ARDESHIR IRANI 
 THE FATHER OF INDIAN TALKIES 
BY B.M. MALHOTRA

Just as the sobriquet, “The Father of Indian cinema” embellished the name of Dadasaheb D.G. Phalke for the creation of his and India’s first feature film, Raja Harishchandra (1913), a similar honorific, “The Father of Indian Talkies” was bestowed upon Ardeshir M. Irani after he successfully made his and India’s first taking feature film, Alam Ara (1931).

During the nearly two-decade-long span intervening the releases of these two path-breaking and trail-blazing films, hundreds of other silent movies were made by several Indian companies, but the novelty of sound constituting dialogues, songs and background music added a new fascinating dimension to moving pictures, which people started watching with increased enthusiasm and pleasure.

Songs, which formed an integral part of talkies as in the erstwhile Parsee Theatre and other Indian regional stage plays, became very popular for both their wordings and melodious rendition by singing actors and actresses, some of whom were quite talented and well trained besides being guided by expert music composers.

The idea for creation of a talking feature film germinated from the screening in 1930 in Mumbai’s Krishna Theatre of a short talkie programme showing a Khadi Exhibition with voices and sounds and a dubbed dance by that era’s top heroine, Sulochana (real name: Ruby Meyers) from her popular silent movie, Madhuri (1928).

The idea dominated the fancy of several film making companies, which announced launching of a number of films with synchronized dialogues and songs but their particularly coveted aim and hidden agenda was to achieve the pioneering distinction of creating India’s first talking feature film

Three well-ensconced and flourishing filmmaking institutions, Madan Theatres, Krishna Film Company and Imperial Film Company too entered the arena of competition to realize the same ambition.

Imperial Film Company, guided by its owner, producer and director, Ardeshir Irani (born at Pune in December, 1886) promptly drew up a plan meticulously and went ahead in right earnest to execute it speedily and stealthily. Eventually, it succeeded in racing ahead of its two main as well as all other rivals when it released its and India’s first talkie feature film, Alam Ara at Mumbai’s Majestic Cinema on March 14, 1931.

Irani, who initially exhibited foreign films in tents and later also Indian movies in regular cinema halls, was propelled to make films by the extraordinarily successful runs, at his own theatre, Majestic, of Phalke’s silent classics, Krishna Janam (1918) and Kalia Mardan (1919).
He first set up Star Films Limited with his photographer partner, Bhogilal K.M.Dave and produced Veer Abhimanyu (1922) featuring the popular stage actress, Fatima Begum, who later became India’s first woman producer-director and whose daughter, Zubeida blossomed into a glamorous actress. Later, when the partnership broke, Irani launched his Majestic Films, followed by Royal art Studio and finally in 1926, the Imperial Film Company and churned out a surfeit of diverse movies.

While watching intently Universal’s film Showboat, Irani resolved to adapt for his first talkie the popular stage play, Alam Ara, which was written by Joseph David, the playwright of the former Parsee Theater. Naming his film also Alam Ara, he studded it with seven songs, the first of them being the well known and oft-cited W.M. Khan-rendered, “De de Khuda ke naam par pyaare, taaqat ho gar dene ki” (Give alms in the name of God, dear Sir, if you have the power to give) to the music scored by Ferozshah M. Mistri.

The other songs, which too were typical of the then prevalent Urdu-Hindi language and the style of stage vocal music, were: “Badla dilwaayega ya Rab, tu sitamgaaron se” (God! You’ll have avenged the tyrants’ cruelty), “Rootha hai aasmaan, gum ho gaya mehtab” (The sky is angry and the moon has vanished), “Teri kateeli nigaahon ne maara” (Your angular eyes have shot darts at me), “De dil ko aaram ai saaqi-e gulfaam” ( Provide relief to my heart O beautiful server of wine), “ Bhar bhar ke jam pilaaye ja” ( Give me more and more cupfuls of liquor) and “Daras bina more tarse hain nain, pyaare” (My eyes thirst for a sight of yours, my dear!).
The songs and dialogues were recorded on a single-system Tanar recorder, which necessitated a clever concealment of the sensitive apparatus away from the noise of the whirring cine-camera and sundry other sounds, including those created by running railway trains close to where the recording studio was situated. The recording was, therefore, done in the quiet hours of the night after each day’s last train had passed by. This arrangement brought a two-fold advantage to the company, which besides achieving qualitative recording could keep the progress of the project under wraps especially from its competitors.
The lead players of the film were Zubeida, the glamorous upcoming heroine and Master Vithal, the popular action star of the Marathi silent movies. They were supported by the future thespian, Prithviraj Kapoor, Jagdish Sethi, Yakub, W.M. Khan, Zillubai and L.V. Prasad, who later became a successful producer and director. Completed in five months, this 10500 feet long talkie cost rupees 40,000 and it was such a sparkling success that its tickets, officially priced at a quarter rupee, were sold for Rs five each leading thereby to the sprouting of an instant black market.

The film’s hero, Master Vithal, with his imposing physique and athletic prowess was known as India’s Douglas Fairbanks but he could not deliver his dialogues correctly and fluently because of his lack of adequate knowledge of Urdu which was the predominant language of the stage and cinema of that time. Appropriately, therefore, he was cast as a prince, who for a considerable length of the film, remained in a trance with his lips virtually sealed. Interestingly, Sharda Studio, the former employer of Master Vithal, sued him for his shifting loyalty to the Imperial Film Company for this film. He was, however, successfully defended by none other than Mohammed Ali Jinah, who was then a well known lawyer of Mumbai and later the founder of Pakistan.

In the film’s story there is a king with his two queens but without an issue. After one queen gives birth to a son, the other out of jealousy plots his death. The army chief, who refuses to join her in her nefarious scheme, is jailed and his family exiled. His daughter, Alam Ara is brought up by nomads, who years later successfully invade the kingdom, release the army chief and have the guilty queen punished. These developments end happily when Alam Ara and the prince, who had fallen in love with each other, are married.

Alam Ara was quickly followed by Krishna Film Company’s Ghar Ki Lakshmi and Madan Theatre’s Shirin Farhad, but despite their technical superiority with excellent sound recording it was Alam Ara which won greater glory and popularity mainly for its being more a novelty package than a product of technical finesse.

Irani won further laurels by making India’s first talkie in English, Noorjahan (1932), as also the country’s first Persian film, Dukhtar-E-Lur (1933), which he followed with two more pictures, Firdousi and Shirin Farhad in the same language.

He also achieved another pair of firsts by setting up India’s earliest colour laboratory and producing the country’s first colour picture, Kisan Kanya (1937).
After a long creative innings marked by a cluster of ‘firsts’, as explained above, and around 200 films on diverse themes in various languages, including German, this ‘grand old man” and “The Father of Indian Talkies” passed away on October 14, 1969 after, of course, securing a special place for himself in the annals of Indian cinema.

Posted by B.M Malhotra at 23:50 No comments: