Bless You Bollywood!: A Tribute to Hindi Cinema on Completing 100 Years

Contents

Thanks To

Bollywood Buffs!

Bollywood Celebrates Centenary!

The Early Icons

The Golden Era

Architects

New Millennium

Movie Makers

Superstars Down

The Years (Female)

Superstars Down

The Years (Male)

Villains And Vamps Down The Years

Famous On-screen Mothers

Famous On-screen Fathers

Ace Comedians

Ten Best Debuts

(Female Stars)

Ten Best Debuts

(Male Stars)

Bright Little Stars

Superstars As

Star Comedians

Famous For Forceful Voice

Early Icons Of Item Numbers

The Magical Movie Pairs

Gone Too Soon . . . 

Great Music Maestros

Era Of The Singing Stars

Legendary Playback Singers

Hits Behind Superhits

Legendary Lyricists

Celebrity Screenwriters

Bollywood’s International Achievements

Lahore Loves Bollywood!

Top 100 Movies

Classic Comedies

Costliest Box-office Crashes

Bless You Bollywood!

About The Author

To my wife Inderjeet,

with devotion, love and gratitude

Thanks To

Bollywood Buffs!

I’m a big Bollywood buff. Bollywood is as much a part of my identity as birthmark on my nose. It may not have been in my blood because my father had never watched movies in his entire life, may be with the only exception of Mughal-E-Azam, which the family forced on him as the concluding part of my wedding festivities. It must have been my mother then. She was quite the opposite of my father as far as watching movies was concerned. Going to movies every Wednesday was a must for her, when it was a Ladies Only matinee in every theater at half the normal rates in Lahore. She enjoyed all movies, musical or mythological, slapstick comedy or tear-jerker tragedy, without exceptions. All her friends had open invitation to accompany her to watch the latest movie, where she would not only buy their tickets but also treat them to sodas and snacks, which the hawkers sold inside the hall during interval. This was perhaps the package deal her friends deserved to find time for my mother’s weekly movie addiction. Her companion for the week could change generally depending on her friends’ likes and dislikes of a particular genre, except for the one whom she never liked to leave behind. My mother always took me along to the ‘Ladies Only’ matinees till I was 12-year old; the permissible age limit of boys’ admission provided ladies accompanied them. And thus turned me into a movie buff, even if inadvertently, right from the time I was a toddler.

My brother Raghu, better known as R. R. Rishi, also played a big role in making me a movie buff. He actually took over from where my mother left, when she could no longer take me to ‘Ladies Only’ shows. He was the editor of ‘Film Critic’, the leading English language film magazines published in Lahore then. I was still in school when I became addicted to reading all the then prominent publications related to cinema, brought home by him, including Baburao Patel’s Film India, the most famous film magazine published from Mumbai(then Bombay) and B.R. Chopra’s Cine Herald, besides his own Film Critic. Once in a while he would even give me a chance to write review of the latest release or films related write-up, to be published in his magazine. My compensation for the contribution used to be free gate pass for admission to four persons for the film I was to review, which he received from film distributors as a matter of routine. Truly a big treat for me and my buddies. The addiction to reading film magazines as also watching movies, which went on to become more expensive by the day, continued through my adult life and so did my hobby to write articles or blogs on Bollywood topics.

Last but not the least, I owe being a Bollywood buff to my brother-in-law Surendra, the singing star of bygone era, who helped me have the intimate feel and firsthand knowledge of happenings in Bollywood from the 40s when he married my sister Satya, till the 80s when he breathed his last. I fondly remember the film parties and shootings to which he would take me whenever I visited Mumbai. Memories of the time spent with him in Mumbai, especially meeting his personal friends from the film fraternity like Prithviraj Kapoor, Ashok Kumar, Motilal, Chandramohan, Talat Mehmood and many more, later became my source for the stories on these artistes in my blogs and articles.

The fact remains that with more than a billion Indians, Bollywood boasts a built-in audience far more vast than anything Hollywood could ever dream of, and hundreds of millions of others are also caught under the influence. To billions of people, it’s a way of life. To all the true Bollywood fans, overtime many of whom have turned Bollywood buffs, I owe a big ‘Thank You’. It is because their feedback through thoughtful comments complimenting my blogs or their views and reviews on movies making a way to internet that have been the most rewarding inspiration for all my writings on Bollywood. Thanks to all these Bollywood buffs and to my mother, my brother R. R. Rishi and my brother-in-law Surendra, who helped making me one too, I have been able to write Bless You Bollywood, a tribute to Hindi Cinema’s 100 years of excellence.

Bollywood Celebrates Centenary!

Birth Of Hindi Cinema

Dadasaheb Phalke—a man of versatile talent, who had a varied career as a painter, photographer, playwright and magician before he took to film—was responsible for the production of India’s first fully indigenous silent feature film, Raja Harishchandra, adapted from the Mahabharata. The film had titles in Hindi and English, and was released on May 3, 1913 at the Coronation Cinema in Mumbai. This laid the foundation of what, in time, would grow to become the largest film producing industry in the world. Phalke followed with other feature films like Mohini Bhasmasur (1913), Satyavan Savitri (1914) and Lanka Dahan (1917), the last one being India’s first big box-office hit. Two new film companies, the Kohinoor Film Co. and Phalke’s Hindustan Cinema Films Co. were established in 1918.

By 1920 film-making transformed into a regular industry and the number of films produced increased to 207 in 1931 from a mere 27 when the silent films were started in India. The first Indian love story, Dhiren Ganguly’s Bilat Ferat (England Returned) was released in 1921. In the same year Kohinoor studios of Bombay produced Bhakt Vidur, a chapter from Mahabharata. The new decade saw the arrival of many new companies and film-makers. Baburao Painter (Savkari Pash), Suchet Singh (Sakuntala), Chandulal Shah (Guna Sundari), Ardershir Irani and V. Shantaram were the prominent film-makers of the twenties. Some of the noteworthy silent films of the period were Madan’s Nala Damayanti (1921), Pati Bhakti (1922) and Noor Jehan (1923); Baburao Painter’s Maya Bazaar (1923), Kala Naag (1924) and Cinema Queen (1926); Chandulal Shah’s Bhaneli Bhamini (1927); Ardeshir Irani’s Anarkali (1928); V.Shantaram’s Gopal Krishna (1929); Jagdish Co’s Chandramukhi (1929); Seth Manecklal Patel’s Hatim Tai (1929); SS Agarwal’s Diler Jigar (1931) and Gulaminu Patan (1931).

During the early twentieth century cinema as a medium gained popularity across India’s population and its many economic sections. Tickets were made affordable to the common man at a low price and for the financially capable additional comforts meant additional admission ticket price. Audiences thronged to cinema halls as this affordable medium of entertainment was available for as low as an anna (4 paisa) in Bombay. The content of Indian commercial cinema was increasingly tailored to appeal to these masses. Young Indian producers began to incorporate elements of India’s social life and culture into cinema. Others brought with them ideas from across the world. This was also the time when global audiences and markets became aware of India’s film industry.

Starts Speaking

March 14, 1931 was a historic day for Indian cinema. Ardeshir Irani of Imperial Movietone released Alam Ara, the first full-length Indian talkie film at the Majestic cinema in Bombay. This film very effectively broke the golden silent era and laid a milestone that marked the steeping into the new talkie era as well as rang the death knell to silent films. The most remarkable thing about the birth of the sound film in India is it came with a bang and quickly displaced silent movies. The first Indian talkie, Alam Ara (1931) was a 124-minute feature produced by the Imperial Film Company in Mumbai and directed by Ardershir Irani. Advertised as an all talking, all singing, all dancing film, Alam Ara was a period fantasy starring Prithviraj Kapoor, Master Vithal and Zubeda. Although Mehboob, who later turned a legendary director, was scheduled to play the lead in Alam Ara, Master Vithal; from Sharda Studios got the part. When Sharda sued Vithal for breach of contract, he was defended by M A Jinnah.

On the day of its release, surging crowds started gathering near the Majestic cinema in Bombay right from early morning. The booking office was literally stormed by jostling mobs to secure tickets and all traffic was jammed on the roads leading to the theatre. For weeks together the tickets were sold out and the mad rush to watch the first talking film continued till more movies came in. The Bombay Chronicle (April 2, 1931) noted that the film has shown that with due restraint and thoughtful direction, the players could by their significant acting and speech evolve dramatic values to which the silent cinema cannot possibly aspire. Inspired by Universal’s Melody Of Love, the whole plot is a string to tie together the numerous songs and dances which became a mandatory feature of Hindi cinema. Alam Ara will always be remembered as the film that ushered in the era of sound films in India. The era of the talkies brought about social awareness as they focused on themes like practice of human sacrifices, women’s liberation and arranged marriages.

The film took months to make following the hazardous recording conditions, the distressing laboratory processing methods of that time and the secrecy surrounding the project. Says Irani, There were no sound-proof stages, we preferred to shoot indoors and at night. Since our studio is located near a railway track most of our shooting was done between the hours that the trains ceased operation. We worked with a single system Tamar recording equipment. There were also no booms. Microphones had to be hidden in incredible places to keep out of camera range. As a film, Alam Ara had few technical and artistic qualities but it was pioneering effort. In a letter to the Times of India (March 23, 1931), a viewer who signed as Filmster wrote about the quality of sound, Principal interest naturally attaches to the voice production and synchronizations. The latter is syllable perfect; the former is somewhat patchy, due to inexperience of the players in facing the microphone and a consequent tendency to talk too loudly.

Alam Ara’s rather predictable story line managed to string together the numerous song and dance numbers. And much to the filmmaker’s surprise, the Majestic cinema in Bombay where the film was released was mobbed by surging crowds. Recalls Irani’s partner Abdulally Esoofally in the Indian Talkie Silver Jubilee Souvenir, In those days, the queue system was not known to filmgoers and the booking office was literally stormed by jostling, riotous mobs, hankering to secure somehow, anyhow a ticket to see a talking picture in the language they understood. All traffic was jammed and police aid had to be sought to control the crowds. For weeks together tickets were sold out and black-market vendors had a field day.

Teething Troubles

The talkie had brought revolutionary changes in the whole set up of the industry and completely over-shadowed the silent movies at a time when they were at a peak. However, it also brought into focus many peculiar problems which needed to be tackled—there were no dialogue writers or lyricists and songs had to be sung during the filming as pre-recording facilities were not known. Minimum instruments were used, as the instrumentalists had to be camouflaged behind the singer.The arrival of sound in spite of being welcome in several quarters had serious implications for the whole industry and its appendages. The talkies era silenced a whole generation of artists, film-makers and technicians. Many studios unable to switch over to sound closed down; Anglo-Indians who did not speak fluent Hindi or Urdu were the worst hit. Those who could not sing were also hit as there was no playback and direct recording meant artistes had to sing their own songs. Problems? Of course we had problems—thousands of them—no one knew how to handle the sound equipment. We did not know how to deal with echoes inside the studios. The cameras had no blimps and their noise drowned out the dialogues. We tried all we could to muffle the camera noise. We wrapped the camera in blankets, put insulating shields around it. Nothing seemed to work. We couldn’t hear a word the actors spoke inside the studio. When the shoot was moved outdoors, the quality of sound improved but one cannot shoot an entire film outdoors. Even in a historical, the characters have to go home sometimes.—Krishna Gopal, veteran film technician.

Long takes from a single point became a necessity because of the many unsolved problems of combining photography with sound. Actors had to huddle around a hidden, low-fidelity microphone, often resulting in self-conscious performances. Picturisation of songs too were done in a single shot. Trial and error resulted in much wastage of raw stock and many films had to be abandoned.

However, there was the other side to it too. The box-office returns were so fabulous that they came to be known as mortgage-lifters, enabling those cinema houses that had shut down during the Depression to reopen. The public respect for the film producers and their cast and crew was beyond their imagination. Whenever and wherever they camped, they were given a princely ovation and a hero’s send-off. The Railways gave them travel concessions and the guards delayed trains for the latecomers. Most coffeehouse they visited refused payment for food and drink. The tumultuous welcome by the film fans overshadowed the initial problems and the talking film had come to stay.

Comes Of Age

In the 20th century, Indian cinema, along with the Hollywood and Chinese film industries, became a global enterprise. At the end of 2010 it was reported that in terms of annual film output, India ranks first, followed by Hollywood and China. Enhanced technology paved the way for upgrading from established cinematic norms of delivering product, altering the manner in which content reached the target audience, as per regional tastes. Indian cinema found markets in over 90 countries where films from India are screened.

India is the world’s largest producer of films. In 2009, India produced a total of 2961 films on celluloid, that include a staggering figure of 1288 feature films. The provision of 100% foreign direct investment has made the Indian film market attractive for foreign enterprises such as 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures, Walt Disney Pictures and Warner Bros. Indian enterprises such as Zee, UTV, Adlabs and Sun Network’s Sun Pictures also participated in producing and distributing films. Tax incentives to multiplexes have aided the multiplex boom in India. By 2003 as many as 30 film production companies had been listed in the National Stock Exchange of India, making the commercial presence of the medium felt.

The Indian diaspora consists of millions of Indians overseas for which films are made available both through mediums such as DVDs and by screening of films in their country of residence wherever commercially feasible. These earnings, accounting for some 12% of the revenue generated by a mainstream film, contribute substantially to the overall revenue of Indian cinema, the net worth of which was found to be US$1.3 billion in 2000. Music in Indian cinema is another substantial revenue generator, with the music rights alone accounting for 4-5% of the net revenues generated by a film in India.

Renamed Bollywood

The term Bollywood itself has origins in the 1970s, when India overtook America as the world’s largest film producer. The name Bollywood is derived from Bombay (the former name for Mumbai) and Hollywood, the center of the American film industry. However, unlike Hollywood, Bollywood does not exist as a physical place. Though some deplore the name, arguing that it makes the industry look like a poor cousin to Hollywood, it has its own entry in the Oxford English Dictionary.

The naming scheme for Bollywood was inspired by Tollywood, the name that was used to refer to the cinema of West Bengal. Dating back to 1932, Tollywood was the earliest Hollywood-inspired name, referring to the Bengali film industry based in Tollygunge, whose name is reminiscent of Hollywood and was the center of the cinema of India at the time. It was this chance juxtaposition of two pairs of rhyming syllables, Holly and Tolly, that led to the name Tollywood being coined. The name Tollywood went on to be used as a nickname for the Bengali film industry by the popular Kolkata-based Junior Statesman youth magazine, establishing a precedent for other film industries to use similar-sounding names, eventually leading to the term Bollywood being coined.

Bollywood today is by far the fastest growing film industry in the world. Wow, what an amazing success story. Definitely deserves a big applaud and the biggest show ever by the industry when very soon Bollywood celebrates centenary.

The Early Icons

Life in India would not be the same without the exuberance of cinema, song and dance, melodrama, relevent messages—Indian films have them all, and usually all together in one film. Stars and super stars, hits and failures, outright commercial films and the art genre of films—all are woven together as entertainment supreme. Of the numberless individuals associated with cinema, some are eternally identifiable. Their image and hallmark style render them unforgettable. Some of these marvels are presented here—Bollywood’s big three icons of the early years.

V. Shantaram (1901-1990)

Born Rajaram Venkundre Shantaram in Kolhapur, he hardly had any education. He started his career in theatres as a curtain puller with the Gandharv Natak Mandli. He joined Baburao Painter’s Maharashtra Film Company and learnt the intricacies of film making from Painter, incuding acting. In 1929 he formed Prabhat Film Company with the help of some friends. Initially Shantaram followed Painter’s formula of mythologicals and historicals. However, his visit to Germany changed his entire outlook as he made Amrit Manthan (1934) on return from Germany. The film beautifully depicted the tension between Budhism and established religious creeds. The close ups and long views were particularly effective. He was one of the early film producers to realize the efficacy of the film medium as an instrument of social change and used it successfully to advocate humanism on one hand and expose bigotry and injustice on the other. Amar Jyoti (1936) was an interesting feminist film about a woman who rebels against injustice by becoming a Pirate Queen. Dunia Na Mane (1937) was the story of a young woman refusing to accept her marriage to a much older man. Admi (1939), a love story of a policeman and a prostitute is regarded his finest film. The film was significant not only in terms of thematic content but also as work of motion picture art, technical innovations and artistic integrity. Padosi (1941) made a strong plea for communal harmony. Its interesting that Mazhar Khan, a Muslim, plays the Hindu and Gajanan Jagirdar, a Hindu, played the Muslim in the film. Shakuntala (1943) was one of his biggest grossers, the first film to run for more than hundred weeks. Jayshree who played the title role in the movie became a top star overnight. Shantaram took her as his second wife and repeated her as leading lady in his next movie, Dr. Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani (1946), in which he himself played the title role. The film based on K. A. Abbas’s short novel And One Did Not Come Back was an impressive anti-war effort. The film received international recognition in Toronto Film Festival 1947. Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baje (1955), his first color film was a box-office smash. The message of the film that India must preserve her artistic tradition and not be swayed by the West was lapped up by the audiences. Do Aankhen Barah Haath (1957), a brilliant film, depicted the true humanbeing within. A policeman (Shantaram) sets up a farm with six murderers. The venture is successful and the murderers prove themselves to be essentially simple people. The film won many national and international awards including Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival besides President’s Gold Medal as the best feature of 1957 in India. A prayer song in the movie, Ai Malik Tere Bande Hum became a big hit and was adopted by most schools as their morning prayer. Pinjra (1972) was Shantaram’s last most acclaimed movie which gave a strong and convincing message against capital punishment.

Mehboob Khan (1906-1964)

A man of humble beginnings and little formal education, Mehboob Khan, like many other filmmakers of his time, learnt his craft in the Theatre. Born Ramjan Khan in Billimoria, Gujarat, he ran away from home to Bombay and spent his earlier youth scrounging work in studios. He started his career with the Imperial Film Company as a bit player, graduated to acting then directing, to become one of India’s greatest filmmakers. The common motif in his movies usually was the oppressed poor pitted against the oppressive rich, be it the poor peasant woman against the slimmy zamindar in Aurat (1940), the poor tribal against the money-grabbing capitalist in Roti (1942), or the commoner agaist the prince in Aan (1952). Mehboob was a great lover of music and in all his movies he paid greatest attention to music. Manmohan (1936), his first big musical hit was inspired by Barua’s Devdas (1935), and its leading actor Surendra, was declared Saigal of Bombay on release of the movie. Mehboob produced many musicals thereafter repeating his favorite singing star Surendra in most of them—Deccan Queen (1936), Jagirdar (1937), Alibaba (1940), Aurat (1940), Anmol Ghadi (1946), Elan (1947) and Anokhi Ada (1949). Anmol Ghadi created a stir because of