FilmIndia (1945)

November, 1945 FILMI NDI A MURDERING OTHERS? "We have had enough of boymeets-girl stories on our silver screen. Our producers are now repeating old historical romances Can you not instruct them to give us the life and sketches of heroes and heroines of other countries?" BOMBAY. S. S. Kothari. AGE-OLD GAME "The real grievances of middleclass people is that once in a month they take their wife and children to see a picture, two or three hours before the next show starts, after spending their wellearned money for conveyance. "These ladies and children and, of course, the head of the family stand in queue, and when the booking office opens to sell the tickets these people in the queue whose bones start aching by the time, find that only five to six people in the row get the tickets and the rest of the people, who are two to three hundred in number are told by the Cinema Managers that the tickets are sold out or over issued. "These women and children after going through the hardship of standing in the queue for two to three hours with the scorching sun above, have to turn about and march out in disappointment. When they come out of the Cinema compound they find a few 'chokras' (If I mistake not, employed by the Cinema Managers) selling tickets at a 100% premium, and when they are asked how many tickets they can sell at a time, their reply is "IN ANY NUMBER." "How the hell can these chokras get tickets in any number, when It is rather an exciting situation from "Ameeree" a socialistic theme of Associated Pictures directed by P. C. Barua. ladies and children standing for hours together in the queue cannot even manage to get "one single ticket"? BOMBAY. R. J. A. Somjee. LOVE'S LABOUR "I like your journal for its refreshing originality, quaint humour, withering criticisms (though they are apt to be jaundiced, at times.) and above all for its excellent English. It is a pity that you should waste such excellent talents and good paper on the rotten Indian pictures that are the order of the day. I suppose you regard it as your duty— purging the film-industry of its cheaper, baser elements. But in spite of all your excellent efforts, the Indian film producer refuses to be moved and persists in serving the public with the same stale, unpalatable sauce year by year By the way, why don't you reserve a page or two for reviewing American films, instead of wasting paper on, horrors of horrors, Telugu, and some times Tamil trash!" BOMBAY. N. S. Trasi. Ullhas threatens to commit suicide — something sensible for the first time but he doesn't die in "Nek Parvin" a picture of D. R. D. Productions. ANCESTRAL GLORY "Historical pictures are flooding the country. They arc presented with all the pomp and glory of outworn mediaevialism May be they are intended to recall the past with a purpose to remind the Westerners that we had culture and civilization of unrivalled glory, so that they may not keep painting us as villains only, as they were doin°hitherto. "For us it is stale, knowing these stories from the infant class till we finish our college terms. Are the screen aristocrats thinking in terms of money only? Why not they shuffle themselves and adopt the vogue of the day and give us a couple of pictures dealing with the present-day socialistic tendencies and of bombs and planes instead of swords and lances? "We are going to live in the future and probe its mysteries and not live over again the bygone days nor are we willing even to peep into the past." BELLARY. j. M. Ziauddin 65