Changes between Initial Version and Version 1 of Imperial Films Company

Timestamp:

Jun 23, 2012, 11:08:05 AM (12 years ago)

Author:

Trupti

Comment:

--

Imperial Films Company

@@ +1 @@
+'''Imperial Films Company'''
+
+
+Est: 1926. Successor to the Majestic and Royal
+Art Film companies set up by Ardeshir Irani
+as a diversification of his exhibition interests in
+partnership with Esoofally, Mohammed Ali
+and Dawoodji Rangwala. Organised as a
+vertically integrated combine with its own
+exhibition infrastructure. Started following the
+decline of Kohinoor, it continued many of the
+latter’s Mohanlal Dave-inspired genres, often
+with the same stars and film-makers. Imperial
+became closely associated with the costumed
+historical genre launched with Anarkali (1928),
+shot and released almost overnight in direct
+competition to Charu Roy’s The Loves of a
+Mughal Prince (1928). Irani also rushed out
+Alam Ara (1931), released as India’s first full
+talkie narrowly beating Madan Theatres’
+Shirin Farhad (1931). Imperial was the first
+studio to shoot scenes at night (in Khwab-e-
+Hasti, 1929) using incandescent lamps. It
+owned India’s top silent star, Sulochana, and
+promoted her along with Zubeida, Jilloo and,
+for a while, the young Prithviraj Kapoor. This
+was perhaps the first major instance of a
+deliberate manufacturing of a star-cult as a
+marketing strategy. Top Imperial film-makers
+include R.S. Choudhury, B.P. Mishra and
+Mohan Bhavnani, whose film-making set the
+house style, as did Nandlal Jaswantlal’s
+sound films. A fair number of the studio’s
+talkies were remakes of its own silent hits with
+Sulochana (Anarkali, 1928 & 1935), Wildcat
+of Bombay (1927) became Bambai Ki Billi
+(1936), etc. It made films in at least nine
+languages: Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil,
+Telugu, Burmese, Malay, Pushtu and Urdu. The
+first Iranian sound film, Dukhtar-e-Lur (aka
+Dokhtare Lor Ya Irane Diruz Va Emruz, 1932)
+was also made here. Kisan Kanya (1937) by
+Gidwani was India’s first indigenously
+manufactured colour film, made with the
+Cinecolour process. When it closed in 1938, its
+economic and generic inheritance was
+continued by Sagar Movietone.
+
+[[Studio]]