FilmIndia (1946)

October, It There is now a definite slump in our film industry. Gone are those rosy days when any rotten picture brought the profits home because the masses had cheap money to spend and no other entertainment to pick and choose. Already, since the last six months, our pictures are rushing out of the theatres at a speed that suggests that they blush to stay there too long. With the quality of our present productions deteriorating fast, the rushing out of the theatres will be speedier during the next 12 months. Several leading producers are already on the brink of bankruptcy for various trade and personal reasons. With such conditions obtaining at present in the film industry, we won't have enough producers left at the end of 12 months when the slump rattles down to its resting bottom. What is then to be done with the crowd of cowsheds which are multiplying so fast without even a thought of the future? At the present rate of building we are likely to have in the long run. more studios than producers or even pictures. This studio-building mania must stop and immediately. There is no sense in building a factory with nothing to manufacture. What use are the tools without men behind them? Besides, too many tools will cheapen things and ultimately affect the quality of our ultimate product. Not that we have much quality to boast of. But what little we claim today just won't be there tomorrow if the grain-merchants start growing these boils on virgin fields with blackmarket profits. It would be more profitable to use a little of this overflow of finance for building theatres in the different towns of India. Unless the consumer-field is properly covered where is the sense in broadening the supply-base? A TOAST TO THE WORKER The poor worm that our average film worker has been during the last 30 years of film-making in India has turned at last and in doing so is making new history in the industry. For thirty long years, the shrewd and greedy producers have mercilessly exploited our studio workers, be they top technicians or base labourers, using glamour as a bait and making art an excuse. But the war seems to have changed the human values. The worker has come to realize his cruel and cowardly exploitation! by the tin-gods. The worker is not asking a payment for the capitalist's sins of t lie past. The sweaters are always kind and not vindictive. They want a fair deal in the future. They have forgotten the past and perhaps forgiven it ascribing it to their own misfortune. Bui they are promising an explosive future unless — Yes, there is an "unless" in the demands of the '"> workers too. They did not ask the silver-haired . "lar Chandulal Shah, who owns 50 race-horses, the p <■ of their sweating in the past. They just wanted liii o reinstate 200 workers whom Chandulal had give i tin walking-ticket on grounds of economy. All these JO had worked night and day to build the film Sardar's stupendous fortune, which enables him to 10 T.l.gr«m: 'SAVAH B&OS' Telephone: 257QI 55^ Rattan 2ShahJehan 3Parvana 4Hek-Pervin 5Subhadrd 6 Arabian Nights FOR OVERSEAS RIGHTS Write to: to **** FILM DISTRIBUTORS, M. J. Building, 12, Champa Gali. BOMBAY.