The
year 1917 marks a watershed in the history of
Bengali cinema. The year saw the tragic death
of Hiralal Sen. Like Georges Meliés, this
pioneering figure in Bengali cinema too died forgotten
and in abject poverty. Perhaps his death was symbolic
of the passing of an era; newer vistas were opening
up for the medium of cinema…
 The
Madan Theatres had screened Raja Harishchandra
(1913) and some other films made by Dada
Saheb Phalke in their Maidan Tent around 1917.
The film made a deep impact on JF Madan, Anadi
Bose and other persons involved with the film
industry in Calcutta and soon efforts were on
to produce feature length movies in the lines
of Raja Harishchandra in Calcutta. Although
his business of screening newsreels and imported
action films was extremely profitable, JF Madan
and his manager Rustomji Dhotiwallah realised
that indigenous fiction films were the future.
With this in mind he gathered cameramen and cine-technicians
such as Jyotish Sircar, Priyanath Ganguly and
Jyotish Bandopadhyaya under his wings with the
express purpose of making indigenous feature films.
Probably around 1919-20, Madan Theatres produced
a mythological, Savitri, with the help
of a bunch of Italian technicians and actors whom
the company had invited to Calcutta. This film
was released at the Cornwallis Theatre
– another of JF Madan’s cinema halls.
According to Nachghar, a Bengali magazine
of the period, this film had Countess Rina di
Liguero playing the role of Savitri and 'although
the dances at the royal court were extremely artistic
they were not Hindu dances'. This Italian
cast and screw also made Sivaratri (1919),
another popular mythological film for the Madan
Theatres. Billwamangal, a 10 reel film
produced by the Madan Theatres is considered by
many to be the first feature film made in Calcutta
with and all Indian cast and crew. The film was
released at the Cornwallis Theatre (today’s
Sree Cinema Hall) on 8th November, 1919.
The film had a nine-year old Miss Gauhar in a
small role. A few years later she was to become
a famous screen siren and the star of numerous
films such as Fortune and Fools, Samrat
Shiladitya, Typist Girl, Chandramukhi,
Grihalaxmi, Beggar Girl, Rajputani
and My Darling.
At the end the second decade of twentieth century
the cinema as a mass entertainment medium was
firmly established all over India. Numerous production
houses and distribution companies screened a wide
range of films of varying contents and aesthetics
and naturally the colonial administration of the
day felt the need to regulate this burgeoning
activity. In 1918, The Indian Cinematograph Act
modelled on that of Britain was introduced defining
the terms and conditions of censorship and cinema
licensing. In 1920, Film Censor Boards were set
up in Calcutta, Bombay, Madras and Rangoon. An
Entertainment Tax of 121/2% on the price of cinema
tickets was first levied in Calcutta in the 1922.
Further interest of the government in films can
be gauged by the fact that in 1922 the Bengal
Government commissioned Pallisree, a
film on village development, perhaps the first
example of such use of cinema in India. The same
year also saw the launch of Bijoli, the
first film weekly to be published in India. In
1923, the high-brow literary magazine Bharati
(established in 1877) began a serialized
account of the history of Bengali cinema thus
giving the fledgling medium an artistic and social
legitimacy which it previously lacked. Photoplay,
another journal devoted to cinema came out in
1926 and the monthly Deepali was first
published in 1929. The rapid rise of journals
on cinema and their expanding readership are pointers
to the growth of critical and popular interest
in Cinema. In 1930, the writer Shailajananda Mukherjee,
who was to write numerous screenplays for New
Theatres, began publishing The Bioscope,
a weekly which carried news of international and
national films and film industry, pre-views and
reviews and sometimes even articles on film technique,
aesthetics and technology.
By 1919, the filmmaking and exhibition enterprise
of Madan Theatres had become a pan-India phenomenon
and this prompted JF Madan to transform his business
into Joint Stock Company. In the year 1920 the
company produced Satyawadi Raja Harishchandra
the first proper feature film to be made in Bengal
and released this 'photo-play' along with an imported
feature For The Sake Of Her Child at
its new tent in the Calcutta Maidan. Another Madan
Theatres release, Nala Damayanti (1920),
a 10 reel film based on a story written by the
famous dramatist Girish Chandra Ghosh, shot and
directed by Jyotish Sircar is significant as the
first international co-production in India. The
film introduced Patience
Cooper – an Anglo-Indian beauty who
became one of India’s earliest screen heartthrobs
– in the role of Damayanti. An 8 reel version
of Mahabharata (1920) made by the company
was however heavily criticized by Nachghar for
'its incongruous costumes' and the 'intrusion
of moving trams and stray dogs into the background
in the scene showing the heroic death of Abhimanyu'.
JF Madan died in 1923 but under the expert guidance
of his family members, the Madan Theatres remained
the undisputed tsar of cinema in Calcutta in the
1920s and early 1930s. Until its closure in 1933
with the advent of the more organized studio system
the company produced over 100 features shorts
films and documentaries. Directors such as Jyotish
Bandopadhyaya, Priyanath Ganguly worked under
the Madan Theatres banner and so did major stars
of the day such as Patience Cooper, Niradasundari,
Master Mohan, Sisir Bhaduri and Ahindra Choudhury.
Bhaduri and Choudhury, who were also famous dramatists,
wrote and directed some of these films. Bandir
Pran or The Soul of a Slave (1923)
a film with Bengali, Hindi and English inter-titles,
written by Ahindra Choudhury and directed by Hemchandra
Mukherjee was an extremely popular film produced
by the company. Komole Kamini or the
Maid of Lotus (1924) another multi-lingual
film, written and directed by Sisir Bhaduri was
a big hit of the times and it had Patience Cooper
in the title role. Other significant films produced
by the company include, Prafulla (1926),
Chandidas (1927), Jana (1927),
Sarala (1928) and Kal Parinay (1930).
In the race to make the first feature film in
Bengali the Madan Theatres had two significant
competitors. The first was the Aurora Cinema Company
of Anadi Bose and Debi Ghosh. The company which
initially found great success as a film distribution
outfit that held screenings not only all over
Bengal but also in Assam, Bihar and the United
Provinces. By the year 1920, it had acquired own
studio and a complete set of filmmaking equipment
and was now ready to jump into the production
of feature films. Its first full length silent
feature film Dasyu Ratnakar written and
directed by Surendra Narayan Ray with Debi Ghosh
himself as the cameraman was released on 13th
August, 1921. The film had the theatre actor Chunilal
Deb in the role of Dasyu Ratnakar and among the
women cast were Shashimukhi and Sushilabala Devi.
However, the honour of being the first all-Bengali
feature film that had a public release went to
Dhirendranath 'DG' Ganguly’s and his company
The Indo-British Film Company (IBFC) later to
become The British Dominion Films Limited.
Dhirendranath Ganguly (1893-1978), better known
by his initials DG, was one of the most charismatic
figures of the Bengali film industry during the
1920s and 1930s. As a young student he had studied
music, painting and fine arts under Rabindranath
Tagore at Santiniketan Ashram. He also had his
first brush with the stage while acting as a woman
in various dance-dramas written by Tagore which
were often performed by the students of the Ashram
under the guidance of Tagore himself. DG finished
his schooling in Calcutta and joined the Government
Art College. It was during this time he developed
his interest in cinema. In 1914, armed with a
recommendation from Tagore that described him
as 'a promising young artist of fair abilities'
he planned to visit England to learn more. Due
to the First World War he was unable to make his
trip to and so he took up the job of Principal
of the Nizam School of Art, Hyderabad at a princely
salary of Rs.1300. DG continued to harbour ambitions
of making films. In 1917 he quit his job, came
back to Calcutta and got in touch with Madan Theatres.
He was offered to direct a film based on Tagore’s
play Biswarjan if he could manage to
get the poet’s permission, a task almost
impossible as Tagore still had great reservations
about the artistic qualities of the medium of
cinema. Undaunted, DG with the help of Nitish
Lahiri, who was the General Manager of Madan Theatres,
began to set up his own studios at Bonhoogly,
a northern suburb of Calcutta, under the banner
of The Indo-British Film Company in 1918. His
efforts were financed by brothers Suren and PN
Dutta who were rich traders of iron and steel
household items. By early 1920, DG was ready with
his team (which now had Jyotish Sircar joining
in as the cameraman) and the screenplay of Bilet
Ferot/The England Returned – a farce
about a village simpleton who becomes a brown-sahib
after his trip to England- but the shooting was
delayed by a strange reason. A visionary, DG realised
that for cinema to survive in Bengal it needed
the support of the educated rich and middle-class
Bengalis. At that time most of the female actors
in Bengali cinema were theatre performers who
came from the lower classes or were either Muslims
or Anglo-Indians. So, DG searched for a female
actor from an educated middle-class Bengali family–
his prayers were answered when he managed to convince
Sushila Devi, the daughter of the barrister Bidhubhushan
Mukherjee to be the heroine of Bilet Ferot. DG
himself acted as the England returned hero while
Kunja Chakraborty played the role of his rustic
grandfather and Nitish Lahiri was cast in the
role of DG’s best friend. The film promoted
as the "First Photo-play with an all
Bengali cast, directed & produced by Bengalis
and having Bengali title-cards" was
premiered to a packed audience at the Russa
Theatre (present Purna Cinema Hall)
– the first cinema hall to come up in Bhowanipore
area of South Calcutta which soon became the major
cinema hall hub for Bengali films – on 26th
February, 1921. The film, a smash hit, ran at
the Russa Theatre for more than a year. Sushila
Devi as the Jodhpur breeches clad heroine who
rode horses and drove automobiles shocked and
thrilled the Bengali movie-going public of the
day. Its distribution rights were bought by M/s
K.D. Brothers for over Rs.60, 000. DG’s
next film Yasodanandan released in 1922,
was also well-liked by the public. Interestingly,
in 1924 he was expelled by the Nizam of Hyderabad
for screening Razia Sultana, a film that
portrayed the love of a Muslim princess for a
Hindu youth. DG’s career in films extended
well into the era of sound films and he is credited
to have directed more than 50 feature films and
acted in more than 100. His last film was Cartoon
(1958). He was honoured with the Padma Bhushan
in 1974 and with the Dada Saheb Phalke Award for
his ground-breaking services to Indian cinema
in 1976.
 The
efforts of DG, Aurora Film Corporation and some
other Bengali enterprises like the Lotus Film
Company and the Taj Mahal Film Company that followed
in their footsteps to make films acceptable to
the Bengali bhadralok and the intelligentsia
soon bore fruit. In early 1923, the Taj Mahal
Film Company produced and released Manbhanjan,
on of the earliest examples of screen adaptation
of a short-story by Tagore. The film was directed
by Naresh Mitra and was released at the Cornwallis
Theatre. In the next few years a large number
of films based on works of famous litterateurs
were made among which Krishankanter Will (1926),
Durgeshnandini (1927) and Kapalkundala
(silent version, 1929) adapted from the novels
of Bankim Chandra Chattopdhaya stand tall. After
Manbhanjan, a few more of Tagore’s
works were made into films. These include Biswarjan
(1928), Bicharak (1928) and Dalia
(1930). This close relationship between feature
films and literary works in these formative years
of fiction film in Bengal is perhaps responsible
for the uniquely Bengali cultural-linguistic idiosyncrasy
of referring to cinema/films as 'boi' (a book!).
It is interesting to note unlike rest of India
where films based on mythological themes were
dominant, in Bengal many of the films were adaptations
of popular dramas or literary works and films
that dealt with social or human issues (although
a lot of the early efforts of Madan Theatres had
religious content). Slapstick comedies and social
farces were also extremely popular.
 In
the later half of the 1920s cinema which was earlier
an entertainment of the masses began to gather
social and artistic respectability. In 1925, Jyotish
Bandopadhyaya directed Jailer Meye, the
Bengali adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities
and in this film he introduced the concept
of breaking down a scene into individual shots
for the first time in Bengali cinema. Cinema exhibition
halls too came up thick and fast as film exhibition
was becoming an extremely lucrative business.
Many of Calcutta’s present day cinema halls
like Elite (formerly Madan Theatres &
Palace of Variety), Rupali (formerly
Empress Theatre), Talkie Show House (earlier
Show House), Jyoti (earlier
Pearl Cinema) and Roxy (formerly First
Empire Theatre) were established during this
period. Two major production companies, The Radha
Film Studios and Indian Kinema Arts Studio were
established during this time. Actors like Kanan
Devi, Umashashi, Chandrabati Devi, Dhiraj
Bhattacharya, Manoranjan Bhattacharya and Krishnadhan
Mukherjee (the first major villain of Bengali
cinema), director-technicians like Nitin Bose,
Madhu Bose, Debaki Bose, Charu Roy and Charles
Creed who went on to become major cine-personalities
during the sound era made their initial forays
into cinema during this period. Pankaj
Mullick and RC Boral, legendary music- directors,
got involved in films as conductors and arrangers
of the ‘live’ orchestras that accompanied
the projection of these silent films. PC
Barua, the first superstar actor-director
of Bengali screen, who had just returned from
Europe learning the craft of filmmaking from masters
like Ernst Lubitsch and Rene Clair, joined the
Board of Directors of Dhiren Ganguly’s (DG’s)
British Dominion Films after making a small investment
in the company. Barua made his screen debut as
an actor in Panchashar (1930), a film
directed by DG himself. He then went back to Europe
and learnt more about film production. After purchasing
lighting equipment in Paris he returned to Calcutta
and set up his own studio named Barua Pictures
Limited and produced Apradhi (1931),
the first Bengali film to use artificial lighting.
Due to financial problems Barua soon closed shop
and joined Birendranath Sircar’s New Theatres
Limited early in 1932.
The year 1927 saw the production of Warner Brothers
The Jazz Singer the first 'talkie' and
soon sound films became the norm in Hollywood
and Europe. The foremost Indian 'talkie' Alam
Ara was released in 1931. Although Universal
Pictures’ Melody of Love was the
first sound film to be released in India was premiered
at the Madan Theatres’ Elphinstone Picture
Palace, the filmmakers in Calcutta like Barua,
DG and Naresh Mitra were initially artistically
and technically reluctant to deal with 'talkies'.
The advent of sound also required advanced and
complex technology. Huge investments for better
and bigger studios were the need of the hour.
Madan Theatres began to expand its Madan Film
Studios (modern Indrapuri Studios) in the Tollygunje
area of South Calcutta, while Birendranth Sircar
began the construction of his New Theatres Studios
in the same area in 1931. New Theatres won the
race to create the earliest Bengali 'talkie' and
with the release of Dena Paona in 1931
the days of silent films in Bengal were over.
A new and exciting era, the golden years of cinema
in Bengal was about to begin…
(Sadly, out of around 119 feature films made
in Bengal during the period 1919-1931 only one
Jamaibabu (1931) directed by Kalipada
Das – a two-reel slapstick about a country
bumpkin son-in-law who gets into embarrassing
situations while on a visit to his in-laws in
Calcutta – exists in its full form. As for
the rest, only a few fragments, still photographs,
articles and reviews in contemporary journals
are all that is left for posterity.)
Reference:
1. Shonar Daag: Shatoborsher Aloy Bangla Chalcchitra
by GP Ghosh, Jogmaya Prakashoni, Calcutta.
2. Bangla Chalacchitrer Itihaas by Kalish
Mukhopadhaya.
3. The Early Years of Calcutta Cinema
by Samik Bandopadhyay, in Sukanta Choudhury edited:
Calcutta, The Living City, Vol II. Calcutta:
Oxford University Press.
Part
1
Contributed by Monish K Das, an alumnus
of the Film and Television Institute of India
(FTII), Pune with specialization in Film Editing,
1992. He now lives and works as a documentary
filmmaker and social communication consultant
in Kolkata.
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