FilmIndia (1939)

I REGRET TO SAY 33 BY D. F. KARAKA [Mr. D. F. Karaka is the wellknown writer whose book "I Go West" attracted so much attention in India and abroad. Mr. Karaka has taken journalism as a career and has been doing plenty of writing. His article on "Adhikar" is as annoying as some of his other articles on other subjects and that is why we are publishing it. But Mr. Karaka will need plenty of luck to get away with this one. We are sure, Bengal will not swallow what Mr. Karaka has written, so easily. The Editor.] Last week I saw "Adhikar". It i the second Indian picture I have ter seen. I remember many years 10 going to a picture house somcMere on the Girgaum Road to a one of the early Indian pictures Mich dealt with social life of the tahisticated type such as on.? \iuld expect to form the plot of {.Herbert Marshall Hollywood picKre. It was called "The Vamp." I have seen, during the last tii years nearly every picture that Is come out of any of the big ruses of Hollywood and England <;d which can reasonably be said tbe worth seeing. I have a taste \iiich varies from the Garbo to ii brothers Marx. I have known aiumber of people connected with tji film industry from cameramen t directors. And more than anyting else I have read Lejune ever ace I first laid hands on her artics which appear regularly in the "jnday Observer". So that when jj;ee a picture, I feel that I get rare out of it than the average f ture-goer. All this may sound Iry bumptious, and certainly not \:y modest. But I have dealt lig enough with film people to fcow that one must speak for onesf. No one else will ever speak f you. 'Adhikar" is a picture which attjnpts to portray sophisticated I It is an interesting coincidtce that after all these years the jiian film industry has only gone i>m "The Vamp" to "Adhikar". 1 c not think that anything could <;r move slower in the history ot pgress. "Adhikar" was picked at for me as being representative a the type of production which Is timed out of one of the leading Idian film studios of the moment ad as the New Theatres Studios aswer to the description of being i the front line of Indian pro duction "Adhikar" was obviously the picture to see. CUT OFF 9000 FEET TO MAKE IT A PICTURE My predominant impression at seeing this picture was that with certain definite changes this could turn out to be a reasonably interesting film to which one could go to while away a few hours in the evening. The reservations are these. I would first of all cut some nine thousand feet of that picture and put that roll of cellu Mr. D. F. Karaka loid where it belongs — in the basket for collecting waste-paper. I would give the man or men wlio were responsible for its direction a handbook on the elements of direction, followed by a course ot training in the smallest of the English or American studios and make him push a camera behind a von Sternberg or a Capra before I put him on to direct a picture of that type and of that exhorb/tant proportions. I would also change a number of people in the cast. The first person who would go would be the comedian, whose acting was beyond doubt the most feeble attempt at comedy that I have seen in many years. I would employ what is known elsewhere as "the continuity girl" and would get someone with some conception of time and date and season to write the script. When these changes are made I would put "Adhikar" on the Indian screen, but not before. It is not my purpose to belittle the early efforts of a growing film industry. I know it is very easy to criticise and to destroy. I do not want to do either. I want rather to open the eyes of those in whose hands the destiny of the film industry lies to the wastage of time and money when they could do so much better towards building up an industry which has in my opinion a great future. Only when I see how these efforts are directed in the wrong direction and in the treatment of subjects wholly unsuited to them, that 1 feel something must be done to stop this cruel wastage of the energy of a whole nation which in some form or the other is used up by the film industry. It is not only the directors and the managers who form the film industry, but all the lesser men as well, all the artistes and the stand-in's and above all that vast public which puts hands in its pockets and touches gold. ONE LONG WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY! "Adhikar" struck me as one long waste of time and money. I say this with some reason. The subject of the picture, translated into one word in English means "Right". It has its setting in one of those imitations of the ultra-modern 37