| 7 | 7 | The resident star was Devika Rani. The scenarists were Niranjan Pal and J.S. Casshyap. The technical team was imported from Europe, including director Franz Osten, cameraman Josef Wirsching, set designer Carl von Spreti (later Count Carl von Spreti, the West German ambassador murdered in Guatemala in 1970) and soundman Len Hartley. The studio had three major phases. The first, the Rai-Osten era (Achhut Kanya, 1936; Kangan, 1939) ended with Osten’s arrest at the beginning of WW2 and, later, Rai’s death (1940). The second saw Devika Rani, as production controller, split the studio into two production groups, one led by Amiya Chakravarty (best-known film of this period: Jwar Bhata, 1944, introducing Dilip Kumar) and the other led by S. Mukherjee with Rai Bahadur Chunilal. |