TALKIES AND COLOUR MOTION PICTURES (1931 – 1950)

II. ADVENT OF THE TALKIES AND COLOUR MOTION PICTURES (1931 – 1950)

By the 1930’s the Indian Film industry was churning out more than 200 films a year and actors like Chetan Anand, S S Vasan and Devki Bose were among the very first movie stars that India had known.

The year 1931 was another landmark in the history of Indian cinema. The first talkie in the form of Ardeshir Irani's Alam Ara was released and became an instant hit. The talkies had the same effect as they did in the western countries and in no time had replaced the silent film with great speed. India is a vast country with over 28 official languages; dialects change 100 miles and finally here was a way by which dialog in different Indian languages was possible. This inevitably gave a boost to the regional (vernacular) film industries that could now produce content meant specifically for their local audiences. First talkie films in Bengali (Jumai Shasthi), Telugu (Bhakta Prahlad) and Tamil (Kalidass) established in the true sense the regional film industry in India as we know it today.

The advent of talkies also meant inclusion of musical numbers in the films. Alam Ara was a great hit mainly because it had seven song and dance sequences which proved to be hugely popular among the masses. Traditional arts of Indian music and dance always held a strong influence in Indian entertainment and it was but obvious that the cinema should adopt the same crowd pleasing attributes. This is probably the reason why musical numbers are still a staple in almost every film made in India till today. Regardless, talkies gave it a big push forward so much so that J.J. Madan’s Indrasabha (1932) featured a grand total of 71 songs.

The first colour film was made in the year 1937 by Ardeshir Irani called Kisan Kanya (Peasant Girl). Though the colour format didn’t not become popular till the 1950’s the film was a great commercial success and but no one could even remotely imagine the form that the Indian film industry was going to take in the coming decades. The commercial success of the film industry also established Mumbai as the hub of the Indian film industry having a number of self-contained production units. The thirties saw hits like Madhuri (1932), Indira, M A (1934), Anarkali (1935), Miss Frontier Mail (1936), and Punjab Mail (1939).

Yet another anthropologically significant turn in the history of cinema was its gradual shift towards becoming a powerful mode of communication. Till the late 30’s films on religious subjects were predominant but this was about to change. The country was in the throes of a raging freedom struggle and the frustrations of the independence movement increasingly seeped into the content of movies. The films quickly became a medium of expression and social awareness. Cinema was no longer a periphery of entertainment but a potent instrument to reach the masses. These films were not only full of songs and the usual glamour that the audiences had become used to but also gave out a vibrant message of social awareness that had a great impact. This was also the time when playback singing first emerged and gave India its first super star in the form of none other than celebrated singer and national treasure K. L Saigal.

Important filmmakers like V Shantaram established themselves as not only gifted directors but also expressed genuine social concern in their films like Admi (1939), Amrit Manthan and Dharmatma (1935). Another important personality who influenced the course of Indian cinema was a man called Raj Kapoor. The son of a popular silent era actor, Raj Kapoor began his career in films at the age of 11. Soon Raj Kapoor would start one his own film Production Company and change the face of Indian cinema forever with films like Andaz (1949), Aag (1948) and Amar Prem (1948) and most importantly Awara in (1950). A new golden era of the Indian film industry was about to start and Raj Kapoor and RK Studios were at its masthead.

SILENT ERA (1899 TO 1930)

THE BIRTH OF CINEMA IN INDIA – SILENT ERA (1899 TO 1930)

On 28th December 1895, two mad French men by the names Louis and Auguste Lumiere presented the first display of a projected motion picture to a small private audience in France. Several thousand miles away in the land of colonial India, no one had even dreamt of such a technology let alone hear of it. The country was in the throes of a political and freedom movement and the only means of entertainment available to the masses were the traditional travelling theatre troupes (Nautanki), puppet theatre (Kathputli Natak) and the occasional dance and music shows for those who could afford it. The very next year in 1986 the Lumiere brothers brought their showcase of 6 short films to the Watson Hotel in Bombay (now Mumbai in the state of Maharashtra). This was a significant event in the history of Indian cinema, as it was the first time that the subcontinent was witnessing the screening of Cinematography.

Even though Dadasaheb Phalke is often (inaccurately) credited to be the pioneer of cinema in India, it was in fact the efforts of a couple of gentlemen by the name of Save Dada (Harishchandra Sakharam Bhatavdekar) and Hiralal Sen who were the first to make 2 short films as early as 1897 and 1899. These short films were mere attempts at capturing live theatrical performances on film. F. B. Thanawala from Mumbai also made a few short films like the Splendid view of Bombay and The Taboot Procession (1900). These films were often matter of fact documentation of events and had they survived the tribulations of time would have been valid cinematographic representative of those times with great historic value.

More than indigenous productions a lot of cinematic entertainment was imported from abroad like Life of Christ (1901), Aladin and the Wonderful Lamp (1902), Alibaba and 40 Thieves (1903) and Napoleon Bonaparte (1904). This was primarily because India was a colony of the British Empire and a large English population lived in the country. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise as the availability of foreign cinema not only brought the wondrous technological advancements of the western world to India but also inspired the Indian film makers to venture into making full length feature films.

Regardless, cinema came to India in a commercial manner (commercial being the operative word here) at pretty much the same time that it did in the western countries. Although the west had been producing silent short films for over a decade now, the first full length feature film made in India was Dadasaheb Phalke’s silent opus Raja Harishchandra in the year 1913. Main films that followed included - Mohini Bhasmasur (1914), significant for introducing the first woman to act before the cameras - Kamalabai Gokhale, Satyawan Savitri (1914), Satyavadi Raja Harischandra (1917), Lanka Dahan (1917), Shri Krishna Janma (1918) and Kalia Mardan (1919). By 1920 India was producing more than 27 films a year which was a big number. The first Indian film makers turned to ancient epics and puranas for source material. The phenomenal success of Raja Harishchandra was kept up by a series of mythological films. The content of the films would not change for a long time till the advent of talkies and colour in the 1930’s.