Anarkali (1953)
Director: Nandlal Jaswantlal; Writer: Ramesh Saigal, Nasir Hussain; Producer: Filmistan; Cinematographer: Marshall Braganza; Editor: Babu Lavande; Cast: Bina Rai, Pradeep Kumar, Mubarak, S.L. Puri, Sulochana (Ruby Myers), Kuldeep Kaur, Manmohan Krishna, Nurjehan
Duration: 02:28:53; Aspect Ratio: 1.778:1; Hue: 151.487; Saturation: 0.081; Lightness: 0.245; Volume: 0.324; Cuts per Minute: 5.695; Words per Minute: 56.691
Summary: Frequently filmed Mughal romance in which Prince Salim (P. Kumar) falls in love with the common Anarkali (Rai). In Imtiaz Ali Taj’s play of 1922 she was a slave girl (cf. Loves of a Mughal Prince, 1928); in Mughal-e-Azam, 1960, she is a court attendant. Director Jaswantlal alludes to his precursors by casting Sulochana, who played Anarkali in R.S. Choudhury’s famous 1928 version, as the hero’s mother. The Filmistan production does not acknowledge the play and claims to be a direct, unmediated treatment of the Mughal legend with story and script credited to the directors Hussain (Tumsa Nahin Dekha, 1957) and R. Saigal (Railway Platform, 1955). Constructed as a fantasy flashback, Jaswantlal opens the film with a big close-up of Rai’s lips before going on to the customary establishing shots that set the scene. Sustaining his emphatic use of close-ups throughout, the film intercuts emotional episodes with elaborate war scenes used like fillers in between dramatic sequences. On occasion, the visual flair detected by reviewers of Jaswantlal’s work for the Imperial Studio emerges in this Filmistan product: the slow crane movement when Akbar (Mubarak) is told of his son’s secession threat and the abrupt dimming of the lights when he is confronted by his brother-in- law, the Rajput Raja Man Singh (Puri). The music, which by convention dominates this genre, includes hits like Mangeshkar’s Yeh zindagi usi ki hai.
censor certificate
Song: Aye baad-e-saba aahista chal
Song: Yeh zindagi ussi ki hai jo kissi ka ho gaya (1)
The afterlife of silent cinema
The Lahore Effect
Song: Aa jaan-e-wafa
The afterlife of silent cinema
Song: Aaja ab toh aaja
Song: Dua kar gham-e-dil, khuda se dua kar
Song: Jaag dard-e-ishq jaag
Song: Mohabbat aisi dhadkan hai
Song: Zindagi pyaar ki do chaar ghadi
Song: Zindagi pyaar ki do chaar ghadi hoti hai (contd)
Song: Mohabbat mein aaj kadam dagmagaaye, Zamaanaa yeh samjha ki hum peeke aaye
Song: O aasmanwale shikwa hai zindagi ka
Song: Yeh zindagi ussi ki hai jo kissi ka ho gayaa
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