FilmIndia (Jan-Nov 1942)

FILM INDIA January 1942 Director S. F. Hasnain, who made a name in "Qaidi", has now completed "Masoom", perhaps the best social picture coming from Calcutta in recent memory. THE RICH PATRONIZE THE POOR Coming to the rich side of the picture, we see a boisterous bank manager with a fashionable young wife. We are told that while the wife was away her manager-husband had managed to secure another girl for going about. With this scandal, the rich side begins its play in the story, till the wife prepares a plan to bring round her husband to see sense. The plan works out by leading a poor innocent young man to love the rich married woman and by making him a pawn in the game till the husband getting jealous restores himself to his wife. To heal the poor man's wound, a girl of his own kind is mated off with him. Dc the poor have poor hearts and believe in poor love? The plot is as follows: Indira is the wife of Bihari the young bank manager who, for a time stays away from his wife. Mohan is a poor bank clerk, struggling with his job, life and wife. He has a marriageable daughter in Gecta. Mohan's neighbour is Masterji, a school teacher, who has a grown-up son in Madan, a musician. Madan and Geeta are intended for each other, but they cannot be married straight way because story-writer Agha Jani would have no plot that way. So their affair is pulled through till the end and Madan is allowed to fall in love with a rich married woman in Indira. Madan of course is blind and stupid because till very late in the day he doesn't know that Indira is the bank manager's wife, though he calls on her every day. There is a weak-cracker-like explosion in the story at this stage and Madan is marched off to marry Geeta. We are asked to take this piece as a bit of comedy. We do. to oblige friend Agha Jani. The general technical work of the picture is far below the National standard, which is usually very high in production values. The photography of this picture is amateurish and the sound is rather loudly recorded. KANAIYALAL SMASHES THROUGH Sardar Akhtar as "Indira" has hardly anything to do. The cameraman has been very unkind to her. Harish as "Madan", the musician hero, proves a sad disappointment. His face looks too well fed and seems to have become less photo genic. Amar as "Bihari" the bank manager, from what we see of his performance in this picture, is hardly a good selection for the screen. His high cheek bones, sunken cheeks and deep-down eyes give too grim an appearance of a starving man. Sankatha as "Masterji" has done well this time in restraining his dramatic delivery of dialogues Sunalini as "Vijaya" the shrewish wife is excellent. If the recording had been in her favour, her performance would have still improved. The best bit of acting, however, is given by the inimitable Kanaiyalal as "Mohan", the poor struggling bank clerk. He takes all the sympathy of the audience right from the beginning with his choice, well spoken dialogues and well thought actions. Kanaiyalal is certainly a rare type of an artiste in our screen world and given a right role few can attain his excellence of performance. Well, "Nai Roshni" is quite a good "B" class entertainment though there is nothing much in it to shout about except the constantly punctuating humorous touches which tickle the ribs temporarily. That dark shadow is Mubarak threatening the coy Naseem in "Ujala" a Taj Mahal picture. 82