FilmIndia (Feb-Dec 1949)

odi Laddoo lo Ladakh, anything is possible in New Delhi, ire is a "laddoo" day when 300 refugee children were en "laddoos" during Diwali. Those who live on dust n digest stones. "Laddoos" will merely spoil their petite. But then they drag even a soldier into this remonial tomfoolery and we see here General Carinppa • ing his "laddoos" to some orphans of the communal storm. If these space restrictions awl standardization of blicity stop a producer from advertising his picture the full and in consequence his picture fails to draw, rely because people are not sufficiently informed or 11 impressed with its publicity, is the I.M.P.P.A. go5 to make good the loss to the producer? How can any one-sided sanctions be applied if re is no reciprocative benefit or guarantee given to producer? Doing so will be pure and simple victization. Or shall we call it blackmail? Where is the sense in the I.M.P.P.A. members cutg their own noses to spite Vasan? If today Vasan's ; publicity is goading Bombay producers to forge sgal and immoral sanctions against legitimate publicampaigns, tomorrow they will, in utter desperan, prescribe the number of dancing girls, the type of 3, the grades of stars and other items of motion pice making that should be used in a picture. Vasan is not scoring his unique success merely on olicity. His production values are refreshingly origi and stupendous. He puts a couple of hundred good iking girls on as many drums and gives us the first Ictacular drum dance in the countrv. He hires out a FILMINDI A whole circus and takes it travelling on the celluloid to the most distant villager who has never seen a trapeze artist. He gives a sword fight in the true Fairbanks tradition and thrills millions. He erects big and sprawling sets which fill the eye with their art and grandeur. He takes three years to make a picture and spends 35 lakhs of rupees on it. He .spends seven lakhs in publicity. He gives his workers a bonus of six months' salary. He gives away a lakh of rupees to the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Fund. How can the Bombay producers stop an enterprising man like that by victimising him with immoral and unbusinesslike restrictions on his publicity? A man who invests money in production — may it be three lakhs or thirty — wants his money back from the people. And how are the people to pay it back to him unless it Is dinned into their ears with constant publicity that the man's picture is worth seeing? Publicity is the vital item of a producer's prosperity. It is their only link with the consumers — the people who pay to see our motion pictures and make the industry stable and prosperous. How can the Bombay producers cut off this vital branch that supports their future merely to put down Vasan? This type of unanimity amongst producers is a hostile front against their own customers. Cutting down publicity will bring down the box-office receipts. Producers must not unite against their own patrons. They must organize themselves in their production field. They must stop seducing each other's stars; they must stop sabotaging each other's pictures during premier weeks; they must stop paying blackmarket prices to the stars; they must fix up the ceilings of star salaries; they must stop the exhibitors from taking blackmarket money; they must stop buying expensive cars, racing, gambling and indulging in other degenerating pastimes. Producers have a thousand don'ts to observe and another thousand do's to do to improve themselves and the industry before they start hitting their patrons on the face with such stupid and immoral proposals of standardization of publicity. There is no sense in sinking the whole industry in an attempt to drown one man from the South. IVo man nor an association has any right to put down honest competition in any trade or business — least of all in a trade of creative art like film making. PRAYER TO PREMIER BHARGAVA! From Delhi comes the harrowing tale of an old exhibitor of Lahore who has, in his helpless old age, four married sons, several grandchildren and a total family of nearly thirty people to support merely with the dirty dust of Delhi. His name is Nandlal Oberoi. He had four cinemas in Lahore: the Regent, the Crown Talkies, the Taj Mahal Talkies and the City Cinema. He had a well-equipped film studio and a lot of residential propertv in addition. • The Crown and the City Cinema were burnt down. The Taj Mahal Talkies was misappropriated by the Muslim landlord who swallowed Oberoi's machinery, deposit and other equipment. The film studio and the residential house were burnt down while the Regent Cinema was sealed by Pakistan Government on the 22nd