph committee is seeking its answers from every source to 45 questions. (4)

The American film industry was definitely following the moves of its counterparts for India was a big market for a country like America with the volume of its production of films.

Jaikumar claims that “…during the 1920s and 1930s the British India government’s interest in Indian film audiences was governed by racial anxiety rather than a desire for economic profit. The state seemed preoccupied with the content of North American films viewed by Indian audiences rather than with flooding India’s market with British films” (More Than Morality 83). The other possible reason that Jaikumar gives is “…British Indian state did evaluate India as a potential film market

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to assist imperial Britain. The traces of this negotiation are submerged because the imperial agenda, in an increasingly politicized and anti-imperial context, involved subterfuge, indirect interrogation, internal dissension, and eventual repudiation” (83- 84). Jaikumar claims that the ICC report and the Evidence volumes were used for the regulation of the Indian film industry, which by that time had started producing ample amount of films and the number of theatres had grown in number. The British Indian state kept reformulating its agenda under the pretext of development of the censorship aspects. The “Indian Cinematograph Act” published in1918, “Evans’ Report” published in 1921 and ICCR published in 1928 highlight British Indian State’s concern with the censorship on various issues. Jaikumar claims that S. Theodore Bhaskaran’s text The Message Bearers: Nationalist Politics and the Entertainment Media in South India, 1880-1945 and Barnouw and Krishnaswamy written text Indian Film argue that the ICC’s focus was the content of American films exhibited in India and their impact on the Indian audience. She further questions this position taken by both the texts saying, “But to make it the sole focus of our historical reconstruction is to deny the various financial interests that make common cause with alarmist discourses about lower classes and darker races” (86). Jaikumar, while referring to Poonam Arora’s approach in her essay “Imperilling the Prestige of the White Woman,” and Prem Chowdhari’s text Colonial India and the Making of Empire Cinema, claims that her approach to the early Indian cinema is different from these two critics. She contends her approach as:

I do not treat policy process as reactive to social context but as an intrinsic part of it, and thus consider regulatory discourses to be open to the kinds of analysis that postcolonial cultural critics have brought to bear on cinematic narratives and images. Unlike Chowdhary, I am less inclined to perceive ‘the coherence of the explicit message of colonialism, imperialism and racism’ in British policy and empire film texts of late imperialism. Neither do I find an imperial attempt ‘to demolish the nationalist rhetoric of one India’. (87)

Jaikumar finds the interviews as an important source for the study of film culture and power relations surrounding it. Most of the examples she discusses in her essay come from the first Evidence volume which deals with interviewees from Bombay and Karachi. The obvious reason for her choice for the first volume is the city of Bombay which was very active with the production, circulation and consumption of films. B.

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D. Garga’s and Someswar Bhawmik’s readings of the ICCR and ICCE Volumes focus on the committee’s concern with censorship but there is more to read into the ICC texts. Jaikumar gives ample examples from the interviews to prove that the British Indian state was concerned with its loss of business in India. Jaikumar further shows by referring to an interview by R. Venkataram who proclaimed that nationalist tendencies in India would not accept the quota system for British films. Jaikumar argues that the opposition for quota system by Indians was not based on “…patriotic or nationalist grounds but on pragmatic and commercial one” (100). She believes that the quota system would not have helped the Indian producers and exhibitros. She gives following three reasons for the opposition of Indians to British quota system.

(1) an ‘Empire’ quota could not alleviate prevailing tariff disparities between imported film prints and raw film stock in India; (2) Indian films could not hope to get reciprocal treatment in the foreign markets because Indian filmmakers’ access to finances, technology, and training was restricted; and (3) the Indian film industry had a promising domestic market and a unique familiarity with it, so that an ‘Empire market’ at this stage was neither practical nor desirable. (100)

Jaikumar ultimately claims that the quota system was completely rejected by the Indians and instead argued for the reservation for Indian films. For Indian exhibitors Indian films were expensive in comparison to imported films and to preserve the Indian film industry interviewees asked for incentives to Indian film makers. The incentives would include “…removing taxes on raw film stock or offering concessions for the use of equipment, railways, troops, horses and public resources utilized by Indian filmmakers in their productions” (104).

Jaikumar concludes by stating that the ICCR and ICCE volumes throw light on the changing dynamics of relationship between British Indian state and the Indian film industry. Before the introduction of sound, silent films had already created an audience receptive to Indian cinema. Indian films were fewer in number than imported films and technically inferior to them, but they yielded more money to the exhibitors and producers (103). Jaikumar takes into account the dynamics of economics and taste pertaining to the early film culture in India.

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Indian audience in 1920s and their consumption of films has been studied by Minishita Dass in the essay “The Crowd Outside the Lettered City: Imagining the Mass Audience in 1920s India”. Dass begins her essay by referring to Dadasaheb Phalke being influenced by by the films he watched for the first time and his foray into making films. Phalke’s Raja Harishchandra a mythological was followed by other films belonging to the same genre and they were well received by the Indian audience. There were other productions that followed the same genre and they also became popular. Dass argues that “Indian cinema…operates as a visual technology of collective identification that simultaneously invokes and produces a cohesive ‘national’ audience, happily united in their desire to see their ‘own images’ on the screen (78). However, by referring to Rustomji Dorabji’s comments in the interview given to ICC, Dass claims that “…cinema’s emergence as a site of public culture in early twentieth-century India cannot be plotted only along the axis of the nation” (78). Dorabjee objected to the suggestion of quota imposed by government to screen Indian films at his theatres particularly patronized by the Europeans and the westernized Indian middle class. It would be apt here to quote Dorabji’s comments at length:

Q. Would you be prepared to agree to any system under which you would be required to show a particular percentage of Indian films, say, for instance, even at the Wellington, a system which is known as the quota system? That is to say, so much per cent of Indian films must be shown in every theatre, and supposing that any such conditions were to be imposed on you for the benefit of the Indian picture trade, would you approve of it?

A. No. it is impossible to work it. If a theatre is asked to show even once a week one Indian picture, even that will ruin that particular theatre altogether because the Indian habits and the educated man’s habits are so wide apart that with the betel leaves and other things which make them equally dirty and stinking. It will take another three weeks by the time you have cleaned it well and put it in order for the better class Indians, and then again in the fourth week they will come and spoil it.

Q. The usual audience which you draw in your Wellington theatre-would such an audience be attracted to any Indian show at all however good it may be?

A. I doubt if they will try to see it even in a cartoon of, say, about 400 feet.

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Q. I think your objection mainly is to any sort of compulsion being exercised in the matter of determining the constitution of the programme of any theatre?

A. That is right. (ICCE Vol. i, 362)

Dass purports that “The distinction between ‘Indian audience’ and ‘educated Indians’ was, in fact, one of the dominant tropes of film reception in early twentieth century India…” (79). According to Dass the film viewership in 1920s did not just function as a nation-building tool fostering the sense of community in the sense of Benedict Anderson’s idea of print-capitalism helping the imagining of nation but it introduced cultural distinctions in the context of consumption of cinema. Social hierarchies and class difference is evident in the interviews recorded in the ICCE volumes. It is possible to read these differences because by the 1920s film consumption for entertainment had already started establishing itself as an entertainment practice. Dass records:

Studios start appearing in Bombay, Calcutta, Kolhapur, and Poona from 1917 onwards. While many of these companies were short-lived, the number of Indian productions grew steadily throughout the 1920s. By the mid-1920s, there was a studio system based in the three leading economic and urban zones of British India; it accounted for the lion’s share of the more than 1300 films produced in India during the silent period. While the majority of the Indian films in the 1910s and the early 1920s were mythological, other genres soon made their appearance: the devotional, centering on the lives of quasi- historical religious figures; the fantasy film; the social, depicting stories of ‘modern life’; the historical, based on heroic episodes of Indian history; the stunt film; the comedy; the literary adaptation; and the crime film. (80-81)

The ICCR claims that in 1927-28 out of the total films examined and released by the boards of Bombay, Madras and Calcutta only 14.92 per cent were Indian and the remaining share was covered by imported films. Dass claims, and can be inferred from Evans’ Report and ICCR, that American films accounted for the majority of imported films. She emphasises the major concern of the British government regarding the distorted description of western civilization through the American films. Dass points out the ICC’s claim that the Indian audience would fail to distinguish between American and British films. Moreover the ICCR and the ICCE Volumes give

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insights into the elite class’ perception of general public. Dass considers these views “…biases and filters also make these documents useful for unlocking a particular influential elite discourse about spectatorship, class and the nation” (83). Dass, while focusing her research on the questions asked about audience and spectatorship, states “…the ‘uneducated Indian’ emerged, along with impressionable children and adolescents, as the explicit focus of concern” (85). A closer look at the ICC documents would reveal that the categorisation of the audience is possible along the lines of the theatres they visited to watch the films. The theatres can further be classified into two sections; theatres that exhibited imported western cinema and the theatres that exhibited Indian cinema along with western imported films to Indian audience. The ICCR gives the numbers of the cinemas as follows:

Of 271 cinemas regarding which information is available, 64 are shown as exhibitors of Western films only. There is no doubt, however, that actually the figure should be larger. The number of cantonment cinemas alone is 66. Probably the number of Western cinemas is at least 100. The remaining cinemas show both Indian and imported films in very varying proportions. There are some which show Indian films almost exclusively, and only resort to Western films when they cannot obtain Indian. (20)

The cinemas exhibiting only western or imported films were located in the areas inhabited by either the Europeans or more sophisticated Indians. In the written statement of Mr. Karamchand Bulchand, the segregation of audience based on class can be seen:

My experience of Kinema audiences is confined to Calcutta, Bombay, Karachi and Hyderabad, Sind. In big towns like Calcutta, Bombay and Karachi there are separate cinemas which cater to educated and better class of people and others which pander to the lower tastes of the masses. The former show high class films, chiefly dramas, and the latter specialise in blood and thunder type of films in which there are hair breadth escapades and hair raising incidents in serials. These latter are usually crowded and are patronized by mill hands and coolies and the lower classes. Children frequent both these classes of cinemas but very much like the ‘serial’ type in which there is plenty of fighting. In smaller towns like Hyderabad the educated people have not formed any tastes

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and generally do not frequent Kinemas and therefore the Drama type of the superior Kinema has little chance of success and the ‘serial’ type flourishes. (Evidence Vol i 675)

Mr. Bulchand further informs that the better class audience likes dramas and the lower class audience like fighting, adventure and thrills. The lower class audience would generally give cat calls, screeches and whistles whenever there are kissing scenes. Dass gives some details of the topography of the cinemas referring to the ICC documents. In Bombay for example western cinemas were located in the elite Fort area. The illiterate classes on the other hand flocked at theatres situated in Lamington Road and Sandhurst Road. These areas were inhabited by non-westernized middle class and the lower middle classes. Parel and Dadar were considered working class areas inhabited by mill-hands and coolies (The Crowd Outside the Letterd City 86- 87). Dass claims that the cultural divide coming across in the ICC documents is due to the “nineteenth century colonial educational policies, which introduced English as the ‘high’ language of colonial modernity vis-á-vis the ‘native vernacular’” (88). Invoking the concept of ‘habitus’ by Pierre Bourdieu, Dass argues that it is not the formal education that defines the term “the educated Indian” but it was access to certain kind of cultural capital which allows the use of words “westernized,” “cultured” and “sophisticated” to be used interchangeably to describe elite class audience. The obvious distinction amongst the film going audience is based on the “educated classes” disapproving the Indian films (88). However the western theatres were visited by some illiterate, lower class audience and young male students by buying cheaper tickets to sections called ‘gallery’ or ‘third class’ (The Crowd Outside the Letterd City 89). Towards the end of her essay Dass quotes from J. B. H. Wadia’s memoir, Those Were the Days, passages, in which he describes his experience of visiting western cinemas at Fort, Bombay, and mixing of illiterate audience and young students. She also quotes at some length from Buddhadev Basu’s movie going experience in Dhaka to highlight how the public space of cinema was worrisome for the elite class in India. She uses Dipesh Chakrabarty’s concept of the ‘bazaar’ a public space contradicting the bourgeois disciplined regulated, hygienic space (93). The encounter between two classes in cinema halls is read by Dass as an important issue:

The major risk, in the case of cinema, was linked to the images of modernity that it purveyed to spectators. For the ICC witnessed who worried about the

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demoralising effects of cinema and especially western films, the boisterous, mixed crowd in the gallery embodied their worst fears about cinema, bringing together as it did the two groups that they believed to be at the greatest moral risk and the most susceptible to that they characterised as cinema’s lure of modernity: youth and the ‘illiterate classes.’ (93)

In conclusion, Dass considers the emergence of cinema contributing to the visibility of urban masses as a distinctive community of consumers. The public space created by cinema in the early twentieth century India becomes “…a zone of contestations, a space of emergent identities and practices that jolted the lettered city into an uneasy awareness of what lay beyond its boundaries, and of the tension between the professed desire for a ‘national’ cinema and elite perceptions of a divided audience” (98).

In the ICCR a table appears giving information on the number of Indian films examined province by province and steady growth can be seen in the number of films made in India. In Bombay for example 45 films were examined between 1921 to 1922 and the number increased to 96 between 1926 to 1927. The total number of films examined between 1921 to 1928 is 461. Calcutta and Madras on the other hand had only 83 and 19 Indian feature films examined between 1921 to 1928 (ICCR 59). There were 21 production houses operating and producing films in India. Except Madans other ‘producing agencies’ were small and were not public companies. These small companies did not have well qualified technicians. The ICCR describes the small producing concerns as “Those engaged in running these concerns, for the most part, are not experienced business men, nor are they well qualified by technical or artistic training abroad nor can they in general be described as men of high culture” (ICCR 31). But some of the members from these small concerns had some kind of training in abroad in cinematography and direction. N. G. Devare, for example, got trained in cinematography in America and returned to India in 1922 and joined Kohinoor Film Co. as a cinematographer (ICYB 1938 44). Ezra Mir is one more example who played the character of Khushru in the film Nurjehan (1923). He left India in 1923 and went to America to learn the art of cinematography. He worked with Universal Studios in Film Cutting department and became an editor. He had also worked with the Vitagraph Film Co. in the scenario department. In 1931 he joined Sagar Film Co. in India (ICYB 1938 45). A more interesting case is of Mr. Madhavrao

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Jagtap who received training in cinematography from America. He brought with him Bell & Howell camera on his return to India. Bell & Howell worked by motor and was the first of its kind in India. He started Jagtap Pictures in 1926 but his firm was closed in 1929 and he did not contribute to the Indian film industry any more (ICYB 1938 51). Suchet Singh has been called “…the first Hollywood trained Indian…” (117). He is believed to have worked with Charlie Chaplin and after coming back to India started Oriental Film Manufacturing Co. Ltd. He produced only four films and Shakuntala (1920) was the most notable of them. He is also considered to be the first to give a “…Topical film, ‘The Cremation of the Late Lokmanya B. G. Tilak’, (1 st August 1920)” (117). He was considered a master of the film technique. But he died in an accident and Oriental Film Manufacturing Co. Ltd. stopped working.

Another entry appears in the ICCR on the short lived production companies. The small stint of these production companies is considered to be one of the reasons for the investment of capital in film business. It is important to quote this entry at this point:

Another reason for the shyness of capital is that a number of producing concerns have failed in the past. One of the first in Bombay was the Oriental Films Co., with a foreign expert, which failed after producing one film. In Calcutta the Taj Mahal Co., the Indo-British, and the Photoplay Syndicate failed; in Madras, Venkiah Bros. ; and there are other cases, The Great Eastern Corporation of Delhi have not produced any picture since the ‘Light of Asia’ which, for reasons which are given elsewhere, has not so far been a financial success to them. In Mandalay, we heard of three producing companies which had been started there and failed; and in Rangoon there have been a number of mushroom companies. In other branches of the trade also there have been failures. It has already been mentioned that cinema houses are constantly changing hands in the moffussil. The largest importers, K. D. Bros., failed in Bombay. Finally, the balance-sheet of the largest concern in the cinema-trade has not been such as to inspire any considerable optimism, as it is only within the last two years that they have paid a dividend, though it should be remembered that they are expanding their business. We enquired into the causes of the failure of the particular producing enterprises, both from those who were concerned in them and from others who were in a position to know

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the facts. In every case we learned that failure had not been profitable; but it was due to other causes such as mismanagement, disagreement among the partners, speculation in other business, and so on. (ICCR 37)

The initial stages of the processes of production become evident through the above quote. According to the ICCR there were 23 film producing concerns operative in the provinces like Bombay, Bengal, Madras and Delhi. Among the four provinces mentioned Bombay had the most that is 15 production companies (ICYB 1938 198).

Kaushik Bhaumik’s article “Cinematograph to Cinema: Bombay 1896-1928,” is full of references to the government documents and news paper advertisements. A certain kind of topography of Bombay cinema appears in his article and helps to understand how the development of Bombay as a city had an impact on the early film culture in India. Bhaumik describes the advertisements of cinema halls as defining visuals of cinema culture. For him film culture in 1920s was:

…a complex matrix of perceptions and practices that went beyond the actual event of showing and viewing films. Thus, it would extend to the advertising of film programmes and attractions, the way the location of cinema halls were highlighted to encourage ideas of urban convenience, and the way the architecture and ornamentation of cinema halls were used to attract clientele. (42)

Bhaumik takes into consideration the changing life style of a city like Bombay. Town planning, modern transportation and electrification helped cinema to establish itself as a medium of entertainment for the masses. He refers to the advertisements of provision of electric fans and lights in the theatres. These advertisements focused on the comfort of the audience and thus became one more attraction for them. The change in film content over the period of the first two decades of the twentieth century, according to Bhaumik, runs parallel to the growth of film exhibition. According to Bhaumik:

Film content also drew on a wide variety of cultural products in urban circulation, with actualities inducting newspaper reports of events from around the world, films adapting novel being read at the time, and movies regularly drawing on moviegoers’ fascination with sensational urban experience in

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crimes but more generally with the spectacle of new technological marvels such as motor cars, trains and aeroplanes. The fare shown in cinema halls drew audiences into an engagement with a new vista of technologically charged transformation. (44)

Bhaumik claims that the genres that Indian audience got introduced to through the western films, particularly, ‘action serials’ got transformed into Bombay cinema of the 1920s (44). Bhaumik studies the advertisements of films to be exhibited at certain cinema halls that appeared in the 1910s and 1920s in the Indian newspapers. Dadar, Parel, Sewry, Bandra were all areas described as suburbs of Bombay where most of the mill workers attended the film screenings. On the other hand Lamington road, Girgaum Road, Sandhurst Road, Grant Road and Fort area was patronised by the Europeans and elite indigenous population. He considers the early Indian cinema culture as an excitement generated by modernization (57). In the 1920s, according to Bhaumik, Bombay films became popular with the audience (65).

The recommendations of the ICCR were completely ignored by the British Government of India. None of the recommendations were “enacted into law” (Barnouw and Krishnaswamy, Indian Cinema 54). This resulted into the status of Indian film industry to continue its progress without any changes to its governance.

1.3. Producing concerns, films and artists

If the audience were divided based on their taste along the axis of Indian films and the imported films, it is important to give a brief account of some of the films based on the themes they dealt with. The information on films would also have some details about the people involved in the making of these films.

Khan Bahadur Ardeshir M. Irani (1886-1969), known as Ardeshir Irani directed and produced films in several languages. He studied in the J.J. School of Art in Bombay and joined his father’s phonograph and musical instruments trade in Bombay. He launched Star Film Co. in 1920 and released Veer Abhimanyu in 1922 as the first film of the company. His partnership with Bhogilal Dave transformed Star film Co. into Majestic Film (1923) changing again into Royal Art Studio in 1925 and finally becoming Imperial Film Co. in 1928 as a major studio contributing to the

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silent film culture in the late 1920s. Veer Abhimanyu was directed by Manilal Joshi and was acclaimed for its war scenes. Rajadhyaksha and Willemen describe this film as “Adverts in the Bombay Chronicle emphasized the ‘expense of more than 100,000 rupees. More than 5000 people have taken part in the production of this film’. The plot is from the Mahabharata tale…” (245). Ardeshir Irani co-directed Paap No Fej aka The Debt of Sin (1924) with Naval Gandhi. The film is described as “…a moralistic social in the contemporary setting, successfully translating Hollywood conventions (e.g. parallel cutting)…In spite of the moralism, the film’s interest and energy derive from the depiction of moral turpitude and modernity represented by a race course, the cotton market and bars. Highlights include car chase…” (Encyclopedia 246).

Dhiren Ganguly, born in Calcutta, studied at the University of Calcutta and pursued arts in Shantiniketan under Rabindranath Tagore. Before foraying into film making, Ganguly worked as a headmaster at Nizam’s arts college in Hyderabad. He was interested in photography and published two books Bhaber Abhibaktae (1915) and Amar Desh. Ganguly contacted Madan in 1918 and they together decided to make a film based on Tagore’s play Sacrifice (Barnaow and Krishnaswamy, Indian Film 25). Ganguly and Madan decided to work on the film Sacrifice but the project was delayed. Instead the film they made together was Bilet Ferat (1921) also knows as England Return. Anjali Roy in her book The Magic of Bollywood terms England Returned as the first film produced in Calcutta, centred on the manners of anglicized Indians (no pagination google books). Barnaow and Krishnaswamy describe the film as:

A zestful comedy, England Returned, it satirized the pretensions of Indians back from England, full of Western ideas; at the same time it satirized the conservatism of those Indians to whom all new ideas were unwelcome. Impartial in its laughter, it escaped the stigma of propaganda. Produced at a cost of Rs. 20,000, it earned more than this in its three-month run at the Russa. The Bombay rights were then sold to a Bomay theatre group for Rs. 22,000. J. F. Madan, ever the businessman, bought all remaining rights. (25)

England Returned was produced under Indo-British Film Company constituted by P. B. Dutt, N. C. Laharrie, and J.C. Sircar who worked as a cameraman and Dhiren

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Ganguly as the director. The partners in the company went separate ways within a year. Ganguly later formed Lotus Film Company in Hyderabad and produced 10 films with the help of the Nizam’s government (Evidence Vol. ii 639-640). His other films were social as well as mythological. The names of the films he mentions in the interview given to the ICC are The Step-mother, Yayati, Hara Gouri, Marriage Tonic and The Lady Teacher. The Step Mother was based on the Bengali drama by Amrita Lall (ICCE, Vol. ii 640).

Bismi Sadi aka Twentieth Centtury (1924) was directed by Homi Master and produced by Kohinoor Film. It was the first film directed by Homi Master. Rajadhyaksha and Willemen describe this film as “…a social attacking Bombay’s industrial parvenu class, initiating the realist-reformist melodrama as a genre…Location shots filmed on board a steamer and the mise-en-scene of a factory workers’ violent revolt figured prominently in the film’s marketing campaign (Encyclopedia 245). Kala Naag aka Kalyug Ki Sati aka Triumph of Justice (1924) is one more film Homi Master directed for the Kohinoor Film. The film alluded to “…a major scandal in Bombay known as the Champsi-Haridas murder case…The Bombay Chronicle (5 January 1924) advertised the film as a ‘thrilling plot revealing various styles of treacherous fraud of the modern civilisation…” (Encyclopedia 246). Fankdo Fituri (1925) directed by Homi Master for Kohinoor Film was released as a two part serial. Rajadhyaksha and Willemen claim that it was “Based on a popular novel by Pijam (aka P.J. Marzban)…the adverts summarised the story as:…A photo drama that rings with love, hate, villainy, and fidelity…fascinating and thrilling story of social life of today…” (Encyclopedia 247). According to Rajadhyaksha and Willemen Homi Master was always hailed for his ability to use complicated plots in his films in a novel way. Kulin Kanta (1925) was one more film with complicated plot directed by Homi Master. Kohinoor film produced Cinema Ni Rani in 1925 which is considered as a precursor to the “‘lives of the stars’ genre” (247). The last film that must be mentioned here by Kohinoor Film is Telephone Ni Taruni aka The Telephone Girl (1926). This film discusses the problem of inter-community marriage and the value of patriotism. This film is also notable for the representation of “…collectivisation movement among farmers (inspired by events in the USSR). Writer Dave was commended for his ability to entwine disparate narrative strands while introducing

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contemporary references. For his debut as a cameraman, Devare pioneered the use of real locations, shooting in the Grant Road telephone exchange in Bombay” (250).

Maharashtra Film Co. was started in 1918 at Kolhapur by Baburao Painter. The first successful film produced by Maharashtra Film Co. was Sairandhri (1920), a mythological, and was praised by B. G. Tilak for its allusion to contemporary politics. Sinhagad (1923) and Sati Padmini (1924) were historical films. Savakari Pash (1925) aka Indian Shylock is described as

…Marathi cinema’s first explicit social…A peasant (Shantaram) loses his land to a greedy money-lender and moves to the city where he becomes a mill worker. Taking its cue from the realist tradition the film counterposes san idyllic rural life…In spite of its high melodrama, the film was hailed as a realist breakthrough. Critics noted the poetic combination of visuals evoking sound and light, singling out the shot of a hut accompanied by a howling dog as one of the most memorable moments of the Indian cinema to date. (Encyclopedia 249)

While talking about Maharashtra’s contribution to the film industry, Gangaram Gvalani in the article, “Motion Picture Industry in India” states:

Art and Culture are supposed to be the special attributes of the Maharashtrian. That he, by their use, has made them indispensable adjuncts in the film production has been amply bore out in ‘Sinhagad,’ ‘Sati Padmini,’ ‘Karna- The True Battler.’ all productions of Maharashtra Film Co., of Kolhapur. Baburao Painter, the exponenet of art in films, (next only to D. G. Phalke and Suchet Singh), and the founder of the Maharashtra Film Co., in 1919, has done much pioneering work by his use of massive settings, photographic trick effects, rich costumes, reference-books for historical authenticity and for true and accurate portrayal of life of bygone ages and employing of hundreds of extras all for war and battle scenes fine factors for achieving artistic excellence in the film drama. (ICYB 1938 119)

Vande Mataram Ashram (1926) was directed by Bhalji Pendharkar and co-produced by his brother Baburao Pendharkar. This film was made in between leaving

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Maharashtra Film and joining Prabhat Studios. Rajadhyaksha and Willemen describe this film as:

…a major silent political film influenced by the Hindu ideals of the nationalist leaders Lala Lajpat Rai and Madan Mohan Malaviya…It criticizes the British education policies and coutnerposed a defence of ‘traditional’ Indian teaching systems. The film was repeatedly censored, even banned briefly, and eventually released in a mutilated version. (250)

In the ICCE Vol. iv, the proprietor of Bharat Cinema, from Poona city describes Sacrifice, Light of Asia, Typist girl, Netaji Palkar and Sairandhri as successful Indian films. Balidan aka Sacrifice (1927) was directed by Naval Gandhi and produced by Orient Pics was based on Rabindranath Tagore’s play Sacrifice (1887). The ICCR refers to Sacrifice as “In fact, the best Indian production, Indian in every sense of the term (unlike the ‘Light of Asia’ which was a combined effort), we have seen is the film known as ‘Sacrifice’ based on Tagore’s famous play ” (67). Sacrifice has been described by Rajadhyaksha and Willemen as “…quasi-historical…The story addresses the conflict between reformist enlightenment and obsolete, inhuman ritual, questioning the contemporary validity of traditional rituals…” (250). Sir Dinshaw Wacha, one of the members of the Council of State, in his written statement explains that films like Sacrifice and Light of Asia are highly spoken of for their reflection of ancient Indian history and modern Indian drama (ICCE Vol. iv 23).

Chandulal J. Shah began his film career by assisting his brother Dayaram Shah who worked as publicity manager for Ardeshir Irani’s Majestic Theatre and later as a scenarist at Ranjit studios. Chandulal Shah’s Gunsundari (1926) has to be mentioned here for it is considered to be one of the most important films as far as the Indian social film is concerned. Barnouw and Krishnaswamy claim that “In a Western setting its plot would be conventional; in an Eastern setting it was a sensation-exciting to some, deeply disturbing to others…In Indian dress it was a challenge to Indian ways” (Indian Cinema 32). Typist Girl (1926) was another social that featured Gohar and Ruby Meyers, the two famous actresses of early Indian cinema. These two films by Chandulal Shah and other films, made later, seem to be appreciated by the audience. The social film as a genre was on equal footing with the mythological with the urban audience (Indian Film 34).

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In the essay “Moving Beyond Themselves: Women in Hindustani Parsi Theatre and Early Hindi Films,” Mrinal Pande accounts for the early years of Indian cinema and how the ‘close up’ as an important aspect of cinematography in the early twentieth century created the demand for women to play women’s role. Dadasaheb Phalke when made Raja Harishchandra (1913) there were no women ready to act in the film (Encyclopedia 243). It was Salunke a young boy who played the role of Taramati, wife of king Harishchandra. Pande states “But in the early years of the 20th century, even prostitutes were unwilling to play female roles upon the silver screen. After much persuasion, one such ‘professional’ woman did agree, but gossip has it, that when Phalke began coaching her, her pimp materialised upon the scene and whisked her away. Her loss was Salunke’s gain” (1648). The binary of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ was operative at that point of time in the society. The women performing in plays and films would be considered as bad. Phalke in his interview given to the Marathi newspaper Kesri in 1913 states:

…Women from good Samskari families alone should act in films…Brothers, how would you feel if Sita and Draupadi were to be played by someone who is in the habit of using obscene gestures, making lewd eyes and has a half- revealed bosom and a wiggling behind? Would you not be enraged?...studios are not brothels…with their innate breeding and aura of a respectable marital status, women from good families (as actresses) will add a glow to the mythical devis and the atmosphere in and around our studios…Then no one shall feel bad watching our movies in the company of one’s mother, mother- in-law, daughter-in-law wife or daughter. (qtd in Pande 1649-1650)

In the second decade of the twentieth century Ruby Mayers aka Sulochana and Patience Cooper made their mark as female artists. Ruby Mayers was born in Pune, an Eurasian actress, acted in important films like The Telephone Girl (1926) Wild Cat of Bombay (1927), Anarkali (1928), Indira B A (1929). Ruby Mayers was a telephone operator and made her debut with Veer Bala in 1925. Pande observes:

…a star was born and the very next year Sulochana went on to make eight fillm! She ruled the Indian celluloid world for 15 years…Sulochana became in films such as Bombay Ki Billi and Typist Girl, at once a titillating presence for the Indian libido, starved of social interaction with females, and also an

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accessible white woman, such as the white masters alone could have had a real life. (1650)

Gauhar Jaan began her acting career with the film Beggar Girl (1921). Her major films were produced by Ranjit Film Co. with Chandulal Shah. Her films were mostly socials like Gunasundari. Debashree Mukherjee begins her article “Good girls bad girls,” with reference to Ashok Kumar’s interview in which Ashok Kumar says “Franz Osten almost washed his hands off his hero, urging him to go back to law. The young man indignantly reminded him that he had come to Bombay Talkies to be a director, not an actor, ‘Only prostitutes and pimps become actors,’ he spat out in an angry moment and stomped off” (2). Mukherjee describes the early cinema culture in India as negative towards women working in cinema. She argues that the research on women involved in the processes of film making has been neglected and profiles of several female actors do not exist. Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Paul Willemen edited Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema for example does not have entries on “Jamuna Barua, Zebunissa, Shanta Kumari, Nalini Tarkhud, Enakshi Rama Rau and Kamalabai Gokhale…” (3). Nalini Tarkhud’s article “Cultured Girls and Cinema Acting”, appears in The Cinema Annual published in December 1933. Nalini Tarkhud argues:

I am at a loss to understand as to why respectable girls are not expected to take up film acting as aprofesssion. The the present economic depression this will be ameans of support to many a cultured girl and I think it rather mean of a certain people to create a odium because some enterprising ladies have done so….All this can only be remedied by the aid of culture, a closer study of Indian civilization, deper education (not merely degree) and an unselfish mentality….But India is moving on-our sisters are awakening to their responsibilities and today dancing, music and histrionic art is rising in all its glory and the horizon is brightening on the Indian conservative ridge, for one by one the daughters are boldly stepping forward with a defiant spirit and we ought to be proud of artists like the Rajkumari of Burdwan, Devika Rani Rai and Mrs. Durga Khote. With the coming of such talented ladies there is no doubt at all, that the beauty and genteel grace of Indian womanhood will be portrayed in its true light before the nations of the world.!!! (47)

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Tarkhud’s concern regarding the status of women working in film industry is evident. Devika Rani, however, symbolised the cultured lady of the Indian film industry in the 1930s. It is important according to Mukherjee to pay more attention to the women’s contribution to the film industry in the formative years of Indian cinema. In this article Debashree Mukherjee studies Devika Rani’s contribution to the early talkie era of Indian cinema. The letters received by Devika Rani by her fans and other female actresses of her time are studied by Debashree Mukherjee in the essay, “Letter from an Unknown Woman: The Film Actress in Late Colonial Bombay”. Devika Rani’s image as a cultured, powerful woman made her an ideal for other ambitious actresses.

A glance at the films and artists involved in making these films makes it possible to claim that by the end of the 1920s social film and films with crime were making their presence felt. The increase in the number of films made can be inferred as the demand for the newer kind of films and their acceptance grew. Without the audience responding to the socials it would have not been possible for Chandulal Shah, for example, to continue investing in the social film.

1.4. The Talkies Arrive

One of the reasons provided by Barnouw and Krishnaswamy for the Government’s failure to respond to the ICC’s recommendations is the premier of the world’s first talking feature The Jazz Singer. The Melody of Love was the first talking feature by Universal Pictures to be shown in India. Barnouw and Krishnaswamy begin the section on talkies “Discord of Tongues,” in the following manner:

The market of the Indian producer, up to this hour, had been an area inhabited by several hundred million people. Burma and Ceylon were being administered as part of India and within this area no barriers-political, economic, or linguistic-had barred the way to Indian films. Occasional successes had gone to Malaya, East Africa, South Africa. But now a film would apparently need a language.

In Bombay, which was leading in production volume, it meant this: Located in the Marathi speaking area of the country, its producers would naturally make films in that language. If so, they would at the start of the 1930s have a potential market of 21 million people almost all in the region

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surrounding Bombay and including Poona, Kolhapur, and other cities. But the films would be incomprehensible in the rest of India, in Burma, and in Ceylon. (55-56)

The same was applicable to Calcutta and Madras which produced lesser amount of films than Bombay. The division of the audience based on language was inevitable.

Alam Ara, the first sound film of India was directed by Ardeshir Irani and was realeased in 1931. According to Rajadhyaksha and Willemen Alam Ara “…established the use of music, song and dance as the mainstay of Indian cinema” (253). An American technician Wilford Deming was to set up the sound equipment for Imperial Film Co. The equipment used for the recording was Tanar Single System made by Tanar Corporation, Hollywood, California. Gvalani describes the premier of Alam Ara as:

It was a gala day in the Indian Filmdom when on 14th March 1931 Imperial Film Co’s full length talkie ‘Alam Ara’ in Hindi, starring Zubeida and Master Vithal and directed by Ardeshir M. Irani, amazed and thrilled the eager public that had packed the Majestic Cinema Bombay to suffocation. Krishna Film Company followed suit as the second and on its heels came Madan Theatres Ltd., with ‘Shirin Farhad’, that beat ‘Alam Ara’ hollow. Aga Hashar Kashmiri wrote the dialogues and the songs, recorded as it was on R. C. A. Photophone, the reproduction was as clear as a bell. (122)

Gvalani also gives details of other sound recording machines:

In June 1923, Dr. Lee De Forest had made talking movies an accomplished fact with his ‘Phono-film’. In the same year Theodore Case, in co-operation with William Fox, placed on the market the Movietone Sound-on-Film. In 1926 Vitaphone Sound-on-Disc method was demonstrated in New York, in which year Warner Bors.’ ‘Don Juan’, synchronized with music was also released. The year 1927 brought from the same company their first film with dialogue ‘The Jazz Singer’. Fox Movietone sound-on-film pictures were also shown in the same year. By 1928 the talking pictures were a rage. (122)

The division of audience along the lines of modern Indian languages did not fetter the producers from making sound films. The figures available in the ICYB 1938 suggest

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that the cost of a talkie film production was estimated to be between Rs. 60.000/- to Rs. 1,25,000 which is four to five times the cost of silent film (ICYB 1938 123). In spite of the larger cost of the production of talkies the producers earned enough money to continue making films. Galvani mentions Prabhat Studios, Madans, New Theatres, Imperial Cinema producing good films that were successful and popular with the audience. Galvani states: “Their great box-office value was admittedly due to their novelty. Today, we have reached a point where only good quality can find any ground to stand upon. For the future, the Hindustani picture will predominate, for it is fast becoming our lingua franca” (123). By 1934 there were at least 86 film production companies in Bombay and Maharashtra. But out of these many studios and the free lance producers only twelve were doing substantial work. According to Gvalani “…Ranjit, Imperial, Sagar, Wadia, Saroj, Prakash, Imperial, Sagar, Wadia, Saroj, Prakash, Paramount, Vishnu, Bombay Talkies, Prabhat, Saraswati and Kolhapur Cinetone have a good standing. Prabhatnagar at Poona, Bombay Talkies at Malad, are the specimen of ideal film studios” (124). He also considers New Theatres in Bengal to be a successful production company. The coming of sound resulted in importing the technology for the processing of films. There was also the need for technicians for the operation of these machines. Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and Western Electric were the two companies whose equipments were imported by most of the production companies. In, Projection Engineering, Vol. iii Issue No. 12, published in December 1931, a monthly cine magazine from New York, there appears an entry on the business of RCA’s equipments in India. Under the title “Eighty-Four Units shipped to India” the editor mentions:

Business in the motion picture theatre of India appears to be booming, if the constantly increasing number of installations of sound reproducing apparatus may be taken as a criterion. Within the past week Van Ness Philip manger of the foreign department of RCA-Photophone, Inc., has received orders for ten complete units of equipment from Madan Theatres, Ltd., and Alex Hague, authorized distributors for Photophone in Bombay, and to these most recent orders may be added seventy-four units which have been installed in theatres in various sections of India during the past eight months. Madan Theatres, Ltd. has been producing sound pictures for the past six months, having purchased an RCA Photophone recording channel for that

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purpose at the time of Fram J. Madan’s visit to New York last winter. Plans are now in the making for even more extensive production activities. (11)

Joppan George lists the equipments used in India by various production houses:

Besides RCA and Western Electric, which virtually topped the list of imports, the Indian motion picture industry imported recording equipment-Fidelytone, Selenophon Korting, Visatone, Rico, Adair Jenkins, Blue Seal, Audio Camex, Canady Sound-on-Film, and others-and projection equipment, like Kamm De Luxe Talkie Equipment, Mellaphone, Le Roy, Syncrofilm, Chicago Portable Talkie Equipment, British Thomson Houoston (BTH), Philisonor, Zeiss Ikon, Ernemann Projectors, Kalee Projectors, Royal Portalbe, Simplex Acme, Motiograph, and Bauer, from Britain, Germany, France, and elsewhere. (The Many Passages…83)

Filmland, a film journal published weekly from Calcutta, in its 25th March 1933, Vol. iv, Issue No. 146, advertises Blue Seal Sound-on-Film recorder (Figure 1.1), Fidelytone recording equipment (Figure 1.2) and Zeiss Ikon sound projector (Figure 1.3). Wilford Deming, like other technicians from foreign companies, was in India to assemble, install and supervise the working of sound recording machine.

Ardeshir Irani and his assistant Rustam Barucha underwent training in sound recording. Irani and Barucha had to themselves record the sound for Alam Ara as “Deming asked for an improbable fee” (George 84). Deming’s observation on Indian studios can be read in his writings on technical aspects of sound recording. Deming observes:

A survey of Indian producing methods provided quite a shock, and quite antedated my experience in motion pictures, extending over eight years. Film was being successfully exposed in light that would result in blank film at home, stages consisted of flimsy uprights supporting a glass or cloth roof or covering. The French DeBrie camera, with a few Bell & Howell and German makes, completed the list of photographic equipment. Throughout, the blindest groping for fundamental facts was evident. The laboratory processing methods…with sound in view…were most distressing, and obviously the greatest problem. Even today, this problem exists, though the past year has

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seen acceptable progress. Satisfactory prints have always been most difficult to achieve… (qtd. in George 84).

Figure 1.1 Advertisement in Filmland (March 1933) The Sound-on-Film equipment Blue Seal.

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Figure 1.2. Advertisement in Filmland (March 1933) Fidelytone Recording equipment.

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Figure 1.3 Advertisement in Filmland (March 1933) Zeiss Ikon Sound Projectors.

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Baburao Patel in the article, “Technical Progress During the Year 1939,” published in Filmindia, Vol. v, Issue 12, gives the details of the filming equipments used in 1939:

In the field of sound, the year 1939, has seen a fair standardization of equipment, and the older and cheaper American sets such as the Audio Camex, The Jenkin and Adair, the Tanar, etc., have been either set aside or relegated to the very small producer of stunt or travel type of picture. There are now over a dozen R.C.A.’s operating in the country and about the same number of such excellent British sets as the B.A.F. Visatone and products of other allied concerns. In addition to these there are quite a large number of Fiddelytones operating with great success. (25)

In the section “Notes and News,” Filmland Vol. iv Issue No. 159 published on 24th June 1933 it is mentioned that technician Mr. Charles Creed along with Mr. Samar Ghosh has taken a successful test of the Visatone recording machine for Bharat Laxmi Pictures (14). Joppan George while discussing the status of foreign technicians observes:

Somewhat different from the foreign technical experts were the foreign cine- technicians employed by Indian studios such as Franz Osten and Joseph Wirsching in Bombay Talkies. The former came with the specific agendas of on-site marketing of the equipment, and to seek new avenues to expand business. They were technical experts, advisors, and troubleshooters employed by the cinema equipment companies and enjoyed the hospitality and remuneration for these specific tasks during their stay in Indian studios. Osten, Wirsching, T. Marconi, Ellis Dungan, and a host of others, on the other hand, were brought in to apply their expertise to the task of making films, and filled the ranks of the Indian studios as directors, cinematographers, sound recordists, and art directors. Such distinctions were not hard and fast. As a technical expert for Rico, Deming claimed to have supervised sound recording in five films during his stay in India. (85)

Filmindia Vol. v Issue 12 published in December 1939, in its section “Studio Close- ups” mentions Ellis R. Dungan who was “…reported to be giving expert and original finishing touches to ‘Kavi Kalamegham’ at the Prakjoti studios” (35). Dungan’s original name was Ellis Duncan. An American, Dungan came to India in 1935 “…to

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sell camera equipment and stayed for 17 years making several major Tamil films…” (Encyclopedia 92). T. Marconi worked as a cinematographer for Madan Theatres’ film Zehari Saap (1933) and many others. V. Shantaram, one of the partners in Prabhat Film Co. and the director for the same, criticises the agents who worked as middlemen between the Indian producers and foreign manufacturers of the technical equipments. In an interview published in Filmindia, Vol. iv Issue.No.1, May 1938 Shantaram says “I have no patience or respect for those importers of machinery who have been profiteering at the cost of the Indian Film Industry…Projectors which were hardly worth five thousand have been sold for fourteen and fifteen thousand rupees” (Shantaram 23). Shantaram further observes that projectors provided by Bauer Company were popular with the theatre owners and were priced reasonably along with good service provided. The reduced price of the equipments would, according to Shantaram, help in bringing out more theatres and would help in the growth of the industry (24). In Filmindia “Bombay Calling,” is a section dedicated to variety of information on the film industry. This section is written under the pseudonym of “Judas”. Judas in his write up on Bauer projector observes:

Mr. Jagannath J. Patel ‘Herr Bauer’ of India has hit the high water mark of sales and in a day sold to a single firm 20 machines of Bauer Standard 5 Projectors.

And in doing so, he has not only hit competition in the flank, but has surprised a large number of Bauer friends.

No wonder that I felt like seeing this wonderful Bauer machine that sells itself so fast and so well. My curiosity became an anxiety when someone with authority pointedly remarked that ‘Prabhat’ and ‘Bauer’ are the two pillars of the Indian film industry. (Filmindia Vol.iv Issue.No.1 12)

Filmindia seems to be advertising and creating good will for the Bauer machines through Judas and Shantaram’s views. There is an entire letter of appreciation regarding superiority of Bauer machine by Aboobakher Abdulrehman and Co. addressed to International Talkie Equipment Co. printed in February 1939 issue of Filmindia Vol. v Issue No. 2 (Figure 1.4).

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The film magazines advertised films, production companies, artists and equipments in variety of ways. India as a growing film industry with the need for more technicians saw the first cine technical institute coming up in Bombay. The Abdulla Fazalbhoy Technical Institute was advertised in Filmindia Vo.3 Issue No.8 December 1937 (47). The note on the institute claims that to provide adequate facilities to the educated young men to be trained in the film trade the institute would run at St. Xavier’s college Bombay. This write up also mentions the need to train the projectionists properly to avoid fires and accidents at the theatres. The same concern had been voiced by Shantaram in the interview given on Bauer machines. The institute used to give six months’ course to become a projectionist divided into “…fundamental scientific knowledge while the second half gives through practical training…(47). The distributors of the equipments, as well as films, played an important role in the cinema culture and this can be observed through a write up by Judas in the section “Bombay Calling” published in Filmindia Vol.3, Issue No.9

January 1938. According to Judas, exhibitors were responsible for the slow progress of the Indian film industry. He considers exhibitors to be responsible to show bad quality films to lower classes with minimum entertainment fare. And this according to Judas happens because “Far from it, as almost all these new theatres are also unfortunately in the hands of grocers and contractors whose knowledge of showmanship is not worth knowing” (7). Judas describes a good exhibitor or showmanship as:

Showmanship has several schools. The wise, trained showman is always proud of catering for quality entertainment and as he has built a following of choice patrons, he would not risk taking up a nonsensical stunt picture and invite a question on his own commonsense from his patrons.

An ideal instance to suit this description is Mr. Keki M. Modi of Western India Theatres whose showmanship is a synonym for efficiency. (7)

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Figure 1.4 Letter by Aboobakher Abdulrehman and Co. to International Talkie Equipment Co. Filmindia Vol. 5 Issue No. 2. P.22.

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In The Cine-Technician (Formerly called The Journal of the Association of Cine- Technician) Vol. III Issue No. 9, April-May 1937, published from London, in the section “Cinema Log” appears information on India as a possible market for the machines related to film making made in Britain:

Paul Perry, American cinematographer, writes that he was surprised at the motion picture activity in India. Says there are over fifty studios making 300 pictures a year. Feature films run from eight to fifteen reels. Bombay is India’s film centre, with Calcutta second. Bombay Talkies most important heads of departments are German; these include directors, cameramen, sound, laboratory men and art directors.

Film City Studio lease studio space in Bombay; Imperial Pictures make cinecolor pictures; in Poona, Wadias Films and Prabhats have studios. Northern India has a large studio owned by the East India Co.

Modern automatic developing machines are used of European make. Cameras are about fifty-fifty British and American. The same applies to the lighting equipment. Sound is nearly all American. Cutting plant is mixed. There is still a big opening for equipment-it’s up to you British equipment manufacturers, and there may be a chance for a spot of British labour. (12)

However the same entry appears in, the monthly film journal, The International Photographer Vol.9, Issue. No.1, published in February 1937, from Hollywood, under the title “God’s Gift of Color Sense To The World,” written by Paul Perry.

In the Fourth Annual Report of The Cine-Technician, published in the same issue, its circulation in India is mentioned: “A pleasing feature has been increased circulation, particularly abroad, and letter of appreciation have been received from Hollywood, India and the Continent” (69). The somewhat vague account of the equipments used for the production of films is available only through the film journals available with libraries and archives. These accounts are instrumental to get some ideas of how production of films was heavily dependent on the distribution of films and film equipments. Apart from advertising films and film equipments film journals performed an important function of creating discourse around film activities.

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Debashree Mukherjee in her article “Creating Cinema’s Reading Publics: The Emergence of Film Journalism in Bombay,” discusses how the film journals in the 1930s contributed to the reception of the films in India. According to Mukherjee, “The rise of film journalism as an organized critical apparatus in the 1930s is crucial to any exploration of the film industry and its publics” (191). In 1930s there existed film journals in abundance. The list of the journals is given in the ICYB 1938 (505- 508). The list goes up to 68 journals or ‘papers’ (this is the word used in the Year Book). These journals were available in various languages like, English, Hindi, Marathi, Bangala, Urdu, Gujarati, Anglo-Burmese, Anglo-Tamil, and Tamil. Mukherjee considers the existence of these film journals important to study the public discourse apparent through the readers’ contribution to these journals. Mukherjee states:

Here was a community of readers that believed it had a stake in the life of the emergent nation, a life played out in the public sphere. The bourgeois public sphere, as configured by certain English language print media, was dominated by concerns about imperialism, civic life, and progress. The entry of cinema into this informed space of two-way production of public discourse, thus, makes for a fascinating moment. My attempt is to highlight the significance of this discursive development as an industrial and affective site which needs to be studied as an integral part of the cinematic event…this companion industry not only distributed the pleasures of cinema but also sought to redefine its place in the popular consciousness. (166)

Mahatma Gandhi’s criticism of cinema, the general perception of film industry full of dancing girls and courtesans and lower classes enjoying the racy crime and sex films did not help the film industry to establish itself as a respectable field. Mukherjee claims that the film journals helped to transform the image of the film industry by delivering space for the Indian middle class to voice their opinions, participate in the discourse surrounding cinema and embrace the film culture. Film journals in the 1930s legitimized cinema (Mukherjee 168). In the section “Bombay calling” Judas while defining a good film claims that a good story makes a film successful. Mere technological excellence does not make a film successful. Judas in Filmindia Vol 3, Issue No. 8, published in December 1937, states:

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Those two producers, Prabhat and New Theatres have been largely responsible for changing the taste of the people and creating a demand for better pictures.

A better picture is only possible with a better story. With all the technique in the world, a poor and lame story cannot be dressed into a big show…Mythological and costume pictures have outlived their popularity and are not so much liked nowadays. The picture should either be a social one or its theme must have a semblance of a social problem just as ‘Tukaram’ that outstanding success has. The successful picture of the future will be a social film with a sensible, provocative theme, written by some well known writer. (11)

Socials were given immense importance and Prabhat Studio, New Theatres and Bombay Talkies were the production houses producing the social films and were successful.

1.5. The big studios and their films

The film journals in 1930s describe Prabhat Film Co., New Theatres Ltd. and Bombay Talkies Ltd. as the best production companies operative in India. Here I would like to give an overview of these production concerns and their films.

Prabhat Studio was founded in 1929 in Kolhapur before it was moved to Pune in 1933 by V. Shantaram. Rajadhyaksha and Willemen describe V. Shantaram as “…one of the most celebrated Indian directors of the 30s” (Encyclopedia 214). V. G. Damale, S. Fatelal and S. B. Kulkarni were the partners in the studio. Prabhat Studios used Bell & Howell, Derbrie & Eyemo cameras for recording and British Acourstic Recording Set was used for sound recording (ICYB1938 279).

Eric Barnouw and Krishnaswamy describe Prabhat as a group that “…exerted immense influence on the Indian film in the early sound era...” (Indian Film 82). As is well known in the history of Indian cinema Sant Tukaram produced in Marathi became the first film from India to win the Venice film festival award. Under the entry “Editor’s Diary of 1937” the ICYB 1938 describes this achievement of Prabhat as: “‘Tukaram’ of Prabhat Film Company was sent to Venice to represent India at the Fifth Inernational Exhibition of Cinematographic Art. It was adjudged one of the world’s best pictures of the year” (15). Baburao Patel the editor of Filmindia used to

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answer questions asked by the readers of this film maganzie. “Editor’s Mail” is a section in which he would answer the queries of the readers. In the Vol.III, Issue No.8 of Filmindia, Patel replies to Mr. R. Ganapathy Rao’s accusation of Patel favouring Prabhat Studio’s films in his writing. Mr. Rao describes his dissent upon Patel discarding K. L Saigal as an actor (16). Patel in reply to Mr. Rao’s accusation says:

I boost and boom Prabhat, because they deserve every good word I write about them. Had it not been so, their recent picture ‘Tukaram’ would not have got the International award of being one of the three best pictures of the world. You must realize the act, however painful it may be to you and to others, that Prabhat to-day is the ‘Pillar of Fire’ to the Indian film industry. It is quite true that we have had some excellent pictures from Bengal and they add to the luster of success which our pictures have attained. Nevertheless, consistency has been a virtue only with Prabhat and for this they stand supreme. The success of Prabhat is not merely communal but it is national. Whatever I may say about it, all the communities of India obviously like Prabhat pictures as they run well all over. (18)

The obvious reference Patel gives is to New Theatre’s films when he talks about Bengal. Rachel Dwyer in her text Filming the Gods observes:

Although in a film like Sant Tukaram the historical attractions (costume, language and so on) are played down to such an extent that the film has the feel of the ‘time less’ village, the presence of Shivaji and the reference to battles ground it in a historical framework. The devotees are presented as figures of their time, who created an impact on history by reforming society and religious practices and beliefs. (92)

Dwyer’s observation focuses on how the mythological genre of Sant Tukaram transforms itself into historical and realistic representation through the style of film making. Geeta Kapur in her essay “Revelation and Doubt: Sant Tukaram and Devi” argues exactly for the same treatment of the image in the film. Kapur states:

Let us then look at the characteristics of the image as it comes across in Tukaram to recognize how religious iconicity is mediated to secular effect in the filmic process. Even as Tukaram adores the black-faced Vithoba and

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witneses his miracles in wonder, the cinematic image is composed for us, the viewers, to ‘adore’ the saint and witness his sublime speech and song. There is thus a contact, with over-the-shoulder shots of the mediating devotee, between god and the viewer. (24)

Geeta Kapur’s analyses of the use of over-the-shoulder shot in Sant Tukaram highlights the use of techniques to achieve the effect of reality, of bringing the audience closer to the image. K. A Abbas in his article “The Only Three Great Directors of India” published in Filmindia Vol. 6, Issue. No. 6. June 1940 describes Shantaram as a director taking his time to produce films. Abbas states:

Like Barua, Shantaram believes in making his pictures the vehicle of his own ideas. (Indeed to him a picture is not a vehicle of ideas but of ideals and it is impossible to imagine Shantaram directing a picture without any definite social purpose.) Like Nitin Bose he is a master of technique and a good cameraman himself. We may, therefore, compare the content of his films with Barua and his technique with Nitin Bose. (55)

Abbas while defending the Indian films against the criticism of Mr. Karaka describes Sant Tukaram as a good example of realism. In the section “Studio Close-Ups”, in Filmindia, Vol. III, Issue. No. 9, published in January 1938 the editor mentions “Writing more about ‘Tukaram’ and its unique success is like painting the lily. The picture has secured such overwhelming popularity amongst all classes or people that it threatens to run for a long time to come in different parts of the city. This superb production of Prabhat can never be forgotten” (39). Geeta Kapur reads into the relationship between Sant Tukaram, Bhakti Poetry, M. G. Ranade’s view that Bhakti movement was a kind of a “…protestant movement where caste differences were sought to be transgressed by the saints” (Revelation and Doubt 22). Kapur also establishes the link between Mahatma Gandhi’s anti untouchability campaign and Sant Tukaram (22).

Kunku aka Duniya Na Mane aka The Unexpected made in 1937 was lauded for its treatment of women’s issues like “…arranged and venal marriages that ignore women’s rights” (Rajadhyaksha and Willemen 272). The film deals with a young woman, Nirmala (Shanta Apte) Married to an old widower Kakasaheb (Keshavarao Date), who refuses to consummate the marriage. Her claim that she is tricked into the

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marriage and does not approve of this injustice is a voice of a rebel woman. This theme gives it a social angle. This shift of Prabhat Film Co. from seemingly Mythological genre to socials has been applauded and mentioned by one of the readers of Filmindia Vol. V, Issue No. 1 January 1939;

Prabhat till recently, has been taking costume plays, recitation of which through ages has already impressed the minds so deeply that there is hardly any scope left for new impressions. But when Prabhat took courage in hand and produced ‘The Unexpected’ they hit it rather well considering that it was the very first attempt. I think Prabhat will improve in future and try to vie with New Theatres in this aspect of film entertainment, which so far remains the monopoly of New Theatres. (18)

Prabhat Film Co.’s most celebrated film in the late 1930s was Manus aka Admi. Manus was produced in 1939, directed by V. Shantaram. The film is a love tragedy featuring a policeman, Ganpat (Shahu Modak) and a prostitute, Maina (Shanta Hublikar) who fall in love but Maina’s sense of guilt does not allow Ganpat to rehabilitate her. Maina is arrested by the police for murdering her morally fallen uncle. Rajadhyaksha and Willemen note “The film ends on a falsely positive tone set to the rhythm of marching policemen. The film is shot entirely on sets including street corners, alleys, corridors etc., and consist mainly of night scenes often in heavy shadows” (Encyclopedia 280). The film however contains a song sequence which is shot on location. This song is a spoof of Bombay Talkies style of film making. Ganpat and Maina accidently come across a shooting crew picturising a song. The spoof is of the famous song “Main Baan Ki Chidiya” from Achhut Kanya. The actress shown in the spoof sequence uses Hindi with English accent to speak and sing. In the Filmindia February 1940 Vol. VI, Issue No. 2, one of the readers asks the editor “Don’t you think that the humorous slant on film production in ‘Admi’ refers to those Anglo- Indian actresses we find on the screen?” (24). The reader asking question here refers to Wadia Movietone’s famous actress Nadia. The obvious reference in the film is to Devika Rani, the star actress of Bombay Talkies. Devika Rani by 1939 was immensely popular amongst all strata of audience. Manus is shot using “expressionist technique of making physical spaces represent mental states” (Rajadhyaksha and Willemen 280). This film contains a song sequence “Aata kashala udya chi baat” in which Maina sings the song in seven modern Indian languages (Marathi, Hindi,

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Gujarati, Panjabi, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil) to entertain her clients from different regions. This must have been the first instance in Indian cinema of using song to showcase the ‘dialogic’ possibilities of song and performance. In Vol. 6, Issue No. 1 of Filmindia published in January 1940, Baburao Patel, while responding to Mr. Kamath’s confusion in deciding the superiority of film between Admi and Duniya Na Mane, replies:

Two pictures like these can never be compared, because of their different themes, poles apart from each other. However considering the social significance of a picture, I think ‘Admi’ to be a greater contribution because the film gives a pictorial eloquence to the mute and under dog existence of a prostitute whom for selfish reasons society has managed to maintain as a shameful anchor of social morality. The problem of prostitution being as old as the world itself, ‘Admi’ has a wider appeal than ‘Duniya-na-mane’ which was in comparison a communal social problem.

In subtlety of direction Shantaram has excelled himself in ‘Admi,’ though about the treatment of the subject there are two opinions.

Who acts better: Shanta Apte or Shanta Hublikar? After her splendid performance in ‘Admi’, I think Miss Hublikar has done better than Miss Apte had ever done before. (16)

The audience’s active participation in the film culture is visible through their questions regarding various issues related to film and people involved in film making. They could make out the references to the ‘Anglo-Indian’ actresses and films from other production houses in Manus. Both Baburao Patel and K. A. Abbas write about V. Shantaram, Prabhat Film Co., and films produced by this concern in a very positive tone. Prabhat Film Co.’s shift from mythological to the social is also visible through their contemporary perception.

New Theaters Ltd. was established in 1931 by Birendranath Sircar. Nitin Bose and P.C. Barua were the important part of New Theatres. Dhiren Ganguly too worked with New Theaters in its initial phase directing comedies. The most talked about comedies by Dhiren Ganguly was Excuse me, Sir (Barnauw and Krishnaswamy 70). Debaki Bose directed Chandidas, in Bengali language, as his first talkie film for New

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Theatres in 1932. According to Rajadhyaksha and Willemen Chandidas was stylistically new “…distancing itself from the theatre by stressing the poet’s ever popular lyrics. However, the acting remained stilted and used more straight frontal shots than e.g. Debaki Bose’s later films at New Theatres (Bidyapati, 1937). It was the studio’s first major hit” (255). Chandidas was later made in Hindi, directed by Nitin Bose. One of the readers of Filmindia in the Vol. V, Issue No. 12 December 1939 enquires about the possible reasons of failure of Bari Didi (1939) and the editor replies:

The picture has no inherent defects in this respect. It was a beautiful picture, but our people have not yet learned to appreciate a good thing when it comes along. Its philosophy being a little high pitched, it went beyond the understanding of the masses. And the masses make the Indian picture a huge success. Unfortunately the masses have been poisoned by cheap stunt pictures produced not by industrialists but by opportunists and they have never been allowed to cultivate a taste for better pictures. (11)

Patel’s response hints towards the responsibility of film makers to shape the taste of the audience. In the Vol. 5, Issue No. 1 of Filmindia published in January 1939 Mr. Dinanath Vyas Visharad from Ujjain is responded on his question of the lasting impression created by New Theatres films. The editor replies by observing “To the intellectuals New Theatres gives a big and varied fare from time to time by providing realistic themes which easily find parallels in everyday life. Treating these themes with a philosophical brush, they present an attractive canvas of entertainment with the colours in completed harmony” (18). In the section “Round the Town” Filmindia Vol. 3, Issue No. 10 published in February 1938 Mukti has been reviewed as follows:

This is a story of unrealities. It is more idealistic than practical. It is more a dream of the artist in Mr. Barua than an episode of his practical experience. The whole affair is rather far fetched. In presenting a theme of this sort, Mr. Barua has tried numerous small experiments some of which smell of local colour. It is intensely difficult to present a subject like this in a picture and to that extent Mr. Barua has succeeded in doing so. (42)

Mukti (1937) is a story of failed marriage and an artist husband dying at the end of the film at his wife’s feet. Rajadhyaksha and Willemen observe “The film interprets his

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death as Chitra’s final achievement of the freedom she had craved. Barua contrasts the regressive story presented as static and unresolved, both as narrative and as performance, with a hyperactive environment that overwhelms the trivial nature of the lead couple’s desires. There are many sequence shots tracking through walls… (Encyclopedia 273)

Devdas (1935) was directed by P.C. Barua. In the Hindi version of the film K. L. Saigal played the titular role and in the Bengali it was P.C. Barua himself. Devdas is a story of class and caste difference preventing two loves from getting married. The film was considered to be the criticism of feudal society. K. A Abbas in “The Only Three Great Directors of India” published in Filmindia, Vol. 6, Issue. No. 6, June 1940, explains why Devdas was a popular film. Abbas states:

From ‘Devdas’ to ‘Zindagi’ you find the peculiar BAruasque touch in every picture of his. Intellectual individualism cannot be understood or appreciated by the mass of the people. ‘Devdas’ was a solitary ‘hit’ because the theme was simple-the frustration of a disappointed lover-and Barua’s harrowing tragedy went straight to the heart. He piled pathos upon pathos, took advantage of Saigal’s voice to provoke our tears with mournful music, mortified us with the vision of Devdas coughing out blood as his train thundered along to nowhere and, in the final scene, even showed a funeral pyre to symbolize the ultimate futility of life and struggle. In a country full of frustrated lovers, all seeking consolation in a poetry of pessimism, ‘Devdas’ was a sure fire hit. His later films which sought to picturise subtler-though equally pessimistic and fatalistic themes did not draw so well at the box-office but they were always popular with the intellectuals (not necessarily the progressive) because they are a reflection of their own minds, sentimental, pessimistic, confused, and constantly groping towards reality. (53)

Madhuja Mukherjee in New Theatres Ltd.: The Emblem of Art, The Picture of Success argues that with the handling of social themes and reformative issues New Theatre’s films seem to carry capital. Madhuja Mukherjee claims “Indeed one can locate New Theatres in this entire gamut of the production of an ‘idealised’ film form and film sense, and read the emergence of New Theatres as a realisation of the political- cultural desire of a middle class community” (28). Sharmistha Gooptu in her article

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“An Appeal beyond Aesthetics: Exploration of the Iconicity of New Theatres” claims that the iconic status of New Theatres was “…rooted in the politics and economy of early 20th century Bengal” (2409). Baburao Patel and K.A. Abbas categorise New Theatre’s films as high art socials. However B. N. Sircar’s studio New Theatres does not seem to handle the financial side of the concern in a profitable manner. Judas, in the February 1938 issue of Filmindia, describes New Theatres’ distribution policies as not wise (9). In the February 1938 issue of Filmindia, while replying to a reader’s objection to call Devaki Bose a great director in spite of films directed by him, Seeta, After the Earthquake, Life is a Stage and Sonehra Sansar, failing at the box-office, Baburao Patel replies “The commercial success of a picture does not necessarily define the greatness of a director. If that had been so the directors of ‘Toofan Mail’ and ‘Hunterwali’ would have been called the greatest of living men. Some of the failures which you quote have been really great pictures” (21). Toofan Mail (1932) produced by Ranjit Studios and Hunterwali (1935) produced by Wadia Movietone were the early major successful films from stunt genre. Patel in spite of these films’ popularity amongst the audience does not legitimize them as good films. Himansu Rai’s international collaboration for the three silent films and sixteen talkies were situated in this period. Himansu Rai and his collaborators’ contribution to Indian cinema is analysed in the coming chapters.

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