Summary: Narrowly beaten to the screen by
Alam Ara
(1931) as India's first sound feature, this is a
big-budget musical narrating a legend from the
Shahnama. The Persian sculptor Farhad falls in
love with Queen Shirin. The shah Khusro, who
had promised Farhad a reward for having built
a canal, agrees to let him marry Shirin provided
he first single-handedly demolishes the
Besutun mountain. Shirin and Farhad are
finally united in death as Farhad's tomb
miraculously opens to accept Shirin. The film
proved a bigger hit than
Alam Ara and, unlike
the Tanar single-system camera used by Irani,
recorded sound and image separately, a
technique widely adopted later because it
offered greater aesthetic flexibility.
