FilmIndia (Jan-Nov 1942)

FILMINDIA May 1942 industry suffers a set-back in its natural process of stabilization. Taking a recent example we had the misfortune of seeing during April five pictures: "Kiski-Bibi", "Malan", "Kirti", "Society" and "Paisa'. All these were products of free lancers and all of them failed to be popular. Our own opinion is that all these five pictures should not have been produced at all. They had nothing in them worth the huge trouble of production. All of them together contributed to a waste of at least three lakhs of rupees. Imagine the criminal waste of raw films and chemicals these pictures have unnecessarily caused in these times. The same raw stock would have, otherwise, been available for regular studios, whose product is liked by the public and who employ a regular army of workers for years. Somehow, the studio owners who hire their studios to the free-lance producers do not seem to realize the wisdom of conserving our resources in raw stock and chemicals. In pursuing a short-sighted policy of earning small profits by hiring, they prejudice the long-range prospects of their own production activities. To save our entertainment industry, it is necessary that our regular and well established studios should continue to function uniformly and the only way to do so is by cutting down unnecessary waste in our raw stock resources. If the film industry is to survive, our present day irresponsible free-lance production must stop and the industry in general must reorganize itself on a war-time basis so that within the minimum available resources, the industry can still meet the demand of the people for entertainment. The human side of the whole problem is also equally important and should deserve the attention of our producers who call themselves industrialists. The film industry in all its different branches regularly employs over 60,000 persons and the maintenance of these people is entirely dependent on the product of the regular and well established studios and not at all on the mushroom productions. If these well established institutions are starved of their vital supplies, partly due to the present war exigency and partly owing to the waste caused by free lancers, a large army of regularly employed persons will be thrown out of work causing severe economic distress all round. In addition, therefore, to the industrial need, the present problem throws a moral responsibility on our industrialists to support and maintain their old colleagues and workers who have, for years in the past, helped them to earn and accumulate profits. Between the Indian Motion Picture Producers' Association and the Kcdaks, the sole suppliers of raw films, present day suicidal production by free lancers can be easily stopped. We h>pe, both the institutions show enough moral vurage to save *he situation from getting worse than it is new. THE THEATRE MAGNIFICENT ? The Regal Cinema, the theatre magnificent in Bombay, is gradually beccming a disgusting place of entertainment. A two-and-half hours' show on a crowded Sunday becomes a spot of torture to the average cine-goer, especially on a mid-summer day. No one disputes the cinema's claim to an air-conditioning plant but the damn thing seems to belong to a thinking type of mechanism working by fits and starts. It has, by now, given so many exhibitions of its mood that the air-conditioning plant at the Regal Cinema can be truthfully called absolutely unreliable. If a plant fails in its primary purpose of conditioning the air, what the hell ;s it there for? Add to this, the nuisance of the smokers' smoke in the auditorium and you won't be surprised to see people's bodies sweating and eyes watering through a continuous two and half hours of "entertainment". When people come out, with their red inflamed eyes and wet clothes, they present an appearance of having escaped from a torture chamber. What about the other plant that is supposed to pump in fresh air every few minutes? Why isn't that working? Well, the Regal is no longer "magnificent" with these inconveniences and it is a pity that some great pictures produced by the 20th Century Fox have to be seen by us sitting in a torture chamber. Perhaps, Mr. C. B. Newbery of 20th Century Fox cannot get a better theatre for his pictures. Imagine seeing and hearing Carmen Miranda. Alice Faye and other charmers under these conditions. Bah! what an entertainment! Padmadein makes one more Bengali picture "Karnar jun" in Calcutta,