View source for Gul-e-Bakavali 1924 film

{{Short description|Indian silent film by Kanjibhai Rathod}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2026}}
{{Use Indian English|date=March 2026}}
{{Infobox film
| name           = Gul-e-Bakavali
| image          = 
| caption        = 
| director       = [[Kanjibhai Rathod]]
| writer         = Mohanlal Dave{{sfn|Sengupta|2019|p=17n16, "Mohanlal Dave, the most prolific scenario writer from the silent era, was paid 1,200 rupees per script at Kohinoor Film Company. His success had inspired many young writers to send scripts regularly to film studios (Bhaumik, 2001, pp. 80-81). His script of Gul-e-Bakavali is the only extant script from the silent era (Dharamsey, 2012)"}}
| producer       = [[Kohinoor Film Company]]
| starring       = {{plainlist|
* [[Zubeida]]
* [[Khalil (actor)|Khalil]]
* [[Fatma Begum]]
* [[Sultana (actress)|Sultana]]
}}
| cinematography = 
| editing        = 
| released       = {{Film date|1924|03| |ref1={{Sfn|Thomas|2015|p= [https://books.google.co.in/books?id=WHrmBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA59 59n4]}}}}
| country        = [[British India]]
| language       = Silent
| runtime        = 7997 ft (approx. 140 minutes)
| based_on       = The legend of Gul-e-Bakavali
}}
'''Gul-E-Bakavali''' ({{literal translation|Flower of Bakavali}}) is a 1924 Indian [[Silent film|silent]] fantasy film written in Gujarati by Mohanlal Dave, directed by [[Kanjibhai Rathod]], and produced by the [[Kohinoor Film Company]].{{Sfn|Rajadhyaksha|Willemen|2014|p=[https://books.google.co.in/books?id=rF8ABAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1977-IA724 245]}} The film stars [[Zubeida]] as Bakavali and [[Khalil (actor)|Khalil]] as Taj-ul-Mulk.{{Sfn|Rajadhyaksha|2016|p=[https://books.google.co.in/books?id=88mSDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA21 21–22], "Made with silent stars Zubeida and Khalil, who with Sulochana were India's first real movie stars, it adapted a well known theme from the Parsee stage: the folklore adventure. It drew on legends associated with the mythic flower Gul, the fairy Bakavali, and the eastern prince Taj-ul-Mulk, who wants the flower to cure his blind father. The legend itself varies from Persia to Kashmir, but takes its contemporary form from the theatre. Especially popular on the Parsee stage were scenes in which Taj-ul-Mulk faces his villainous brothers who have stolen the flower and turned Bakavali to stone, and her spectacular human re-birth."}} The film's story adapts a popular legend centered on a mystical flower believed to have healing powers, and a prince who seeks it to cure his father's blindness. Gul-E-Bakavali is described by film scholars as the 'first all-India super hit'{{Sfn|Thomas|2015|p=[https://books.google.co.in/books?id=WHrmBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA9 9], The first all-India super hit, a storm across the country in 1924, was Gul-e-Bakavali (The Bakavali Flower, Kanjibhai Rathod), a fantasy film that was made and released a year before Douglas Fairbanks's Hollywood film Thief of Bagdad (Raoul Walsh, 1924) arrived to captivate India's audiences}}{{Sfn|Rajadhyaksha|2016|p=[https://books.google.co.in/books?id=88mSDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA21 21], Gul-e-Bakavali was almost certainly the first truly national commercial hit in India}} and among the most successful silent films.{{Sfn|Rajadhyaksha|Willemen|2014|p=245–6, One of the most successful silent films tells the legend of the fairy Bakavali (Zubeida), her deivi pushp (or divine flower) Gul known for its healing powers, and the Eastern prince Taj-ul-Mulk (Khalil), who wants the flower to cure his blind father}}<ref>{{cite web | last=Gooptu | first=Sharmistha | title=Hundred years of Indian cinema | website=[[The Times of India]] | date=6 June 2012 | url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/edit-page/hundred-years-of-indian-cinema/articleshow/13854661.cms | access-date=8 July 2025|quote=There was also the genre of films like Gul-e-Bakavali (1924), inspired by the popular Parsi theatres of Bombay and Calcutta, and which also became the first blockbuster talkies.}}</ref>

The film was structured into 97 scenes and included elaborate fantasy elements distinct from the mythological themes common in Rathod and Dave's earlier works like ''[[Bhakta Vidur]]''.{{Sfn|Rajadhyaksha|Willemen|2014|p=245–246, "This version, made in 97 scenes, featured Kohinoor superstars Zubeida and Khalil. It was one of the first films to embrace the folk-fantasy mode as opposed to e.g. Rathod and Dave's mythologicals (Bhakta Vidur, Mahasati Ansuya, both 1921)."}} According to some sources, ''Gul-E-Bakavali'' ran in theatres for more than fourteen weeks and achieved unprecedented success by breaking all the records that came before it.<ref>_
*{{harvnb|Gangar|2013|p=[https://books.google.co.in/books?id=QwGgF-rDucEC&pg=PT84 90]}}
*{{harvnb|Sawhney|2020|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=36MJEAAAQBAJ&pg=RA1-PA1916 31]}}</ref> Though the original 1924 version of the film was lost, it survives in popular memory through its several regional remakes.{{sfn|Rajadhyaksha|2016|p=[https://books.google.co.in/books?id=88mSDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA21 21]}}

== Cast ==
The cast has been listed below:{{sfn|Dharamsey|2012|p=196–7}}
* [[Zubeida]] as Bakavali
* [[Khalil (actor)|Khalil]] as Taj-ul-Mulk
* [[Fatma Begum]]
* [[Sultana (actress)|Sultana]] as Memudu
* Noor Mohamed
* Savita
* Jamna as Lakhi
* Usha Rani

== Origin and adaptations ==
The story of Gul-E-Bakavali is based on a legend with multiple origins.{{sfn|Sawhney|2020|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=36MJEAAAQBAJ&pg=RA1-PA1916 31]}}{{sfn|Mukherjee|1998|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=YCJrUfVtZxoC&pg=PA121 121]}}  [[Rauf Parekh]] considers the tale to be of [[Indo-Iranian languages|Indo-Iranian]] origin.<ref name="dawn2023">{{cite news | last=Parekh | first=Rauf | title=Literary Notes: Gul-i-Bakawali & Gulzar-i-Naseem: a classical tale of Indo-Iranian origin | website=Dawn | date=2 October 2023 | url=https://www.dawn.com/news/1778898 | access-date=27 December 2025}}</ref> According to Parthasarathy and Aleem, "Some scholars suggest an origin in older oral folk traditions in either [[West Bengal|Bengal]] or [[Assam]], but the general consensus places it in [[Rewa district|Rewa]] or the wider [[Bagelkhand]] region of present-day Madhya Pradesh."<ref name="scroll2024" /> The legend's popularity largely attributed to Nihal Chand Lahori's translation of [[Izzatullah Bengali|Izzat Ali Bengali]]'s Persian narrative, influenced by [[John Gilchrist (linguist)|John Gilchrist]] at [[Fort William College]] in [[Calcutta]] in the early 19th century.<ref name="scroll2024">{{cite news | last1=Parthasarathy | first1=Adhiraj |first2=Mohammed Abdul |last2=Aleem| title=Persian prose meets pulp fiction: How an 18th-century fairy tale became a multilingual phenomenon | website=[[Scroll.in]] | date=4 August 2024 | url=https://scroll.in/article/1071528/persian-prose-meets-pulp-fiction-how-an-18th-century-fairy-tale-became-a-multilingual-phenomenon | access-date=8 July 2025|archive-date=22 August 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240822041128/https://scroll.in/article/1071528/persian-prose-meets-pulp-fiction-how-an-18th-century-fairy-tale-became-a-multilingual-phenomenon}}</ref> In 1838–39, [[Daya Shankar Kaul Nasim|Daya Shankar Kaul Naseem Lakhnavi]], a Kashmiri Pandit, versified the tale in Urdu as a masnavi titled ''Gulzar-i-Naseem'', first published in 1844.<ref name="dawn2023" />{{sfn|Mukherjee|1998|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=YCJrUfVtZxoC&pg=PA122 122]}}

Following the 1924 film directed by Kanjibhai Rathod, Gul-e-Bakavali was adapted into several Indian and Pakistani films.<ref>{{cite book | last=Siddique | first=Salma | title=Evacuee Cinema: Bombay and Lahore in Partition Transit, 1940–1960 | publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] | date= 2023 | isbn=978-1-009-17552-4 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3zWcEAAAQBAJ | page=205–6|quote=The story of Taj-ul-Mulk's adventurous quest for the miracle flower Bakawali had its earliest known film version, Gul Bakavali (1924, Bombay), made by the Kohinoor Film Company. This was followed by its remake as a talkie in 1932 by Saroj Company. Remade in the subcontinent several times since and in several languages, Lahore got its Punjabi version by the city's cinema seth, [[Dalsukh M. Pancholi|Dalsukh Pancholi]], in 1938. The Gul Bakavali of Pakistan was released in 1961 on the fourth anniversary of the 'Green Revolution, the first military coup of Pakistan in 1957, and was advertised as the latest 'revolution in Film Industry of Pakistan' for introducing colour technology into local films.}}</ref> Some of them are the 1935 Tamil version starring V.A. Chellappa and [[T.P. Rajalakshmi]], the 1938 Telugu version directed by Kallakoori Sathasiva Rao featuring [[B. Jayamma]], the 1955 Tamil version starring [[M.G. Ramachandran]], and the 1962 Telugu film [[Gulebakavali Katha]] starring [[N.T. Rama Rao]]. Hindi versions were released in 1932, 1947, 1956, and 1963.<ref>{{cite web | last=Guy | first=Randor | title=Blast from the past – Gulebakavali (1955)| website=[[The Hindu]] | date=30 October 2010 | url=https://www.thehindu.com/features/cinema/Blast-from-the-past-Gulebakavali-1955/article15798231.ece | access-date=8 July 2025|archive-date=3 November 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221103224654/https://www.thehindu.com/features/cinema/Blast-from-the-past-Gulebakavali-1955/article15798231.ece}}</ref>

== Legacy ==
A shooting script of ''Gul-e-Bakavali (1924)'' was discovered in the personal archive of film historian Virchand Dharamsey. The script, preserved in a bound notebook, contains detailed production information such as scene descriptions, shot lengths, intertitles, and others.{{Sfn|Mukherjee |2020|p=123–124, "A shooting script for the silent film Gul-e-Bakavali (Kanjibhai Rathod, 1924) was recently translated and published in the peer-reviewed journal Bio-Scope: South Asian Screen Studies. Part of the personal collection of film historian Virchand Dharamsey, this script consists of a bound notebook, 20 x 15.5 cm, with approximately 160 pages of Gujarati script handwritten by the screenwriter Mohanlal Dave. It gives the location, characters, scene description, shot size, shot length, and dialog inter-titles in separate columns for each scene."}} In 2012, it was translated and published in the peer-reviewed journal ''[[BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies]]'', and it is considered the only known surviving script of its kind from India's silent film era.{{sfn|Nelmes|Selbo|2015|p=84, "In 2012, parts of 'the only film script available from India's entire silent cinema era', Gul-e-Bakavali (Kanjibhai Rathod, 1924), were published in BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies"}}{{Sfn|Mukherjee|2020|p=124}}{{sfn|Dharamsey|2012|p=175}} Film scholar Debashree Mukherjee notes, citing ''Kaushik Bhaumik'', that the existence of such a document demonstrates that structured and technically detailed screenwriting practices were present at least in some films of Indian silent cinema, countering earlier views that such films lacked formal scripting.{{Sfn|Mukherjee|2020|p=124, "The discovery of the Gul-e-Bakavali script is historic because, as Kaushik Bhaumik emphasizes, "Not only is it the first (and so far only) film script available for the silent film era in India, it also proves that, contrary to the opinions of respondents to the Indian Cinemato-graph Committee, 1927-1928, at least some silent films had detailed scripts"}} However, scholar Rakesh Sengupta suggests that such isolated archival findings, while valuable, cannot be treated as proof of a sequential historiography of screenwriting.{{sfn|Sengupta|2021|p=7}} Rashmi Sawhney regards the film as the first 'secular' film of Bombay cinema.{{sfn|Sawhney|2020|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=36MJEAAAQBAJ&pg=RA1-PA1916 31]}}

== See also ==
Some later adaptations:
* [[Gul-E-Bakawali (1939 film)]], 1939 Indian Punjabi-language film
* [[Gulebakavali (1955 film)]], 1955 Indian Tamil-language film
* [[Gulebakavali Katha]], 1962 Indian Telugu-language film

== References ==
{{reflist}}

=== Bibliography ===
* {{cite book | last1=Rajadhyaksha | first1=Ashish | last2=Willemen | first2=Paul | title=Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema | publisher=[[Routledge]] | date=2014 | isbn=978-1-135-94318-9 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SLkABAAAQBAJ}} [https://archive.org/details/encyclopaediaofi0000raja Alt URL]
* {{cite journal |first=Virchand | last=Dharamsey |interviewer-last1=Bhaumik |interviewer-first1=Kaushik |translator-last1=Parikh |translator-first1=Ananya | title=The Script of Gul-e-Bakavali (Kohinoor, 1924) | journal=BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies | volume=3 | issue=2 | date=2012 | issn=0974-9276 | doi=10.1177/097492761200300206 | pages=175–207 | url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/097492761200300206 | url-access=subscription }}
* {{cite book | last=Mukherjee | first=Debashree | title=Bombay Hustle: Making Movies in a Colonial City | publisher=[[Columbia University Press]] | date=2020 | isbn=978-0-231-55167-0 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hfzDDwAAQBAJ}}
* {{cite book | last=Thomas | first=Rosie | title=Bombay before Bollywood: Film City Fantasies | publisher=[[State University of New York Press]] | date=2015 | isbn=978-1-4384-5677-5 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WHrmBgAAQBAJ}}
* {{cite book | last=Rajadhyaksha | first=A. | title=Indian Cinema: A Very Short Introduction | publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] | year=2016 | isbn=978-0-19-872309-7 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=88mSDAAAQBAJ }}
* {{cite book | last=Sawhney | first=Rashmi  | editor-last1=Mehta | editor-first1=Monika | editor-last2=Mukherjee | editor-first2=Madhuja | title=Industrial Networks and Cinemas of India: Shooting Stars, Shifting Geographies and Multiplying Media | publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] | date=2020 | isbn=978-1-000-29331-9 | chapter=Fatma Begum, South Asia's 'First' Female Director: Resurrections from Media and Legal Archives | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=36MJEAAAQBAJ}}
* {{cite book | last=Gangar | first=Amrit | editor-last1=Gokulsing | editor-first1=K. | editor-last2=Dissanayake | editor-first2=Wimal | title=Routledge Handbook of Indian Cinemas | publisher=[[Routledge]] | date= 2013 | isbn=978-1-136-77291-7 | chapter=Gujarati cinema: Stories of sant, sati, shethani and sparks so few | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QwGgF-rDucEC}}
* {{cite journal | last=Sengupta | first=Rakesh | title=Writing from the Margins of Media: Screenwriting Practice and Discourse During the First Indian Talkies | journal=BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies | volume=9 | issue=2 | date=2019 | issn=0974-9276 | doi=10.1177/0974927618813480 | pages=1–20 | url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0974927618813480 | url-access=subscription}}
* {{cite book | last1=Nelmes | first1=J. | last2=Selbo | first2=J. | title=Women Screenwriters: An International Guide | publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan UK]] | year=2015 | isbn=978-1-137-31237-2 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-2ekCgAAQBAJ}}
* {{cite book |last= Mukherjee|first= Sujit|date= 1998|title= A Dictionary of Indian Literature: Beginnings-1850|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=YCJrUfVtZxoC|location= |publisher=[[Orient Blackswan]] |isbn= 9788125014539}}
* {{cite journal | last=Sengupta | first=Rakesh | title=Towards a Decolonial Media Archaeology: The Absent Archive of Screenwriting History and the Obsolete Munshi | journal=Theory, Culture & Society | volume=38 | issue=1 | date=2021 | issn=0263-2764 | doi=10.1177/0263276420930276 | doi-access=free | pages=3–26 }}

== External links ==
* {{IMDb title|0256062}}

[[Category:1924 films]]
[[Category:Indian silent films]]
[[Category:Silent fantasy films]]
[[Category:Indian fantasy adventure films]]
[[Category:Films based on Indian folklore]]
[[Category:Films based on fairy tales]]
[[Category:Kohinoor Film Company films]]
[[Category:1924 Indian films]]