Director: M. Bhavnani; Writer: Munshi Premchand, M. Bhavnani; Cinematographer: B.C. Mitra; Cast: Bibbo, S.B. Nayampalli, P. Jairaj, Tarabai, Khalil Aftab, Amina, S.L. Puri
Summary: One of the first realistic treatments of industrial
working-class conditions and the only
engagement with cinema of the best-known
20th-C. Urdu and Hindi novelist, Munshi
Premchand. In his biography, Premchand:
A Life (19821, Amrit Rai noted that Premchand
had to accept Bhavnani's offer for financial
reasons after the closure of his journal Jagran.
In Bombay for a year, Premchand wrote: 'What
they want are thrilling and sensational films.
Without endangering my reputation I shall try
and go along with the directors as far as I can,
for that I shall be obliged to do. [I]dealisrn
demands a high price and one is occasionally
obliged to suppress it.' Premchand later
elaborated his position on the film industry in
his essay Cinema Aur Suhityu (publ. in Lekhak,
Allahabad, 1935). Shot on location in a Bombay
textile mill, the schelnatic plot opens with the
death of a benevolent mill owner whose good
daughter Padma (Bibbo) and drunken playboy
son Vinodh (Nayampalli) must now run the
business jointly. Vinodh's ruthlessly
exploitative management prompts Padma and
her protege Kailash ([airaj) to lead a strike
against her brother. Vinodh turns violent, goes
to prison and the mill closes. With the workers'
support and a providential order, Padma
restarts the business in a humanitarian way and
marries Kailash. The president of the Mill
Owners Association was a member of the
censor board in Bombay and tried to get the
film banned. The Punjab Board cleared the film
initially, but following near-riots aker it was
released in Lahore, banned it. The Delhi ban
was followed by a Central government decree
that the film had an inflammatory influence on
workers. The film was a commercial failure,
sinking the Ajanta Studio.
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