1930

From PhalkeFactory

women as lifesavers in action and the 1930's cinema [1] zebunissa, nadia, ermeline, padma, durga, lalita, gulab

the unique trial at Meerut of leaders of the Communist Party in 1930 for holding particular beliefs


[[19Brian Shoesmith `From Monopoly to Commodity: The Bombay Studios in the 1930s'. In T. O'Regan & B. Shoesmith eds. History on/and/in Film. Perth: History & Film Association of Australia, 1987. 68-75.

FROM MONOPOLY TO COMMODITY:

THE BOMBAY STUDIOS IN THE 1930S

Brian Shoesmith

The 1930s have been called the "heyday of the studios"(1) in India. In this paper I wish to explore what precisely this means; and why it has become the orthodox view of the development of Indian cinema in this period. By so doing I want to suggest three things: firstly the rise to dominance of the studios can be partially explained in terms of a struggle between competing forms of capitalism in a volatile and changing market place. In this the Indian film industry reflected many of the political, social and economic changes India itself was then undergoing. Secondly, the studios' demise can be explained in terms of one form of capital gaining an ascendancy over others at a particular juncture in the development of modern India. This coincided with a decline in the creative and financial power of a particular group of filmmakers who had entered the film industry in the 1920s. Finally, I want to suggest that the privileging of the studios as a creative force in Indian film history is the product of a discursive formation which emerged from the activities of a group of Indian filmmakers, centred mostly on Bombay. They sought to organize the film industry along particular lines, through the formation of professional, commercial and industrial organizations designed to regulate film practice in India with the studios as their centre piece.

The studios' apparent dominance of filmmaking in the decade of the thirties has been attributed to a number of factors. In the first place the introduction of sound in 1931 created conditions that favoured an integrated, securely capitalized film industry. In addition the filmmakers who sought to establish an industry along rational economic lines were well aware of Hollywood and took it as their model for future development.(2) At the same time as these events occurred within the industry India was undergoing major changes in its social and political composition. The international depression had had a devestating effect on the rural economy of India with the consequence of creating a massive pool of unemployed who drifted to the burgeoning urban areas and in many respects constituted a new audience for Indian-produced films which required a more systematic mode of production if the demand was to be met.(3) In the political sphere Gandhi's campaign to achieve independence from the British had entered a new phase. The British resolve to maintain control of India had also changed, and while they always retained a strong repressive set of apparatuses, their strategy revolved around the establishment of an number of alignments with key communal and political groups.(4) All of these factors impinged upon the development of the Indian film industry, in particular the development of the studios. It could be said that the studio system in India arose out of a particular conjunction of events that reflect a particular stage in the development of capital formation in India.

Major accounts of the development of the studios in India have emphasised three different but related reasons for their emergence and then domination of the Indian film industry.(5) Firstly, the studios were a response to the introduction of sound insofar as the introduction of sound technology required substantial injections of capital to re-equip the industry which brought about a change in the industrial practices associated with film production so that the full benefits of the new equipment could be obtained.(6) A second account argues that the studios emerged because the filmmakers themselves sought to emulate Hollywood in their production methods.(7) The filmmakers sought to institute a particular economic model that would permit them to control all aspects of the film industry in the same manner as Paramount or one of the other big American production houses. This meant that production, distribution and exhibition would all operate from the same base. The third explanation suggests that the move towards a studio-based system of film production reflects the changing forces in the Indian social formation.(8) Each of these accounts has two features in common. Firstly, they all circle around the role of capital in a changing economic, social and political situation that obtained in India in the inter-war period, but without ever really investigating what type of capital was involved. Secondly, they have all focussed on three studios as exemplary organisations to make their analyses. These are B.N. Sircar's New Theatres Ltd. in Calcutta (established in 1930), Himansu Rai's Bombay Talkies (1934) in Bombay, and Prabhat (1929) in Poona.(9)

The problem with this sort of analysis is that we do not know what criteria have been used to determine their status. For example, Devaki Rani, Rai's wife assumed control of Bombay Talkies upon his death in 1941. She has claimed that Bombay Talkies concentrated on making three good movies a year rather than turning out a series of pot-boilers.(10) In contrast Ranjit Film Company, Chandulal Shah's unit, was producing up to twelve films a year. Moreover Prabhat, which was in reality a regional producer, turned out films that had a direct appeal to a specific fragment of a vast audience, the Marathi speaking intellectuals of Poona who had a tradition of appropriating popular forms for political purposes in the struggle against the British.(11) Consequently when looking at the reasons given for the rise and fall of the studios in the Indian film industry we are never too sure what it is we are discussing.

Braudel has suggested that any era is composed of an ensemble of histories.(12) By this I take him to mean that at any given moment one can find feudalism co-existing alongside capitalism and so on, and at that moment one form is the dominant form. By extension I also take him to mean that any given historical moment is comprised of an ensemble of forms of economic modes of production; that although captialism is the dominant mode at this moment we can without too much difficulty find thriving examples of other economic modes. I also would like to suggest that within one economic model one can find an ensemble of types existing in relationship with one another. That is, there is a variety of types of capitalism. This becomes abundantly clear when we have a look at the growth and development of the Indian film industry.

The Indian film industry has gone through three distinct stages in its growth. The first, from its inception around 1913 to around 1924 can be characterized as the cottage industry period. The second, from the mid-1920s to the mid-1940, is the studio era. The last stage from the late 1940s to the present, is the era of the star as commodity. Each period has a set of easily identifiable characteristics. For example, the cottage industry period is marked by a lack of capital for investment in the necessary infrastructure, an absence of recognisable stars, problems with technique, an unstable production mode and its relations, but at the same time an enthusiasm for the medium, a desire to entertain Indians through their own culture, and a tendency to innovate when necessary.(13) The star-as-commodity phase is marked by its absolute reliance upon the star at the box office, its mastery of technique, its cultural synthesis and vitality, its abundance of talent and finance which is reflected in its profligate use of location and narrative, but at the same time it remains unstable, its methods of financing any individuaul film little different to those that emerged in the earliest period.(14) It is clear that there are similar elements shared by each period. However, the studio era does represent a diffferent approach to filmmaking in India that requires further elaboration.

In one sense it can be claimed that the studio system had its genesis in the activities of the first major figure to emerge in the Indian film industry. D.G. Phalke (1870-1944). Phalke established his Hindustani Film Company at Nasik, a small city to the north-east of Bombay. It had all of the trappings of a proto-studio. All pre- and post-production activity was conducted at the one location. Furthermore, Phalke established an ensemble of actors and technicians who worked on most of his productions.(15) However, this did not represent a stake in the development of the studio era in India. What Phalke developed was a variation of the Hindu joint family with himself as the patriarch.(16) Phalke was responsible for all aspects of the filmmaking process and there is little evidence of him developing any sense of continuity or of any of the people who worked for him going on to develop their own companies or products.(17) Because of its indigeous roots Phalke's solution to filmmaking tends to be much admired in India although it contributed little to the eventual directions the industry took.(18) In the studio era a certain amount of rhetoric was employed to suggest that the studios operated as families(19) but in fact they were commercial concerns with salaried employees, including the actors, with a clear demarcation of labour within the workforce.(20) What is significant about Phalke's operations was his method of financing his project.

After some initial attempts to fund his activities through personal funds that did not succeed, including the pawning of his wife's jewellry,(21) Phalke was forced to turn to the market place for finance. He turned to the Bombay commercial classes who had made their fortune in cotton brokerage and who had both economic and political ambition.(22) The relationship between Phalke and his backers was not smooth. Eventually they withdrew their support from him because they judged that film making was not going to be profitable during World War 1 because of a predicted shortage of materials which had been almost exclusively imported from Germany.(23) The significant point here is that Phalke initiated a set of financial practices for film production that dominated the industry in its first decade. These were the seeking of funds from traditional Indian money markets using the film as collateral coupled with a lack of attention to the distribution and exhibition side of the film industry. In many respects the emergence of the studios was a deliberate reaction among a number of young filmmakers to this situation. In short they wished to be in control of their own destiny.(24)

It is important to remember that the Indian film industry developed against a mosaic of events which on the surface appeared to have little bearing upon it at all. These included the political struggle for independence from the British, a changing economy that was being pulled more and more into a world economy(25) and a changing demography. Other factors more directly related to the industry also began to emerge in the early 1920s. These included the fact that Hollywood dominated the Indian screen up to and including the 1930s. Thus the Indian filmmaker found himself competing against an international product that was supported by resources quite beyond his reach. The Indian response was to seek government protection for their product. Despite the recommendations of the 1927-28 Indian Cinematograph Committee of Inquiry(26) this was not forthcoming. The British did not classify filmmaking as a "nation building" industry and thus it did not qualify for government support. At the same time the British continued to recognise the ideological power of the cinema through the administration of an extensive censorship apparatus. The relationship between the British and the Indian film industry was always ambiguous. Privately the British did not trust the medium of film. It had no cultural weight, a factor compounded by the dominance of Hollywood which provided an outlet for incipient anti-Americanism.(27) Moreover they did not approve of the social class of the majority of the Bombay film producers.(28) To govern India the British had had to classify the Indians according to their degree of usefulness to the imperial design or their degreee of complicity with British rule. The film industry originally drew its personnel from two principal sources. The entrepreneurial and management sectors came from either the Gujerati commercial classes or the Parsis, and the technical staff and actors came from the so-called lower classes. Neither group appeared high in the British pantheon of Indian castes. It took the appearance of the Brahmin actress Durga Khote, an actress in V. Shantaram's Ayodhyecha Raja (1932) to effect some change in attitudes towards the cinema. This was regarded as a major step in conferring a degree of social and cultural legitimacy on the cinema that had hitherto been lacking.(29)

Two other significant factors in the emergence of the studios in the early 1930s are the lack of theatres for exhibition and the primitive distribution network. In 1918 J.F. Madan, the Parsi pioneer of cinema in Calcutta, claimed to control over one third of the 300 cinemas in India.(30) Madan had contracts for the supply of films with both British and American companies which guaranteed his supply, which was something no Indian producer could do at this stage.(31) Madan had located most of his cinemas in either the cantonments, or military areas, and the civil lines (areas set aside for British and senior Indian civilian administrators) of the major British dominated urban centres. His audience was generally comprised of British officials, British troops and Anglophile Indian elites. However, when it became apparent that Indian films could be profitable Madan also turned to production and imported Italian talent to establish this aspect of his enterprises.(32) In other words Madan foreshadowed the drive towards the formation of studios as the dominant force in Indian film production. His success led to complaints of monopoly practice especially from the Bombay producers who claimed their films were excluded from an all India distribution because of Madan's domination of exhibition, his links with the overseas companies and his move into production itself.(33) The British took these complaints seriously enough to have the 1927-28 Committee of Inquiry investigate their validity in camera.(34) The claims were dismissed as unfounded. However, the Committee assisted the Bombay producers in an informal way. The Universal Picture Company representative for South Asia, George Mooser gave extensive evidence to the Committee. He pointed out that in fact India accounted around 2% of Hollywood's overseas earnings and was not regarded as a major or even significant market. Moreover, he analysed the condition of the local industry for the committee. He made the usual observations about the primitive techniques employed, the poor standards of acting and scenarios, and the general poor standards found in Indian films. His major advice, however, was institutional. He strongly recommended that an infrastructure similar to that found in Hollywood be established. Furthermore he stressed the need for strong, well organised distribution networks.(35) It is clear that his advice was listened to closely by the members of the Bombay production community such as Ardeshir M. Irani, Chunilal Munim, Nanabhai Desai and R.C.N. Barucha, all of whom attended the Committee's proceedings and gave evidence, but more significantly went on to assume powerful positions within the Bombay industry in the "heyday of the studios".(36)

The move to establish studios on a secure footing in both Bombay and Calcutta represents an attempt to overcome the problems outlined above. At the heart of this drive was the desire to link the film industry to modern capital. Like most areas in British India indigenous capitalist forms existed alongside introduced forms. Since the days of Phalke filmmkers had had to resort to the indigenous money markets to raise capital where money was readily avialable but at very high interest rates.(37) Furthermore the joint stock banks had persistently ignored the industry's requests for loans because of a perceived lack of collateral and security on the part of the industry.(38) The banks tended to support the "national building" industries rather than entertainment. The reliance of the industry upon traditional capital which tended to charge higher interest rates, led to a situation of serious undercapitalisation in the industry. The establishment of the studios represented a desire to remedy this situation through a process of modernity which at the same time conferred a degree of social and cultural legitimation upon the industry and its major figures.

It was the major actors in the unfolding drama of studio formation who ultimately gave the studios their shape and direction. The studios were very much the creations of individuals or small group related by blood, caste, or communal ties. The rise and fall of the individual studios were closely tied to the fortunes of the individuals in charge of the studio. Men like Ardeshir Irani controlled the business side of a studio (Imperial Studios) but, although clear divisions of labour were beginning to appear within the industry, he was not a figurehead. He actually took charge of the recording of the soundtrack of Alam Ara (Beauty of the World) the first Indian-produced talkie.(39) The closeness of the studio boss to the process of filmmaking is reflected in the activities of other major figures in the Bombay scene of the 1930s. Chandulal Shah entered the Bombay industry as a young man with the specific purpose of producing films for Miss Gohar a major star at the time.(40) Their combination was successful and Shah developed a studio (Ranjit Film Company) from this base which he translated into a position of some power within the Bombay film industry. Shah produced films of two kinds that were successful at the box-office; a genre that explored modern social themes in films such as Telephone Girl which starred Miss Gohar and appealed to the sophisticated urban audience, and a genre of quasi-mythological films that appealed to a broader audience and foreshadowed the modern masala film. Shah not only ran the studio but was also actively engaged in all aspects of the filmmaking process: scenario writing, direction, production and publicity. At the same time he was very active in industry politics.(41) The Wadia brothers followed a similar path to Shah. Their studio underwent a number of transformations from its inception in 1927 until it became Wadia Movietone in 1933.(42) Their success stemmed from their ability to cater for more than one segment of the market and their own involvement in the filmmaking process. Wadia Movietone made the "modern" film that explored social issues and at the same time they made a series of stunt films which borrowed heavily from the Hollywood B-movie and starred an Australian actress known as Nardia.(43) The Wadias were also heavily involved in industry politics during the 1930s.

As the studios established themselves in Bombay in response to the growing demand for Indian films in the mofussil (or countryside) there developed a desire on the part of the filmmakers to consolidate their position with the formation of a number of industrially based organisations. A similar pattern developed in Calcutta but the Bengali based organisations never achieved the same degree of prominence as the Bombay ones.(44) A hastily convened Bombay Cinema and Theatre Trade Association was formed so that unified evidence could be given to the 1927-28 Committee of Inquiry.(45) Out of this emerged other industrially based organisations such as the Motion Picture Society of India (MPSI formed in 1932), the Indian Motion Picture Producers Association of India (IMPPA 1939). The producers were clearly the frontrunners in this development which represents a multi-faceted attempt to secure their position at the centre of the Indian film industry. Moreover this proliferation of associations in the 1930s was viewed in Calcutta as an attempt by the Bombay producers to secure their position at the expense of the other regional film producing centres.(46)

The principal aims of the MPSI were both economic and ideological. It was meant to represent the interests of the industry to the government which it did on at least two occasions in the 1930s.(47) Its other functions were less clearly articulated. In one sense it set out to achieve the industry's commercial and social acceptance by recruiting established figures to its cause. The first president had to be of an impeccable background. Sir Phiroze Sethna, who was the inaugral President, had had a long and honourable career in both Bombay municipal politics and Indian national politics; he was a director of over thirty industrial and commercial concerns in India including the giant Tata Corporation; Chairman of the Sun Insurance Company of India, a major institutional lender and investor; and he was acceptable to the British because of his background.(48) He had been their first choice of candidate to lead the 1927-28 Committee of Inquiry.(49) However in the industrial politics of the 1930s Sethna proved to be the exception rather than the rule. All subsequent chairmen of the MPSI came from within the industry, and there is no evidence of any other figure of equivalent status to that of Sethna having served the industry.

Other organisations such as the IMPPA were linked to the MPSI through common membership and ideology, and formally through constitutional ties. The MPSI in conjunction with the IMPPA became the voice of the industry. It became responsible for the collection of the industrial data. It organised the conferences designed to bring all aspects of the industry together for a common purpose. Its members were responsible for the publications that emerged in the 1930s and which have formed the basis of all subsequent interpretations of the role of the studios in that period. These include Y.A. Fazalbhoy's The Indian Film: a Review (1939) a large number of collations by B.V. Dharap, and souvenir publications from within the industry.(50) Consequently it is not surprising that the majority of accounts of the Indian film industry privilege the studios and decry their demise.

An additional area where the studios exercised considerable political influence was in the organisation of the all-India Motion Picture Congress. The most important was held in Bombay in 1939. The Congress was opened by S. Satyamurthy, a powerful Member of the National Congress who had some sympathy for the film industry,(51) and chaired by Chandulal Shah. The ostensible purpose of the Congress was two-fold. Firstly, it was designed as a means whereby the arrival of the cinema as an important social force could be signified. Secondly, it was designed as a forum whereby the various sectors of the industry could explore their individual problems within the context of the larger problems perceived as confronting the industry. As outlined by Shah in his opening address to the Congress these problems were a continuing lack of finance, and internal dissension within the industry.(52) The problems were defined from the point-of-view of the studios. Dissension was not caused by labour problems but by the studios seeking to protect their position through the exclusion of new-comers to the field. In many respects the 1939 Congress represents the pinnacle of the studio's dominance.

Nearly all accounts of the demise of the studios attribute their downfall to their inability to counter the activities of freelancers whose entry to the industry around the period of the Second World War is frequently characterised in terms of an assault.(53) The cinema was, it is argued, perceived as conduit for the laundering of black money earned by war-time profiteers. To gain access to the industry it is alleged that they offered huge sums of money to actors to entice them away from the established studios and thus capture the audience. There is more than an element of truth in this. A similar thing also occurred at the end of World War 1 when the industry was in its formative stages.(54) But, it should be pointed out that Shah was not above offering stars from other studios large increases in their salaries if they joined Ranjit.(55)

The major studios dragged on into the 1950s well after Indian independence. Their longevity can be attributed to the individual talents of their founders and proprietors. Herein lies the most significant cause for the decline of the studios after the 1930s. They represent a specific example of a type of capital formation that was superceded by the development of the Indian economy in the post-World War 2 era. The studios were created as, and remained as, monuments to the skill and drive of individuals. In many respects the studios represent a romantic moment in capital formation in contemporary India. They were certainly not geared up to accommodate the changes that occurred in the post-British economy. This arose from a failure on the part of the industry to secure its position properly through the attraction of modern capital investment despite the activities of the MPSI. This lack was diagnosed frequently by members of the industry and various solutions were sought. Government intervention, along the lines recommended by the 1927-28 Committee, was an attractive proposition but the industry was divided upon such issues as to how a film bank should be established, on how a quota system should operate, and about the responsibility for producing newsreels.(56) The other strategy of attracting modern capital to the industry via the recruitment of establishment figures like Sethna was only partially successful. In reality neither the governments nor the banks were too keen to invest in the film industry.

Governments perceived the film industry as being successful enough without their assistance. Indeed they quickly saw the industry as a source of revenue through the imposition of entertainment taxes. Moreover, the British government in India was reluctant to enter into the market place, the exception being the "nation building" industries. Film as an entertainment form could, in the bureaucratic eye, hardly be classified thus. On the other hand the banks' reluctance to invest in the Indian film industry stemmed from contrary perceptions. Investment in the "nation building" industries was more secure whereas investment in the film industry was perceived as precarious at best and in the long run unprofitable.(57) That is, on the one hand the film industry was seen as too successful to warrant any form of assistance, and on the other, as not successful enough. Given such a double bind it is not surprising that alternatives were actively sought within the industry. The studios, despite their assertions to the contrary, did not treat their workforce well.(58) Consequently it is not surprising that some grasped the opportunity to dent the emerging dominance of the Indian film industry by the Bombay studios through the application of different forms of capital. Paradoxically this new capital was better suited to the new post-independence economy as it by-passed the major problems that had confronted the studio era.

The film industry in India in the 1930s was characterized by a strong move to establish studios as the dominant mode of production. This was a particular feature of the Bombay scene. Ultimately these studios were to fail but only after fifteen years of production which saw them establish a presence that has informed all subsequent considerations of the Indian film industry. This presence was deliberately created by the studios as part of their drive to secure their dominance of the productive side of cinema in India through the establishment of industry and professional organisations which in turn have produced the major source material that relates to the period. Despite such efforts the studios could not resist the influx of new capital created by changes in the Indian economy generally. Although they survived in some form or the other in the 1950s the "heyday of the studios" was the 1930s. In this period they created the beginnings of truly Indian film form: the masala film which combined drama, song, dance and action.

Notes

1. John A. Lent "Heyday of the Indian Studio System: the 1930s" Asian Profile, v. 11, no. 5 (Oct. 1983), pp. 467-474.

2. Ibid.

3. Stanley Wolpert A New History of India, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), p.321.

4. Ibid, pp. 321-3.

5. These are summarised in Lent.

6. Aruna Vasudev Liberty and License in the Indian Cinema (New Delhi: Vikas, 1978), p. 54.

7. Rani Burra (ed.) "The Rise and Fall of the Studio System" in Looking Back: 1896-1960 (New Delhi: Directorate of Film Festivals, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 1981), pp. 52-61.

8. Sridhar Kshirgar "Sounding Off," Cinema Vision India, v. 1, no. 2 (1980), pp. 48-51.

9. Lent, pp. 467-470.

10. Ibid, p. 470.

11. Pramod Kale "Ideas, Ideals and the Market: A Study of Marathi Films," Economic and Political Weekly, Sept. 1 (1979).

12. Fernand Braudel Capitalism and Material Life: 1400-1800 (London: Fontana, 1975), pp. xii-xiv.

13. Brian Shoesmith "Hollywood and the Bombay Cinema," unpublished paper presented at the 2nd History and Film Conference, La Trobe University, 1983.

14. Vijay Mishra, Peter Jeffery & Brian Shoesmith "The Actor as Parallel Text in the Bombay Cinema," Quarterly Review of Film Studies, forthcoming.

15. Burra, pp. 12-18.

16. Narmada Shahane (ed.) Studies in Film History. A Compilation of Research Papers devoted to D.G. Phalke (1870-1944) (Poona: Film Institute of India, 1970).

17. Kale, pp. 12-18.

18. Shahane, passim.

19. See the Indian Talkie 1931-56 Silver Jubilee Souvenir (Bombay: Film Federation of India, 1956).

20. See Proceedings of the First Session of the Indian Motion Picture Congress and Other Sectional Conferences, 1939 (Bombay: Motion Picture Society of India, 1930). See especially the All-India Cine Technicians Conference Proceedings, May 4, 1939.

21. Burra, p. 60.

22. D.G. Phalke in Shahane, p. 34.

23. Ibid.

24. Ardeshir M. Irani "The Dawn is Near" in 25 Years 1938-1963 of Service to the Motion Picture Industry of India: Silver Jubilee Souvenir (Bombay: Indian Motion Picture Producers' Association, 1963), p. 27.

25. B.R. Tomlinson The Political Economy of the Raj, 1914-1947: The Economics of Decolonization in India (London: Macmillan, 1979), chapter 3.

26. Government of India Report of the Indian Cinematograph Committee, 1927-1928 (Calcutta: Central Publication Branch, 1928), pp. 49-81.

27. Ibid, p. 7; Burra, p. 31.

28. Government of India, Note of A. Clow, Secretary, Department of Industry and Labour, Sept. 9, 1935, Industry and Labour, File I 296(51)/35, National Archives of India.

29. Burra, p. 42.

30. Government of India, File L/PJ/6/1465/1916, India Office Library and Records Office, London.

31. Ibid.

32. Firoze Rangoonwalla Seventy-Five Years of Indian Cinema (New Delhi: Indian Book Company, 1975), pp. 77-78.

33. Report of the Indian Cinematograph Committee, pp. 43-45.

34. Government of India, Evidence Submitted to the Indian Cinema-tograph Committee (Calcutta: Central Publications Branch, 1928), vol. 5.

35. Ibid, v. 2, pp. 448-463.

36. Ibid, v. 2, pp. 10-23; 105-144.

37. M.A. Fazalbhoy "Film Bank can Finance Industry" in 25 Years 1938-1963 of Service to the Motion Picture Industry of India, p. 41.

38. Ibid.

39. Burra, p. 36.

40. Ibid, pp. 22-23.

41. Proceedings of the First Session of the Indian Motion Picture Congress and other Sectional Congresses (Bombay: Motion Picture Society of India, 1939), pp. 1-10.

42. J.B.H. Wadia, "Heaven Helps Those Who Help Themselves" in 25 Years 1938-1963 of Service to the Motion Picture Industry of India, pp. 31-32.

43. B. Barucha Indian Cinematographic Yearbook, 1938 (Bombay: Motion Picture Society of India, 1939), p. 645.

44. M. & N.K.G. Bhanja "From `Jamai Shashti' to `Pather Panchali'" in Indian Talkie Souvenir, pp. 82-84.

45. Indian Cinematograph Committee Evidence, v. 1, pp. 23-144.

46. Y.A. Fazalbhoy The Indian Film: A Review (Bombay: Bombay Radio Press, 1939), pp. 83-84.

47. Ibid.

48. Sir Phiroze Sethna The Sethna Papers , New Delhi, Nehru Memorian Library.

49. Ibid.

50. See especially B.V. Dharap (ed.) Indian Film (Pune: Alka Talkies, 1972-1978 various volumes); and Panna Shah The Indian Film (Bombay: Motion Picture Society of India, 1950).

51. S. Satyamurthy "Opening Address to 1939 Film Congress" in Proceedings of the First Session of the Indian Motion Picture Congress, 1939, pp. vii-xiii.

52. Ibid, p. 1-10.

53. Burra, p. 66.

54. Wadia, p. 32.

55. See Lent, p. 472.

56. Government of India, Industry and Labour Files, I 296 (G-M), 1929, National Archives of India, New Delhi.

57. Fazalbhoy, p. 5.

  1. Chandulal Shah "I Visualise a Bigger and Better for Indian Film Industry" in 25 Years 1938-1963 of Service to the Motion Picture Industry of India, p. 28; and Fazalbhoy, pp. 42-43. 

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