FilmIndia (Feb-Dec 1949)

C7R REVIEW Abbas Writes A " Progressive " Story of " Actress" ! Filmistan Gives Another Frivolous Entertainer ! Even ''progressive" writers like iwaja Ahmed Abbas have to live d pay their grocers regularly and are therefore not surprised at the >rogressive " stuff given by little >bas in " Actress ". We are, how;r, grateful to him for sparing us iig blush by making his hero rush the toilet room when a dozen teege college girls threaten to strip ti in a train compartment. This picture of Filmistan is on par th their " Shehnai " in quality and itents. It has songs, dances and pstick mainly intended for the tsses. t is a story of two sisters — one a <iv actress and the other a college 1. The actress, realizing the soI stigma attached to her profesn, is anxious to give her little ter a good education and get her irricd to some respectable man in od societv. The younger one, howr, likes the stage. Now comes Prem Adib. with a ost voice which we are told is di ACTRESS Producers: Filmistan Lid. Hindustani K. Ahmed Abbas Nakhshab & Raja Mehdi AH Marshall Brajjanza J. B. Jagtau Shyam Sunder Novelty, Bombay. Language: Story: Lyrics: Photography: Sound : Music: Released At: Date of Release: 1 1th February 1949 Directed By IN A JAM NAQVI vinely musical. Both the sisters fall in love with him but be loves the younger one while enjoying the patronage of the older sister. This creates the usual heartburnings and misunderstandings till the climax is reached in which the little sister jumps into the sea and is taken lor dead: a motor accident takes away the hero's eyesight temporarily and the actress-sister gives a suicide act. Of course, the little one comes back lipru is furious with Mumtaz Shanti in " Aahuti " or " Anokhi Qurbani produced by Sansar Movietone Ltd. alive, the hero's eyesight is restored and the big one never takes any poison but taking a progressive view of things gives her little sister away to the big boy. That ends it. As Abbas has written the story we must accept it as *" progressive " because he knows more about this fascinating word than we do. But it seems so easy to do this sort of "progressive." writing that even we could have done it in our inspired moments. COLOURLESS DIRECTION The production values are as usual — careful in parts and negligent sometimes. The songs are attractively tuned and pretty frivolously worded. We greatly admired the discipline of the spectators who walk out of the theatre quickly every time they see a dance or hear a song. Kach theatre sequence has only one item for which a large crowd comes every lime presumably from different pails of the town. And the same audience dresses differently for the respectable shows of the elder sister in contrast with t lie cheap showmanship of the younger one. Yes. we noticed this change in costumes but we wish some spectators in the front rows had also worn different faces to lend more realism to the idea. The direction of \ajam Naqvi is as colourless as his own face. Meena looks too heavy as " Kagini ". the actress. Bar her nasal Punjabi, she gives a pretty good performance. Behana dances well as " Kamini " but fails miserably with tears in her eyes. Her hair-do is a silly scream which neither helps her face nor soothes the eyes of the hlmgoers. Whoever thought of it must be an idiot. Prem Adib should never remove his shirt to expose his ugly, deformed and manly physique. It is punishment enough to see his face in a hero's role without adding I his additional insult to an old injury. This boy doesn't do much in this picture as an actor. David is getting boring with the |)imping complexion which, he invariably gives to his roles these days. Well, "Actress" is a "progressive " picture because Abbas wrote it and presents frivolous entertainment for the masses because Filmistan produced it. 47