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Alam Ara
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Alam Ara
Alam Ara (transl. Ornament of the World) is a 1931 Indian historical fantasy film directed and produced by Ardeshir Irani. It revolves around a king and his two wives, Navbahaar and Dilbahaar, who are childless; soon, a fakir (Wazir Muhammad Khan) tells the king that the former wife will give birth to a boy, later named Qamar (Master Vithal), but the child will die following his 18th birthday if Navbahaar cannot find the necklace he asks for. Meanwhile, the king finds out that Dilbahaar falls for the senapati Adil (Prithviraj Kapoor), leading the king to arrest him and evicts his pregnant wife, who later gives birth to Alam Ara (Zubeida).
Irani was inspired to make Alam Ara after watching the 1929 American part-talkie Show Boat. The story was adapted from the Bombay-based dramatist Joseph David's play of the same name. Made on a budget of ₹40,000 (equivalent to ₹12 million or US$140,000 in 2023), principal photography was handled by Adi M. Irani within four months in Bombay. Because the studio was located near a railway track, it was filmed mostly during the nighttime to avoid noise from the active trains. Following filming, Ardeshir Irani finished the sound recording using the single-system recording. Firozshah Mistry and B. Irani served as the music directors.
Alam Ara was released on 14 March 1931 and performed well at the box office. Critics were appreciative, with the performance and songs getting the most attention, though some of whom criticised the sound recording. In addition to the successes, the film was also widely considered a major breakthrough for the Indian film industry and Ardeshir Irani's career with its status as the country's first sound film. Although no print or gramophone record of the film is known to survive, making it a lost film, surviving artefacts include its stills and posters. In 2017, the British Film Institute declared it as the most important of any lost films produced in India.
A king and his two wives, Navbahaar and Dilbahaar, are childless. Soon, a fakir tells Navbahaar she will give birth to a boy but she must find a necklace tied around a fish's neck—which will appear once at the palace's lake—if she wants her son to live past his 18th birthday. The boy is named Qamar. Besides that, Dilbahaar has an affair with the palace's senapati Adil. The king finds out about this, and Dilbahaar tells him it was Adil who seduced her first. Therefore, the king arrests him and evicts his pregnant wife, Mehar Nigar, from the palace; Nigar gives birth to Alam Ara and dies when a shikari tells her about her husband's affair. The shikari later adopts Ara.
Dilbahaar is jealous of Navbahaar and knows about her agreement with the fakir. When the necklace appears on Qamar's 18th birthday, she secretly replaces it with a fake one, which soon results in Qamar's death. His family, however, does not bury his body and starts looking for the fakir to find out what went wrong. As a result, Qamar comes alive every night when Dilbahaar removes the necklace from her neck and later dies when she wears it in the morning. Apart from that, Ara knows about her innocent father's suffering, vowing to release him from prison. On her visit to the place one night, Ara sees the alive Qamar and falls for him. Everyone in the palace subsequently learns about Dilbahaar's foul play and finally retrieve the real necklace, with Adil being released. The film ends with Qamar and Ara living happily together.
Other supporting roles were played by Jilloo, Sushila, Elizer, Jagdish Sethi, L. V. Prasad, and Yaqub.
After watching Harry A. Pollard's 1929 American romantic drama part-talkie Show Boat at Excelsior Theatre in Bombay (present-day Mumbai), Ardeshir Irani was inspired to make his next project a sound film which he would direct and produce. Although having no experience creating this type of film, he determined to make it and decided to not follow any precedential sound films. The project was subsequently titled Alam Ara and produced by Irani for Imperial Film Company (IFC), an entertainment studio he co-founded with the tent showman Abdulally Esoofally in 1926. The story was adapted from the Bombay-based dramatist Joseph David's Parsi play of the same name, while the screenplay was done by Irani. The dialogue was written in Hindustani, a mix of Hindi and Urdu.
Zubeida was cast in the title role after Irani's frequent collaborator and first choice, Ruby Myers, was unable to join the cast due to her inability to speak the film's language. This left Myers disappointed and she took a one-year hiatus from acting, perfecting her ability to speak Hindustani. Irani initially wanted the debutant Mehboob Khan to be the male lead, but later changed his mind and wanted a "more commercially-viable" actor, an opportunity taken by Master Vithal—one of the most successful filmmakers of Indian silent cinema. In later years, Khan would admit that it left him unhappy. When Vithal decided to star in the film, he ended his ongoing contract with Saradhi Studios, at which he started his career, causing him legal issues as the studio believed he was in breach of contract. With help from his lawyer Muhammad Ali Jinnah, he won the case and moved to IFC to play the male lead of Alam Ara.
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Alam Ara
Alam Ara (transl. Ornament of the World) is a 1931 Indian historical fantasy film directed and produced by Ardeshir Irani. It revolves around a king and his two wives, Navbahaar and Dilbahaar, who are childless; soon, a fakir (Wazir Muhammad Khan) tells the king that the former wife will give birth to a boy, later named Qamar (Master Vithal), but the child will die following his 18th birthday if Navbahaar cannot find the necklace he asks for. Meanwhile, the king finds out that Dilbahaar falls for the senapati Adil (Prithviraj Kapoor), leading the king to arrest him and evicts his pregnant wife, who later gives birth to Alam Ara (Zubeida).
Irani was inspired to make Alam Ara after watching the 1929 American part-talkie Show Boat. The story was adapted from the Bombay-based dramatist Joseph David's play of the same name. Made on a budget of ₹40,000 (equivalent to ₹12 million or US$140,000 in 2023), principal photography was handled by Adi M. Irani within four months in Bombay. Because the studio was located near a railway track, it was filmed mostly during the nighttime to avoid noise from the active trains. Following filming, Ardeshir Irani finished the sound recording using the single-system recording. Firozshah Mistry and B. Irani served as the music directors.
Alam Ara was released on 14 March 1931 and performed well at the box office. Critics were appreciative, with the performance and songs getting the most attention, though some of whom criticised the sound recording. In addition to the successes, the film was also widely considered a major breakthrough for the Indian film industry and Ardeshir Irani's career with its status as the country's first sound film. Although no print or gramophone record of the film is known to survive, making it a lost film, surviving artefacts include its stills and posters. In 2017, the British Film Institute declared it as the most important of any lost films produced in India.
A king and his two wives, Navbahaar and Dilbahaar, are childless. Soon, a fakir tells Navbahaar she will give birth to a boy but she must find a necklace tied around a fish's neck—which will appear once at the palace's lake—if she wants her son to live past his 18th birthday. The boy is named Qamar. Besides that, Dilbahaar has an affair with the palace's senapati Adil. The king finds out about this, and Dilbahaar tells him it was Adil who seduced her first. Therefore, the king arrests him and evicts his pregnant wife, Mehar Nigar, from the palace; Nigar gives birth to Alam Ara and dies when a shikari tells her about her husband's affair. The shikari later adopts Ara.
Dilbahaar is jealous of Navbahaar and knows about her agreement with the fakir. When the necklace appears on Qamar's 18th birthday, she secretly replaces it with a fake one, which soon results in Qamar's death. His family, however, does not bury his body and starts looking for the fakir to find out what went wrong. As a result, Qamar comes alive every night when Dilbahaar removes the necklace from her neck and later dies when she wears it in the morning. Apart from that, Ara knows about her innocent father's suffering, vowing to release him from prison. On her visit to the place one night, Ara sees the alive Qamar and falls for him. Everyone in the palace subsequently learns about Dilbahaar's foul play and finally retrieve the real necklace, with Adil being released. The film ends with Qamar and Ara living happily together.
Other supporting roles were played by Jilloo, Sushila, Elizer, Jagdish Sethi, L. V. Prasad, and Yaqub.
After watching Harry A. Pollard's 1929 American romantic drama part-talkie Show Boat at Excelsior Theatre in Bombay (present-day Mumbai), Ardeshir Irani was inspired to make his next project a sound film which he would direct and produce. Although having no experience creating this type of film, he determined to make it and decided to not follow any precedential sound films. The project was subsequently titled Alam Ara and produced by Irani for Imperial Film Company (IFC), an entertainment studio he co-founded with the tent showman Abdulally Esoofally in 1926. The story was adapted from the Bombay-based dramatist Joseph David's Parsi play of the same name, while the screenplay was done by Irani. The dialogue was written in Hindustani, a mix of Hindi and Urdu.
Zubeida was cast in the title role after Irani's frequent collaborator and first choice, Ruby Myers, was unable to join the cast due to her inability to speak the film's language. This left Myers disappointed and she took a one-year hiatus from acting, perfecting her ability to speak Hindustani. Irani initially wanted the debutant Mehboob Khan to be the male lead, but later changed his mind and wanted a "more commercially-viable" actor, an opportunity taken by Master Vithal—one of the most successful filmmakers of Indian silent cinema. In later years, Khan would admit that it left him unhappy. When Vithal decided to star in the film, he ended his ongoing contract with Saradhi Studios, at which he started his career, causing him legal issues as the studio believed he was in breach of contract. With help from his lawyer Muhammad Ali Jinnah, he won the case and moved to IFC to play the male lead of Alam Ara.
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