A NEW ERA WITH "ALAM ARA"

It was exactly this day, 92 years ago, that school teacher Khan Bahadur Ardeshir Irani gifted the Indian cinema it's first talking movie, "Alam Ara." And Wazir Mohammed Khan became India's first playback singer...

Breaking the silent film era by way of dialogues, music and playback, the police had to be called in to control the crowds at Bombay’s Majestic Cinema...

A masterpiece of it's time, with no print or records believed to have survived as per the National Archives of India, except perhaps for a few stills and posters, the British Film Institute in 2017 declared it as the most important of any lost films produced in India...

Ardeshir Irani made his first film in 1922, Veer Abhimanyu, after he founded Star Films. His next venture in 1925, Imperial Films, saw the induction of new actors, which included Prithviraj Kapoor and Mehboob Khan.

Honing his skills along with learning sound recording and other finer points in England, Irani introduced the concepts of artificial lighting and indoor shooting. Irani was also instrumental for introducing the first indigenously made color film, Kisan Kanya, in 1937.

In an eventful career, second perhaps to only Dadasaheb Phalke, spanning two and half decades between WW1 and WW2, Irani the veteran of 158 films hung up his boots with Pujari, in 1945.

While it could be natural for us to be in awe of the efforts undertaken then to tackle the logistical ordeals, it is noteworthy that the film was shot in a studio close to the railway tracks, thus necessitating work from 1am to 4 am. With around 78 actors contributing their voice for the epic cause, the film introduced the concept of music and playback in Indian cinema, which subsequently made rapid strides to remain one of the important constituents of Indian films till date...

With the latest Oscar awards adding feathers to the Indian cinema’s cap, which boasts of around 1,800 movies annually, literally a global entertainment enterprise that attracts an audience from over 90 countries, thanks are largely due to the great entrepreneurship of this one man, Ardeshir Irani, who set the ball rolling as it were, over nine decades ago...


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