Alam Ara platinum jubilee
Thursday,
March
16,
2006
Mumbai(UNI):
It
was
on
March
14,
1931,
Imperial
Movietone
released
'Alam
Ara',
the
first
full-length
Indian
talkie
film
at
Majestic
cinema
in
Mumbai
(then
Bombay),
but
yesterday
when
it
completed
75
years,
there
was
not
a
single
programme
in
Bollywood
to
mark
the
historic
occassion.Alam
Ara,
directed
by
Ardeshir
Irani,
laid
a
milestone
that
marked
the
stepping
into
the
new
talkie
era.
The
cast
of
'Alam
Ara'
comprised
Master
Vithal,
Miss
Zubeida
and
Prithviraj
Kapoor
among
others.
It
had
music
by
Ferozshah
M
Mistri,
B
Irani.
The
movie,
when
released,
set
box
office
on
fire,
literally.
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
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
crowd.
For
weeks
together
tickets
were
sold
out
and
blackmarket
vendors
had
their
day.
Though sound era had been launched few years ago by the Warner Bros with 'Don Juan' (1926) starring Mary Astor with synchronised musical score and sound effects and followed by Jazz Singer. But it was 'Lights of New York' (1928) that was the first talkie film followed closely by Hitchcock's 'Blackmail' (Britain) and Rene Clair's 'Sous Les Toits Paris' (France). Meanwhile, India's first synchronised film was 'Melody of Love' by Madan Theatres in 1929.
The talkies era silenced a whole generation of artistes, 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 badly hit as there was no playback and direct recording meant artistes had to sing their own songs.
On the other side, 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. Also, it gave a temporary respite from pressing foreign competition. Foreign films now suffered a reversal as English dialogue limited the audience to European and a small number of English-speaking Indians.
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