TRIBUTE TO FIRST INDIAN TALKIE..'ALAM ARA'!
- Manoj Kulkarni
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Zubeida & Master Vithal in 'Imperial Movietone's Ardeshir Irani's 'Alam Ara' (1931).
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| Ardeshir Irani recording sound of 'Alam Ara' (1931). |
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| Prithviraj Kapoor & Jillo in 'Alam Ara' (1931). |
Khan Bahadur Ardeshir Irani was one of the most important pioneers of our Indian Cinema! Earlier he directed 8 silent films..mostly mythological ('Veer Abhimanyu'/1922) and historical ('Shahjehan/1924).
In 1931 he made our India's first talkie film 'Alam Ara'! For this he handled the sound recording by using the Tanar Sound system. It was shot with the Tanar single-system camera which recorded sound directly on to the film!
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Master Vithal & Zubeida in romantic scene of 'Alam Ara' (1931).
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It cinematographed by Wilford Deming & Adi M. Irani and edited by Ezra Mir!..And the lead artists in our first talkie were Master Vithal, Zubeida, Jilloo, Sushila & Prithviraj Kapoor!
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| Wazir Mohammed Khan singing in 'Alam Ara' (1931). |
It had music by Ferozshah M. Mistri & B. Irani...and total 7 songs were there..from which "De de khuda ke naam.." was the first song of Indian cinema..which was sung by Wazir Mohammed Khan who played fakir in it! Artists Zubeida & Jilloo also sung!
This our first talkie was
successful and its music was hit! Unfortunately the film has long been lost and
not available but I have seen the documentary made on 'Alam Ara' in
the programme 'Celebrating 75 years of Indian Talkie' held at Mumbai
decade ago!
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| Ardeshir Irani checking print of 'Alam Ara' (1931). |
And glad to note that..the inaugural special issue of my film magazine 'Chitrasrushti' was on '75 Years of World Talkie' published in 2002!
Salute to master of Indian Talkie..Irani sahab!!
- Manoj Kulkarni
['Chitrasrushti']
[Pune, India]
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