Alam Ara

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Alam Ara
File:Alam Ara poster, 1931.jpg


Theatrical release poster

Directed by Ardeshir Irani


Produced by Ardeshir Irani
Starring Template:Plainlist
Cinematography Adi M. Irani
Edited by Ezra Mir
Music by Template:Plainlist





Country India
Language Hindustani
Budget Template:INR40,000Template:Sfn


Alam Ara (Template:Translation) is a 1931 Indian Hindustani-language historical fantasy film directed and produced by Ardeshir Irani. It revolves on a king and his two wives, Navbahaar and Dilbahaar, who are childless; soon, a fakir (Muhammad Wazir Khan) tells the king that the former wife will give birth to a boy, later named Qamar (Master Vithal), but the child will die following his 18th birthday if Navbahaar cannot find the necklace he asks for. Meanwhile, the king finds out that Dilbahaar falls for the senapati Adil (Prithviraj Kapoor), leading the king to arrest him and evicts his pregnant wife, who later gives birth to Alam Ara (Zubeida).

Irani was inspired to make Alam Ara, after watching the 1929 American romantic drama part-talkie Show Boat. The story was adapted from the Bombay-based dramatist Joseph David's play of the same name. Made on a production cost of Template:INRConvert, the film's principal photography was handled by Adi M. Irani within four months at Jyoti Studios in Bombay (present-day Mumbai). Because the studio was located near a railway track, it was filmed mostly during the nighttime to avoid noise from the active trains. Following the filming, Ardeshir Irani finished the sound recording using the single-system recording. Firozshah Mistry and B. Irani served as the music director.

Alam Ara was released on 14 March 1931. Exact figures for its box-office earnings are not available, but historians believed that the film performed well at the box office. Critics were appreciative of the film, with the performance and songs got the most attention though some of whom criticised the sound recording. In addition to the successes, Alam Ara was also widely considered as a major breakthrough for Indian film industry and Ardeshir Irani's career with its status as the country's first sound film. Although no print or gramophone record of the film is known to survive, thereby making it a lost film, surviving artefacts includes its stills and posters. In 2017, the British Film Institute declared it as the most important of any lost films produced in India.

Plot

A king and his two wives, Navbahaar and Dilbahaar, are childless. Soon, a fakir tells Navbahaar that she will give birth to a boy but she must find a necklace tied round a fish's neck—which will only appear once at lake of the palace—if she want her son did not die on his 18th birthday. After born, the boy is named by Navbahaar as Qamar. Beside that, Dilbahaar has an extramarital affair with the palace's senapati, Adil. The king subsequently finds out about this, and Dilbahaar tells him that Adil who seduces her first. Therefore, the king arrested Adil and evicts his pregnant wife Mehar Nigar, from the palace; Nigar gives birth to Alam Ara and died when a shikari tells information related to her husband. The same shikari later serves as an adopter for Ara.

Dilbahaar is jealous of Navbahaar and knows about her agreement with the fakir. When the necklace appears on Qamar's 18th birthday, she secretly replaces it with the fake one, which makes Qamar dies. His family, however, do not bury his body and starts looking for the fakir to find what was wrong. Qamar will live again every night when Dilbahaar remove the necklace from her neck, and later dies when she wears it in the morning. Apart from that, Ara knows about her innocent father's suffering, vowing to release him from the jail. On her visits to the place one night, Ara sees the alive Qamar and falls for him. Everyone in the palace subsequently knows about Dilbahaar's foulplay and finally gets the real necklace, with Adil is released. The film ends with Qamar and Alam Ara happily live.Template:Sfn

Cast

Other supporting roles were played by Jilloo, Sushila, Elizer, Jagdish Sethi, L. V. Prasad, and Yaqub.Template:Sfnm

Production

File:Ardeshir Irani recording Alam Ara, 1931.jpg
Irani at the sets of Alam Ara, recording the film's sound

After watching the Harry A. Pollard's 1929 American romantic drama part-talkie Show Boat at Excelsior Theatre in Bombay (present-day Mumbai), the director and producer Ardeshir Irani was inspired to make his next project a sound film.Template:Sfnm Although have no experience for a film of the type, he determined to make it and decided to not follow any precedents.Template:Sfn The project was subsequently titled Alam Ara and produced by Irani for Imperial Film Company (IFC), an entertainment studio he co-founded with the tent showman Abdulally Esoofally in 1926.Template:Sfnm The story was adapted from the Bombay-based dramatist Joseph David's Parsi play of the same name, while the screenplay was done by Irani.Template:Sfnm The dialogue was written in Hindustani, a mix of Hindi and Urdu.Template:Sfn

Zubeida was cast as the title role. Prior to her, Ruby Myers, who had worked for Irani in several films, was the first choice to play the part. However, due to her inability to speak the language, he later choose Zubeida to replace her.Template:Sfn This left Myers disappointed and she took a one-year hiatus from acting, perfecting her ability to speak Hindustani.Template:Sfn Irani initially wanted the debutant Mehboob Khan to be the male lead, but later change his mind and wanted an "more commercially-viable" actor, this opportunity was taken by Master Vithal—one of the most successful stunt of Indian silent cinema.Template:Sfn In later years, Khan would admit that it left him unhappy.Template:Sfnm When Vithal decided to star in the film, he ended his ongoing contract with Saradhi Studios, at which he started his career as a stunt, and it made face legal issues as the studio believed he had breach of contract. With help from his lawyer Muhammad Ali Jinnah, he won the case and moved to IFC to play the male lead of Alam Ara.Template:Sfnm

Alam Ara, which was funded by the business tycoon Seth Badriprasad Dube, costed Template:INRConvert.Template:Sfn Principal photography was completed by Adi M. Irani at Jyoti Studios in Bombay within four months, using equipment that was bought from Bell & Howell.Template:Sfnm When being interviewed by Bhagwan Das Garga, Ardeshir Irani confessed that he kept the project a secret during its production.Template:Sfn H. M. Reddy, Bharucha, Gidwani, and Pessi Kerani were the assistant directors.Template:Sfnm As the studio was located near a railway track, the film was shot mostly during the nighttime—between 1.00 and 4.00—to avoid noise from the active trains, which according to Ardeshir Irani would pass every several minutes.Template:Sfnm Microphones were placed at concealed locations around the actors.Template:Sfn

Irani and Rustom Bharucha, a lawyer and the manager of his another production company, Imperial Studios, worked as sound technicians for the film.Template:Sfnm Before the shooting started, they learned the basics of sound recording from the American expert Wilford Deming. When Deming came to Mumbai to give them the sound machines, he charged Template:INRConvert, which Irani considered as a large number at the time. Irani could not fulfill his demand and later finished it by himself and Bharucha. They used Tanar, a single-system recording by which sound is recorded at the same time of shooting.Template:Sfn After the filming ended, Alam Ara was edited by Ezra Mir and its final reel length was Template:Convert.Template:Sfnm In 2011, the magazine Outlook reported that the cast and crew were pleased to be parts of the film and ready to receive lesser pays for their work.Template:Sfn

Soundtrack

The soundtrack to Alam Ara was released by Saregama,Template:Sfn and has a total of seven songs: "De De Khuda Ke Naam Pe Pyaare", "Badla Dilwayega Yaar Ab Tu Sitamgaroon Se", "Rootha Hai Aasmaan", "Teri Kateelee Nigaahon Ne Mara", "De Dil Ko Aaram Aey Saaki Gulfaam", "Bhar Bhar Ke Jaam Pila Ja", dan "Daras Bin Morey Hain Tarse Nayna Pyare".Template:Sfn "De De Khuda Ke Naam Pe Pyaare", sung by Mohammad Wazir Khan, became popular at the time of its release and was acknowledged as the first song of Hindi cinema; the other six songs was mostly performed by Zubeida.Template:Sfn The credit of the film, however, did not mention both the music director and lyricist. According to Ferozshah Mistri's son Kersi Mistri, all of the song were composed by his father; in contrast, the film's booklets mentioned B. Irani as the composer.Template:Sfn Ardeshir Irani said that he did not know who the music directors are, adding that he had only a pump organ and tabla player. Furthermore, he confessed that the lyrical composition was done by himself.Template:Sfn

Release and reception

File:Alam Ara advertisement.jpg
A promotional poster for Alam Ara at Majestic Cinema

Distributed by Sagar Movietone, Alam Ara premiered at Majestic Cinema, Bombay on 14 March 1931, and the screening there run for eight weeks.Template:Sfnm Ramesh Roy, an office boy of IFC, brought the film's reel to the theatre. When Mayank Shekhar of the Hindustan Times interviewed him in 2006, he recalled it as "a moment in history, when the public coming out of the show wouldn't stop talking about the film they'd seen, that also talked!"Template:Sfn According to Daily Bhaskar, crowds of people would stand in line from 9.00 AM although the first show occurred at 3.00 PM.Template:Sfn As a solution, police were assigned to the theatre and allowed to use sticks to control the crowds and traffic.Template:Sfnm Sharmistha Gooptu, in her article published in The Times of India, reported: "[Alam Ara] is proving to a great attraction at the Majestic Cinema, and crowded houses have been the order of the day."Template:Sfn It was also the first film to be screened at Imperial Cinema in Paharganj.Template:Sfn

The film clashed with Shirin Farhad, a J.J. Madan-directed musical film that was released around two months later. Exact figures for the box-office earnings of Alam Ara are not available, but many historians believed that the film performed well. According to the Encyclopaedia of Hindi Cinema in 2003, the film was more successful than Shirin Farhad;Template:Sfnm a 2006 report from The Hindu stated that it became an "instant hit".Template:Sfn Similar thoughts were given by Roy Armes, in his book titled Third World Film Making and the West (1987), calling the film "an enormous popular success".Template:Sfn In 2012, the writer of Outlook observed that the film's commercial performance "dealt a body blow to the careers of the reining stars of [silent] cinema", including Vithal especially since he was not fluent in Hindustani language.Template:Sfn

Critics were generally positive of Alam Ara, praising the performance of the cast but some of whom criticising the sound recording; they have noted that it has "shared many of the common defects of Indian productions" and ended a trend where the previous Indian films always promoting social values in their plot.Template:Sfn On 2 April 1931, The Bombay Chronicle took note of Irani's "thoughtful" direction as well as applauded the performances from Vithal, Zubeida and Kapoor, which the reviewer thought have evolved dramatic values that silent films could not do.Template:Sfn In the magazine's June 1932 issue, American Cinematographer gave a scathing review, saying that "[t]hroughout, the blindest groping for fundamental facts was evident"; the reviewer wrote that the laboratory processing and sound recording were the biggest issues of the film.Template:Sfn A writer of The Times of India observed of how the actors lacked experiences in talking near microphones, which made them were like screaming.Template:Sfn Indian Talkie (a magazine published by the Film Federation of India from 1931 to 1956) called the film "the birth cry of the talkie".Template:Sfn

Legacy

File:Master Vithal and Zubeida in Alam Ara, 1931.jpg
Vithal and Zubeida in a scene of the film. The scene was later re-created by Google into a doodle in 2011

Alam Ara is widely regarded as the first sound film of India.Template:Sfn It has been described as the rise of the Indian cinema of early 1930s, and in its 2013 report, The Times of India added, "... edging out the advantage enjoyed by imported films in the silent era, when the largest share of the Indian market was taken by American films ... this transition also made for the rise of a host of new operators, who would become the industry’s vanguard in the first talkie era."Template:Sfn The author Nasreen Munni Kabir, quoted from her book Indian Film Music (1991), believed that it has made later films produced in the country more dependent on songs "in a way that has differentiated Indian cinema from most world cinema".Template:Sfn Writing for The Rough Guide to World Music (1999), Mark Ellingham reported that the film's success has made influence to India, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar.Template:Sfn In 2003, the scholar Shoma Chatterji hailed, "With the release of Alam Ara, Indian cinema prove two things—that films could now be made in a regional language that the local viewers could understand; and that songs and music [were] integral part[s] of the entire form and structure of the Indian film."Template:Sfn

The film is also considered as a turning point of Ardeshir Irani's career and gave him a reputation as the "father of Indian talkies".Template:Sfn Impressed by it, the producer Birendranath Sircar later acquired the recording equipment of the film and contacted Deming to work with him in Calcutta (present-day Kolkata).Template:Sfn Irani used the sets of the film to shoot his next production venture, titled Kalidas, which would become the first Indian multilingual film following its release in 1931.Template:Sfnm Alam Ara is listed in "40 Firsts in Indian Cinema" by NDTV in 2013,Template:Sfn "100 Filmfare Days" by Filmfare in 2014,Template:Sfn and "70 Iconic Films of Indian Cinema" by Mint in 2017.Template:Sfn In 2011, Google made a doodle to celebrate its 80th release anniversary, featuring Vithal and Zubeida.Template:Sfn The writer Renu Saran features the film in the book 101 Hit Films of Indian Cinema (2014).Template:Sfn In the same year, a 2015 calendar titled "The Beginnings of Indian Cinema" was released, featuring the poster of its.Template:Sfn The film is remade for at least four times: by Chitrapu Narayana Rao in Telugu in 1942 and 1967, and by Nanubhai Vakil in Hindi in 1956 and 1973.Template:Sfnm

No print of Alam Ara is known to survive and makes it a lost film, but several stills and posters are available.Template:Sfnm According to an article published by The Indian Express, several publications and the film's entry on Wikipedia had mistakenly stated that the film's last print was destroyed by a fire at the National Film Archive of India in 2003. Its founder P. K. Nair declined the reports, clarifying in 2011 that it has been lost before the archive itself was established in 1964. He added the fire only destroyed mostly the nitrate negatives of Prabhat Film Company, and confirmed that he had received several photographs of the film from Irani and his son Shapoorji.Template:Sfn Nair estimated that 70 percent of pre-1950 Indian films are lost.Template:Sfn In 2017, the British Film Institute's Shruti Narayanswamy declared Alam Ara as the most important lost film of India.Template:Sfn

See also

References

Sources

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