RMIM Archive Article "138".
From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian
#
# RMIM Archives..
# Subject: Year in Hindi Films
# years covered - 1934 to 1936
#
# Posted by: Surjit Singh, dussh@ttacs.ttu.edu
# Source: see the first article in the series
#
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1934 A Year in Hindi Movies
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The number of movies crosses one hundred, 121 were made this
year. Two of them deserve special mention.
The Mill - The story and dialogs were written by the famous
Hindi and Urdu author Munshi Premchand. It took one lakh
Rupees to make. It was the first Hindi talkie to be banned
by the British rulers of India. The ban was lifted and it
was reissued as Gharib Parwar and released on May 9, 1936.
Munshiji wrote the story and dialogs for another movie
Sevaasadan in the same year.
Seeta
Prithviraj Kapoor was Rama, Durga Khote was Seeta,
Govind Ram Tembe was Balmiki and Mukhtar Beghum was
Dharatimata. S. D. Burman sang a few songs. Director
was Debaki Bose and music was by K. C. Dey. This was
the first film to win an international award. It won
the Gold Medal at the Third International Exhibition of
Cinematographic Art in Venice, Italy in 1935.
Other notable movies were:
Amrit Manthan
The first talkie to celebrate silver jubilee. The
first silent movie to do so was "Kapaal Kundala" in
1925.
Chandidas
Another hit from R. C. Boral. Saigal, Uma Shashi and
Pahadi Sanyal sang the nine beautiful songs. Unfor-
tunately, only two are generally available. "Prem
nagar mein banaungi ghar" by Shashi and Saigal and
"Tadpat beete din rain" by Saigal.
Dharti Kamp
It has the traditional song, "Sanwariya re kahe mare
najariya". Music was by Moolraj Kapadaia and Sagir,
but in spite of monumental efforts by "Hamraaz" the
singer remains unknown. The song was sung later in
"Panna" released in 1944, by Rajkumari under the musi-
cal direction of Amir Ali. This is the version that
many of us enjoyed so much in the "recent" movie Mirch
Masala, in which Nasiruddin Shah and his wife acted.
Rooplekha
Saigal sang a Surdas bhajan, "Sab din hot na ek saman".
Sant Tulasidas
Professor G. N. Joshi was hero and Gajanan Jagirdar, B.
A. provided the lyrics.
Shahar Ka Jadu
Motilal's first movie.
Vaaman Avtaar
The future music director Jaidev was Nard Muni in this
movie. His first as an actor.
Veer Bharat
Jaidev acted and sang two songs, "Rakkho jo aag daman
mein" and "Prayi peed jane veer bharat ho to aisa ho"
Noor Mahal
One of the earliest movies in which Jeewan, the villain
in many Dev Anand movies acted. He was known as O. K.
Dar Kashmiri or simply Dar Kashmiri in those days.
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1935 - First female MD in the world
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152 movies are produced this year. Three deserve special
mention.
(Note: I have been using the transliteration as given in the
Encyclopaedia, which is copied from the one given by the
producers of the movie. It is quite arbitrary, ad hoc and
confusing. From now on in all my postings, as much as possi-
ble, I will use the transliteration scheme of Avinash
Chopde, a scheme which is simple, logical and sensible.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if everybody adopts it?)
"dhuup chhaa.Nv or bhaaGY chakr"
Produced by New Theaters, Calcutta, directed by Nitin
Bose. Music by R. C. Boral and Pankaj Mullick, lyri-
cist Pandit Sudarshan. There were 10 songs, 5 by K. C.
Dey:
baabaa man kii aa.Nkhe.n khol
terii gaTharii me.n laagaa chor
aaj mero ghar mohan aayo
jiivan kaa sukh aaj prabhu mohe
a.ndhe kii laaThii tuu hii hai
(The last two were also recorded by Saigal as "version"
songs.) But playback singing was introduced with the
chorus song
mai.n khush honaa chaahu.N, khush ho naa sakuu.N
sung by Parul Ghosh (wife of the famous flutist Panna
Lal Ghosh and a sister of Anil Biswas), Suprova Sarkar,
Harimati and others. In the movie the song was
presented as a stage song of a Drama company.
"talaash-e-haq"
Produced and set to music by Jaddanbai for her own com-
pany called Sangeet Films and directed by C. M. Luhar.
Another name for the movie was "Search for Truth". Jad-
danbai was a popular and renowned singer of her day.
She thrilled her listeners with her thumris and
daadraas over the Radio and through gramophone records.
In 1918, she was admitted for an operation in Lucknow,
where she met a brilliant medical student from Rawal-
pindi, Uttamchand Mohanchand, and, folks, this is
1918!, they fell in love! He was converted to Islam by
Maulana Azad and married her. Their daughter called
Fatima Rashid was born on June 1, 1929 in Calcutta.
With the screen name of Baby Raani, she appeared in
this movie, which turned out to be the first movie in
the whole world to have a female music director. The
baby grew up to debut in Mehboob's "taqdiir" at the
tender age 14, with the name Nargis, against her
wishes. She really wanted to be a doctor like her
father. But the movie was so successful that etc. etc.
"devdaas"
This is by all accounts Saigal's best movie. Produced
by New Theaters and directed by P. C. Barua, this movie
debuted the music director Timir Baran. The lyrics were
by Kedar Sharma. It had Saigal, Jamuna, Rajkumari (kal-
kattewali, the other one is banaaraswaali), K. C. Dey,
Pahadi Sanyal, Nemo and Sitara. There were 10 songs, 3
by K. C. Dey, Saigal and Sanyal each, one by Rajkumari.
According to Kedar Sharma, these two famous songs were
set to music by Saigal himself, even though they are
generally credited to Timir Baran:
baalam aae baso more man me.n
duHkh ke din ab biitat naahii.n
The songs were, however, recorded by Timir Baran Bhat-
tacharya, who died on March 29, 1987 at age 83. Saigal
also sang a thumri
piyaa bin aavat naahi.n chain
without any accompanying music. Timir Baran learnt
sarod from Ustad Amir Khan and Ustad Allaudin Khan and
was awarded the Sangeet Natak Academy prize in 1950. In
1939, on a request from Subhash Chandra Bose, he set
"Bande matram" (which, incidentally is our national
song) to music in Rag Durga. This was broadcast from
The Radio Station Singapur. He gave music in about 10
Hindi and some Bengali movies.
Some other movies released in 1935 are:
"After the Earthquake" or "inqlaab"
Raj Kapoor's first movie; he was a child actor at age
11. In the lead were his father and Devika Rani.
"anaarkali"
First time this name was used for this famous story.
"Barrister's wife"
Possibly the first filmi qawwali
"nazariya tane hai tiir kamaan, jaane legi yah kis
kis kii jaan"
written by Pandit Narayan Prasad Betaab, music by Rewa
Shankar Marwadi and Banne Khan, fimed on Noor Mohammad
"Charlie" (clone of Chaplin) and friends.
"dharam kii devii"
First complete film by Anil Biswas alone. He acted as a
beggar and sang three songs. His first ever is "kuchh
bhii nahi.n bharosaa duniyaa hai aanii jaanii"
"javaanii kii havaa"
Saraswati Devi's first film. She missed out being the
first female MD, but as far as I can tell, she is the
second female MD in the world.
"majnuu.n 1935"
Harold Louis's movie after which he was universally
known as majnuu.n. He made many movies with I. S. Johar
in the tradition of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. "Chil-
dren" may remember the Shammi Kapoor vehicle "ham sab
chor hai.N" (1956), in which the pair performed the
famous "yogi dance" and mouthed the Rafi-Durrani number
"hamako ha.nste dekh zamaanaa jaltaa hai".
"naagaanand"
The first movie of Ramchandra Narhar Chitalkar as an
actor. His first as an MD was the Tamil movie
"jayagu.Dii", date unknown. He played harmonium in
"pukaar" (1939) and his first Hindi movie as an
independent MD was "sukhii jiivan" (1942). The first
song he ever set to music as an independent MD was
Iqbal's famous, "saare jahaa.n se achhaa", which, by
the way, is a very famous patriotic song.
"nigaah-e-nafarat"
Shobhana Samarath (Nutan's mom) debuted.
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1936 Ashok Kumar begins career
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Born on October 13, 1911 at Bhagalpur, Bihar, as Kumudlal to
a famous lawyer, Kunjlal Ganguly, whose family migrated from
Nadia to Khandwa some hundred years ago, Ashok Kumar was a
brilliant student, who after finishing his B. Sc. from
Robertson College, Jabalpur, went to study law at Presidency
College, Calcutta so that, according to him, "his granpa's
books may be used". As a science student, he developed a
flair for photography and really wanted to become a techni-
cian. He used to visit New Theaters, Calcutta, and left Cal-
cutta in 1934, to get a letter of recommendation from the
world famous Himanshu Rai, who gave us, "Light of Asia" and
"Karma". Himanshu persuaded Ashok to learn film photogra-
phy from Josef Wirsching, the talented German cameraman for
Bombay Talkies. Thus began the cine journey of Ashok.
He had a small role in "Jawani ki Hawa (1935)", but he was
the male lead opposite Devika Rani in "Jeevan Nayya (1936)".
Ashok did not want to be an actor and had his hair merci-
lessly trimmed to avoid shooting on the first day. Himanshu
forgave him and waited for two months so that Ashok's hair
would grow back. In the very first shot, Ashok had to per-
form the usual chore of every hero, jump through the window
and save the lady from the clutches of the villain. Ashok
did it with such enthusiasm that villain's leg was broken,
and Himanshu had to wait for another four months!
His next movie "Achhut Kanya" proved to be hit, 20 weeks at
the newly constructed Roxy, Bombay and 59 weeks at calcutta.
The movie had 9 songs, 4 of which became immensely popular,
perhaps because of the music by the talented Saraswati Devi:
mai.n ban kii chi.Diyaa ban ke ban ban - Ashok, Devika
kit gaye ho khevanhaar - Saraswati Devi
kise karataa muurakh pyaar, pyaar, pyaar - Ashok
piir piir kya karataa re - Ashok
Lyrics were by Jamuna Swaroop Kashyap "Naatwaan". Even
Ashok's father liked the movie and Ashok was a genuine star
now. We will pick up his career later.
Some other movies of 1936 were:
bandit of the air or havaaii daakuu
K. N. Singh's first as a hero
deccan queen
Surendra's first, had his first song "yaad na kar
dil-e-hazii.n bhuulii huii"
honhaar
Leela Mishra's first film to be released, she started
acting with ga.ngaavataraN (1937).
jiivan nayya
Ashok's first in which he sang "koi hamdam na rahaa,
koi sahaaraa na rahaa" S. N. Tripathi sang his first
song, set to music by himself: "erii dayyaa lachak
lachak chalat mohan aave"
millionaire or karo.Dapatii
a song by Saigal and Pahadi Sanyal says something about
post-high school education: "jo naukarii dilaa de, B.
A. banaane vaale, biga.Dii huii banaa de"
miss frontier mail
perhaps the first parody song by Minu the Mystic and
party, "gaao gaao ai mere saadhuu, sab hii bhulaao Gam"
prem bandhan
perhaps the first song by Sahir, sojaa sojaa nanhe.n
sojaa, miiThiii-miiTHii nindiyaa"
sunaharaa sa.nsaar
K. N. Singh gave his first shot for this movie, but it
was released later than "bandit of the air (1936)"
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From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian