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F1LMINDI A
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The two popular stars — Suraiya and Manorama are wondering about the title of the next Famous Production No. 6 in which they both feature in prominent roles.
the mass misery caused by war, and converted to the new faith by the impact of the dynamic and vet soul-satisfying gospel of the Buddha.
K B. LAL'S ASHOKA
Those who have seen the film produced and directed by K. B. Lai can compare the Ashoka of history with the creature of the film men's imagination. Not for the first time one of our producers has overreached himself and tackled a subject beyond his intellectual capacity. Jayant Desai made an Ishwarlal out of Chandragupta, Mehboob sought to fit the mask of Humayun on the softy-softy face of Ashok Kumar, Wajahet Mirza imagined that Sheikh Mukhtar could play Babar because of his height, Ranjit got Shahjehan and Mumtaz Mahal murdered at the hands of Kedar Sharma. K. B. Lai's venture is only the latest in a long series of historical travesties.
What kind of an Ashoka does he (and his story-writer) present? To begin with, they surround him with so many fictitious female characters that the not-too-manly Sapru nets completely swamped over by feminine flesh. There is the plump little Indu, supposed to play the daughter of an ascetic
Brahmin, who sings a few songs (a la Shanta Apte in Prabhat's Wahan or "Beyond the Horizon''] when tortured by Ashok's officers in the emperor's early tyrannical phase. Then there is the no less plump Shamim who wins cheap applause by mouthing pseudo-patriotic phrases as the daughter of the king of Kalinga who swears
May, 194H|a:
vengeance against Ashok, afte her people have been massacred Finally, there is Veena, in tin role of a Buddhist Bhikshuki fo: whose sake Ashoka is supposed td renounce his old evil and violen ways. With all the footage claim ed by this bevy of beauties ano songs and dances, poor Ashok hardly gets a chance to get in word edgeways.
Moreover, in an attempt tc squeeze a juicy formula love story out of the dry pages of history the whole character of Ashok* has been perverted. Not a spiritual conversion, but romantic interest in a charming Buddhis Bhikshuki is sought to be made the motivation for Ashoka's epo chal change-over from violence tc non-violence. To add to the his torically false atmosphere, a me lodramatic episode has beer grafted on to the story of Ashoka — a priest becoming "king for a day" and ordering the Emperor td be guillotined (a la Bastille!) tc dramatize Ashoka's sense of justice. As if we haven't seen the same melodramatic twist elsewhere— many times over!
UNREALISM IN EXCELSIS
The atmosphere of the film is as unauthentic as the story — andj
A 'Radha-Krishna' group dance is Mohan Pictures'
also among the dance numbers in 'Jadui Shehnai".
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