FilmIndia (Jan-Nov 1942)

May 1942 FILM INDIA point in the brief interview he granted to our special representative. We will of course be quite slow to learn, both we and our anti-dated India government. Sir Stafford had scarcely the necessary time to develop this point, even if he had the knowledge. Accidentally enough, we have come across a report in the New York Times on how Russia has been making her morale films when Hitler's panzer divisions were in her front yard. The Soviet studios have responded by creating a new type of morale film, the essentials of which are brevity, wit and variety. Production of these films is allocated among various studios and coordinated by the newly formed government war films studio. "Most of these pictures do not exceed two reels in length but are released in groups as complete programmes with the overall series title '^Victory Will Be Ours." "Programme One", for example, includes "A Dream in the Hand" in which Herr Hitler has a nightmare of past German failures to conquer Russian soil. It was made with footage borrowed from "Alexander Nevsky" and "Shors". The first portrayed the defeat of the Teutonic knights in 1242; the second celebrated the expulsion of German troops from the Ukrain in 1919. "Programme Two", contains "Courage", re-enacting the feat of a Soviet Army Sergeant, who singlehanded picked off thirteen members of a Nazi scouting party and captured the survivors. This programme also offers Boris Chirkov, hero of the Maxim trilogy, as "Anton Rybkin", an army cook who falls victim to one comic misadventure after another. "Perhaps the mcst imaginative subject in the four programmes released so far is "Incident in a Telegraph Office". A long queue of disgruntled but patient citizens who are waiting to file messages. Suddenly Napoleon, reincarnate, barges to the head of the line and orders the clerk to transmit an important message for him! This message is full of advice to Hitler on the subject of winning a Russian campaign. When the crowd hears it, they reply in a song full of gibes and militancy, while on the screen the audience sees newsreel shots of Russia's defence effort at the front and behind the lines. "If the Soviet film industry has hit its wartime stride neither was it caught napping when the bombs began to fall on June 22. As of that date there were at least half a dozen feature length films on hand suitable for stirring the martial spirit. Foremost among these was "Girl from Leningrad", portraying the front line adventures of a volunteer nurse unit during the Finnish War of 1939-40. "The film was shot on location along the Mannerheim Line with the technical advice of veterans fresh from the campaign. It is the first entertainment film about World War II attempted by Soviet studios. Its popularity may be partly attributed to the clairvoyant note on which it ends. When the nurses assemble to be mustered out, after the peace with Finland and farewells are said, Nurse Natasha, the heroine, replies: "Goodbye — until next time"." COMRADE KANGA IN AFRICA Comrade E. P. Kanga, our Iraq hero, has written to the editor his first letter after six months' stay in East Africa. He has some sweet and bitter things to say abcut our film business in Africa and we let him tell it in his own way. Writing about "filmindia" Comrade Kanga who is our film man on the spot says: "Now don't think I am trying to flatter you. I know you are beyond idle flattery but I must say that thanks to you and "filmindia", you have made me a person well known in East Africa so much so that even a panwalla in a small town called Jinja in Uganda recognised me and addressed me as Mr. Kanga. When I asked him how he knew me he said he had seen my photo once in "filmindia" and read all about me regarding my difficulties in Iraq. Of course, credit for this goes to "filmindia", which I assure you every Indian, without exception, reads in Kenya, Uganda and Tanganika. It is one magazine which is awaited with anticipation and pleasure and when I tell the people that I have the pleasure of knowing you personally, I am virtually mobbed with questions. "One thing is certain and that is that the value of "filmindia" as the medium of advertising Indian films in East Africa is tremendous and I do wish the film industry in India realises it." Nur Jehan seems to be thinking in "Khan Daan" a Pancholi picture. 11