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Awaaz
1956 146’ b&w Hindi d/s/co-lyr Zia Sarhadi pc Mehboob Prod. lyr Shailendra, Vishwamitter Adil, Prem Dhawan m Salil Choudhury lp Nalini Jaywant, Usha Kiron, Zul Velani, Rajendra Kumar, Nasir Hussain, Anwar Hussain, Sapru
Sarhadi’s best-known melodrama drew on Pudovkin and Donskoi-style Soviet realism to tell of an oppressive industrialist (Sapru), his trusted foreman, Bhatnagar (N. Hussain) and the lives of Bhatnagar’s family. The foreman obsessed with his daughter Bela’s (Kiron) marriage, pretends to have a large sum set aside to secure her future. When the father of her fiance, Ashok (R. Kumar), claims a large dowry, Bhatnagar is distraught. He loses his job and dies of the shock. His son Kishen (Velani), who resented that money had allegedly been saved for his sister, now discovers that there is no money and, in a drunken moment, accuses his own wife Jamuna (Jaywant) of having stolen the cash. Desperate to raise the dowry, Jamuna does odd jobs and falls into the clutches of the old industrialist who had sacked her father. The man promises to give her the money in exchange for sex. She takes the money and then commits suicide. The film contains many references to Soviet film styles, including the heavy-handed use of low and high angles, e.g. the shots of the overcoat-wearing Banke (A. Hussain), a figure representing the organised proletariat (esp. in the militant workers’ song Araram tararam duniya ke kaise kaise gam) and the family’s self-appointed protector. The only print currently available has been reconstructed from fragments of original prints.