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FILM INDIA
December, 1940
The Bai and the Banu of "Padosi" a Prabhat picture of great social significance.
ous affiliations, it was high time for me to pause and consider whether I was not losing whatever little advantages I had when I began my career as a film critic.
When, after the sad demise of my revered friend and art guru, Kanaihyalal Vakil, I was asked to edit the Cinema page, I knew nothing about film criticism — except for a few nondescript articles on films (will it surprise Messrs. Kriparam and Gajanand Sharma to know that it was their Movies that published my first attempt at film criticism way back in 1934?) and a few months' experience of part-time publicity work in Bombay Talkies. I knew hardly anyone in the film industry, could not distinguish Chandulal Shah from Chimanlal Desai and believed the latter to be a brother of Nanubhai Desai and Kikubhai Desai! But that did not worry me. As a journalist, I had learnt to depend upon my slender literary resources for all varieties of work. I had edited the Motoring page without knowing a clutch from a gear and reviewed radio programmes by listening to them
over "single cha" in Irani restaurants.
NOT ESSENTIALLY A FILM JOURNALIST
On the other hand, I actually thought that this "ignorance"
might be a distinct asset as I was free from any kind of prejudices and preferences. Perhaps the producers and the public wculd take more kindly to the reviews of an outsider than to the veterans of film journalism. Also I believed that as one who was not essentially a film journalist, I could bring to bear on film reviews a new kind of attitude, reflecting the opinions and demands of that class cf picture goers which roughly approximates the newspaper reading public. Using my fairly varied experience during the years of reporting and miscellaneous journalism, I cculd perhaps more adequately evalute films not as bits of celluloid but as a medium for the reproducticn and enrichment of life. Yes, I actually dared to hope that in my film reviews would be heard the echo of Gandhiji's spinning wheel as well as the pleadings of the boy forced into crime by hunger, that they would draw inspiration from Jawaharlal's passionate idealism and that in them would be mirrored— and exposed — all the evils that, from experience I knew, were the results cf imperialism and capitalism. In other words, I wanted to
Sitara will be on the screen soon by A. R. Kardar for
in "Puja" a social picture directed the National Studios.