We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
FILMINDI A
February, 1946
tes her natural sex-appeal in many a different role with superb artistry. There are girls like Para, Veena and Ragini whose only excuse to be on the screen is their youth with attractive contours. Youth seems to be such an attraction on the screen that Veena inspite of her stiff gait, poor acting talent and none-too-attractive face will earn over three lakhs of rupees this year and she took to the screen work only recently.
Think of Kanan, the nightingale of Bengal. For a woman she has almost a man's face but when she opens her mouth music gushes out to charm a million admirers. But for her lilting music. Kanan would not have been the screen attraction that she is today, earning nearly a hundred thousand rupees for a single picture.
The Mediocre Talent
There are many other girls who have a bit of many qualities required for screen success. Nur Jehan should head this list with pretty good acting experience inspite of her baby talk and nursery music. The others like Jayashree, Lee'a Desai, Ratnamala, Surraiya, Renuka Devi and Shanta Apte keep earning regularly big annual incomes for one reason or other but principally due to the shortage of talent in the industry. None of them can act much, but some of them are lucky to have influential chaperons who are directly connected with the film industry.
With almost everything against them in looks and age, Jamuna and Durga Khote continue to dominate in their field on sheer merit. These two are fine artistes who understand the spirit of their roles and deliver the goods from picture to picture wiih almost superb artistry. Both of them reach a six-figure income everv year.
There are many others in the industry too numerous to deserve mention here, who earn a comfortable living by playing second roles. In fact, no one starves in this film industry be she an extra woman or an impecunious producer. Several of our extra girls, spotted as members of the fair sex merely because of the saris they wear, still manage tq earn as much aj> Rs. 1500I per month, for
48
the simple reason that men can't act women and a picture requires some more women in addition to the professional heroine and the vamp.
New aspirants should therefore realise that there is nothing so much of the "intoxicating youth, the eloquent eyes, the perfect features, the streamlined figure, the exotic beauty, the exciting sex-appeal and the divine voice" about most of our career girls. They are in the game because they are women first and not men and
because producers must have women
to act the fair sex.
Those 31 Amil girls (with 25 bogus ones) can well assess their prospects by studying the above analysis carefully. If they are all that they say: "beautiful, educated and talented", they ought to get a place in the lap of the gods and not in our ramshackle film studios.
But I have yet to see a strikingly, beautiful Amil or Tamil dame.
MASTERS VOICE
THE, GRAMOPHONE CO., LTD.
DUM DUM BOMBAY MADRAS DELHI LAHORE