FilmIndia (1945)

OctoUcr, 1945. FILMINDIA right from the beginning and almost everyone who had something to do with films, knew Miss Haslam personally. She has two children from her first husband and only forty days before the tragic day she was married to Mr. Keenan of Ken Mac's Band. Miss Vera Sarstedt (31) was to be led to the altar very shortly and her manager Mr. Ganguly had, at her own request, brought her a special wedding dress from America where he had recently gone. The tragedy turned the dress into a shroud. Mr. Subodh Ganguly, the General Manager, was only 37. Only recently he smmmm had returned from America to take complete charge of Paramount's Indian organization. He leaves behind 7 children, the eldest being only 10 years old. Within our memory during the last 20 years about 20 serious film fires have taken place — almost one fire a year. The recent big ones have been on the 6th of July 1943 at the Famous Cine Laboratory, Tardeo, causing a loss of over Rs. 3oj lakhs to several producers. The most recent one occurred on the 30th June 1945 in the film vault of the United Artists at Marshall Building. Though this vault was built of thick solid concrete, it exploded and gutted the projection room and burnt all films. Yet after these two big and significant fires, neither the Municipal authorities nor the film people seem to have Subodh Ganguli (37). the erstwhile General Manager of Paramount leaves behind seven children — the eldest being 10 /ears. What about these children with their bread winning Papa dead ? worried much about the difficult problem of storing films, with the tragic result that 19 human lives have to be sacrificed today. Everyone in the world knows that the cinema film is an highly inflammable material. Every one should have also known, after the two big fires which were widely flashed in the newspapers, that films often explode by automatic combustion and cause fires. And yet the Municipal Licensing Department does not seem to have taken any serious notice of these grave facts, even though several lakhs of rupees worth of property was destroyed in the last two big fires. In fact the Bombay Municipality has no specific rules in existence for film storage in the city even though the film industry has been in existence for 30 years and even after so many disastrous fires in the city. Nor is there any regular periodical inspection of the places where films are stored. , Just at present, storing licenses are granted by the weight of films and because the licensing charges are also fixed in relation to the weight, the film people always quote their minimum requirements and then proceed to fill the store rooms with maximum stocks. The licensing department of the Municipality does not even know under what special conditions films should be stored to ensure safety. The general idea seems to be that concrete walls on four sides and steel cabinets inside guarantee all the safety needed. But what about explosions due to combustion? No one seems to have worried about the need of air-conditioning the storage rooms or at least the necessity of putting electrically-worked exhaustfans to keep the inside air cool and fresh. No one seems to know the simple problem that dry and hot air causes combustion especially with the highly inflammable celluloid base. Affairs have been going on in this criminal and clumsy manner for thirty years. So long as those responsible for licensing got complimentary tickets lor pictures, no one seemed anxious to make it any one's business to attend to Orphans in a minute — Gordon (12) and Pamela (14) — the two children of Carol Haslam — both in school — will now have no mother to look after them. Here is the Paramount fire which took a tragic toll of 19 human lives within just 25 minutes — all loyal workers who had built up the Paramount business in India.