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OVk REVIEW 1
Nargis Proves Equal Of Norma Shearer !
Indian Film Version Of Sltakespeare9s 66 Romeo And Juliet 99 Copies M.G.M. Pattern
"For never was a story of more
woe
\Than this of Juliet and her
Romeo"
— Shakespeare.
The old Bard of Avon meant the [two characters of his play, creatures of his imagination, but he might have also meant the Nargis Art Concern's maiden film, based on that play, and released now after two (or is it three) years of Kvork, worry and "woe". A look at the picture is sufficient to indicate the very elaborate planning and conscientious, painstaking hard work that has gone into its production. It is also apparentas it happens to be true, too — that the picture has been shot not in one continuous period and in one studio, but has had a nomadic career, migrating from studio to studio, one set here and one set there, with long intervals of inactivity in between the spurts of shooting. This has inevitably
affected the quality and production value of the picture which looks patchy and lacks a uniform standard of technique. While this picture was being shot Nargis has grown from her awkward, gawky old self into a smart, sophisticated and poised young lady of today. (But sine? scenes are shot backward and forward, according to the sets, her performance looks erratic in the varying quality of her expression).
ITALIAN "LAILA MAJNU"!
Tlie story of '"Romeo and Juliet'' need not be re-told. Essentially it is the same story as "Laila Majnu", "Sliirin Farhad", <"Sassi Punnu", "Heer Ranjha" or "Miraa Sahiban" — the tragicromantic tale of frustrated emotion, of two "star-crossed lovers'' who could not "live happily ever after" because of the hereditary enmity between their two families. Shakespeare himself has given the synopsis of the play in his prologue: —
"ROMEO & JULIET" Producers: Nargis Art
Concern
Language: Hindustani
Music: Pandit Husnlal
Bhagatram
Screenplay and
Dialogue: Kamal Amrohi
Photography: Avadhoot
Audiography: Minoo Tampal
Cast: Nargis, Sapru, Anwar, Aman etc. Released At: Excelsior, Bombay
Date of Release: 7th April,
1948
Directed by: AKHTAR HUSSAIN
Two households, both alike in
dignity,
Id fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new
mutiny
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life; Whose misad ventured piteous
overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife. The fearful passage of their death-mark' d lp\ < . And the continuance of their parents'' rage. Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is jww the tu'o hours' traffic of our stage:
The which if you with patient ears attend,
IV hat here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
Love has no nationality and lovers have been the same, in Italy or in India, in Russia or China, a thousand years ago or today. The problem of parental interference is centuries-old and continues to be a nuisance even to modern lovers of the atomic age. With due respect to the great Elizabethan playwright, there is nothing very remarkable about the plot of the play — which, in the
41
A momentous scene from Oriental Pictures' "Sohag Raat", controlled and released through Varma Films.