FilmIndia (1948)

.ebrnary, 1948 L — — tsha Posley has an important role in Kuld-p Pictures' maidon sorial fi'm. "Papiha-Re'\ || Add to ali tins re:igious fervour, the rank iiitewy of the masses, their exploitation from different Ig'es by different religious and political parties and mr own agonising poverty and imagine the extent I havoc an undue emphasis on religion will cause in jmcnts of national ends. [Realists like Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and PanI Jawahar'al Nehru murt not allow this religious ection of Bliagwan and Al'ah to spread to our ;ools. There is enough dirty work done in the nams God by the followers of different faiths in this at coi ntry. I it ncces-arv to import all this poii to schools where little children go only to sin at i fountain of knowledge, knowledge that is intendto make them good and practical citizens of the rid? The instruction of religion must be given to the ldren in their homes by their parents and not in ools if the dream of a secular state is ever to ne tine. Even the relieious instruction given at present the Catho'ic missionary schools and colleges all t India must be stopped bv a state law. Whet m c^nnl* to f'n with an education which prima* r belongs to homes and churches? In Mau'rna Azad, we have a Minister of Eduion educated in Persian, Arabic and Urdu — all three languages which contribute to religious faieism. That is a wrong job for a good man. He FILMIXDIA should write another commentary on the Quran and hand over his precent job to a better man who has had international training. WHAT PRICE NEGLIGENCE? If anyone living in Bombay were to be guided foi going to an Indian cinema show by the numerous posters and banners displayed at alf possible street corners and other prominent p'aces, he would, in nine cases out of ten, find himself either in a wrong picture house or would see before his eves a wron^ picture. " None of the several so called publicity officers and managers or the executives of the numerous advertising agencies carrying on film pub'icitv in Bombay appear to have any sense of proprietv/regularity or responsibility. On a casual glance of these posters one would almost always find that three different pictures are being advertised as running at one and the s?me picture house! As this experiment has never yet been tiled in India, it is not always easy to find out which of the three pictures is being actuallv screened at the theatre. Likewise the posters often "give an impression of a picture running at several cinemas at once and it becomes equally difficult to know where actually it is running, if at all. Posters often continue being displayed at various sites for months after the picture "has run out and forgotten by the pub'ic merely because the advertiser has paid or agreed to pay rent for a fixed term for the site! At the Dadar Station of the B.B. & C.I. Railway, for instance, there is still found a big poster of Filmistan's "Sindoor" with the label of ' Roxy ' although it is ;ix weeks now that the picture ha^ been withdrawn from the theatre nor is the picture running anywhere else in the city at the I moment. The distributors of foreign pictures conduct their publicity campaigns more rensibly. They take care to see that on y the right picture* is advertised and when a picture completes its run any poster pertaining to it is not allowed to remain anywhere even a day longer. Neither the publicity mugs who \ie with one another in securing as many pictures as they can "do" by turning out carbon copies of newspaper layouts and write-ups nor the different agencies who go on dumping as many posters as they can secure at a single :ite to make as much out of it as po-io!e have rca'ised that it ultimately affects their own business materially if wrong pictures are being advertised through sheer negligence after they have ccaccd to be shown. A recent instance of almost criminal negligence in respect of street and poster publicity was ihe campaign— if a few half-hearted advertisements with ill-chosen words can be at all cal'ed a publicity campaign— for "C.va'an" released at the Krishna Cinema in Bombay by the people who distribute this picture in the province. " While a few daily papers 13