The first Indian studios

UNESCO Courier, July-August, 1995 by Romain Maitra

The Indian film industry was born and took root in and around Calcutta, Bombay and Madras, major port cities where there was a strong backdrop of intellectual and theatre activities. From the 1920s on, enterprising film-makers in these regions made films in a variety of genres such as mythology, history, folklore and fantasy, whose popularity cut across social barriers. These films were products of the studio system. The major studios had distinct identities of their own. Three of them in particular left a mark on Indian cinema in the 1930s.

New Theatres Limited, with its famous banner of a trumpeting elephant, was the vision of Birendra Nath Sircar, a civil engineering graduate of London University, who gathered a group of talented men around him and raised Indian cinema from the status of a novel form of entertainment to that of an art. New Theatres was a nursery for a number of directors and actors who later became household names.

As one cinema historian has written, "Sircar wanted, not a production company, studio and cinema halls, but a system, a pervasive, self-supporting, efficiently managed, supremely equipped network of men and women and machines which would sell the celluloid dream like it had never been sold before in India, in markets determined by the caprice of public preference." The artistes, who worked as salaried staff and not on contract, had to be at the studios whether or not they were working on a film; when not acting, an actor might be given riding or fencing lessons or assigned temporary technical duties.

New Theatres' first big success, Chandidas, was based on the life of a Hindu saint. With Devdas, adapted from a famous Bengali novel, it captured the huge all-India market. Most Indian films had hitherto been vehicles for song-and-dance sequences, but Devdas was a serious treatment of a powerful dramatic situation. A fire in the studios in 1940 and later a sharp financial decline brought about the demise of New Theatres in 1955. The impact of communalism in the 1940s and the advent of the star system also helped to seal its fate.

The second important studio, Bombay Talkies, was founded in 1934 by Himan Rai and became the true precursor of the Indian commercial cinema. Its films captivated audiences with a blend of political and social comment, glamour, melodrama and melodious soundtracks. Achhut Kanya (1936) is the tragic tale of an Untouchable girl in love with a Brahmin youth, who ends by giving up her life on the altar of caste barriers and religious bigotry. Films such as Savitri (1937), a mythological tale from the Mahabharata, effectively captured Hindu values and sentiments.

Foreign technicians, mainly German and British, were employed at the Talkies, and a lot of modern equipment was used. A staff of more than 400 Indians ate together in the company canteen, irrespective of the castes to which they belonged. Well-known actors would sweep the floors if need be. Famous authors conducted seminars for the staff, who were assigned a variety of duties to broaden their knowledge of the film medium.

Prabhat Studio was launched by a group of men who had learned their trade as junior apprentices in a film company in Kolhapur. One member of the team had done odd jobs at the Bombay docks before becoming the art director. Another had worked as a mechanic, accountant, electrician and scene painter before becoming the sound recordist. The most important director of Prabhat's early films, V. Shantaran, started out as a sign-painter and doorman in a makeshift cinema. These barely educated men possessed indomitable will, energy and organizing ability. In 1933 they moved to a fine location on the outskirts of Pune, 100 miles south of Bombay, covering a wide expanse ranging from hilly tracks to marshland The facilities at this great film production complex, which had no highbrow pretensions, ranged from a huge studio and art factories to accommodations for the staff and actors.

The veteran actress Durga Khote recalled later, "At Prabhat we reported for work at 5:30 in the morning, and we knew that shooting would be definitely over by 4:30 in the afternoon. There was no departure from this routine as shooting was done in sunlight, and no artificial lights or arc lights were used. We were called for work at 5:30 because it took two full hours for make-up with the hard grease of the old days. By 8 o'clock we were ready for takes, and by tea-time we used to pack up, as no more shooting was possible with the fading sunlight."

Prabhat Studio made many good films, including Amrit Manthan ("Churning of Nectar"), produced by V. Shantaram after his return from a study tour of German studios. Amrit Manthan was a milestone in film technique and evoked a wide-ranging humanitarian appeal on the issue of animal sacrifice. Prabhat's peak period lasted barely ten years since it could not cover a wider market due to its early regional language films in Marathi.

In addition to these three studio units, an equally strong complex of studios arose in the mid-1930s in Madras, South India. Films in the South Indian languages enjoyed autonomy from the all-embracing Hindi film market. Modern Theatres near Madras, founded by T. R. Sundaram in 1936, had a staff of 250 and made an average of three films per year.