Director: Sohrab Modi; Writer: Kamal Amrohi; Producer: Sohrab Modi; Cinematographer: Y.D. Sarpotdar; Editor: A.K. Chaterji, D. Shirdhankar; Cast: Sohrab Modi, Chandramohan, Naseem Banu, Sheela, Sardar Akhtar, Sadiq Ali
Duration: 02:27:37; Aspect Ratio: 1.333:1; Lightness: 0.247; Volume: 0.196; Cuts per Minute: 6.944
Summary: One of Kamal Amrohi’s best-known scripts and the first of the megabudget epics characteristic of Modi and his Minerva Studio (
Sikandar, 1941;
Jhansi Ki Rani, 1953). Set at the court of the harsh Mughal Emperor Jehangir (Chandramohan), the film tells two separate love stories: the first of Mangal Singh (Ali) and Kanwar (Sheela) amid the violent feud raging between their families, and the second, the famous one of Jehangir and Nurjehan (Banu). Mangal kills the brother and father of his lover. His father, the loyal Rajput chieftain Sangram Singh (Modi), captures his son and Jehangir passes the death sentence. Jehangir’s claim that the law knows no class distinction is put to the test when a washerwoman (Akhtar) accuses Queen Nurjehan of having inadvertently killed her husband during a hunt. Jehangir offers his own life but the washerwoman magnanimously forgives him. The queen and the emperor then in turn pardon Mangal Singh, thus proving that class position does count after all (or, since the film was made in 1939, suggesting that the death penalty should never be applied). The film was known mainly for some of the most spectacular scenes of palace grandeur in the Indian cinema.
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