Changes between Initial Version and Version 1 of Kohinoor Film Company

Timestamp:

Jun 23, 2012, 2:22:47 PM (12 years ago)

Author:

Trupti

Comment:

--

Kohinoor Film Company

@@ +1 @@
+'''Kohinoor Film Company'''
+
+
+Est: 1919. India’s largest and most influential
+silent studio. Preceded by S.N. Patankar’s
+Patankar Friends & Co., where Kohinoor
+proprietor D.N. Sampat (1884-1958) entered
+film production, and followed by the Krishna,
+Sharda and Imperial Studios, it was until 1928
+the place where Indian cinema turned
+professional. Launched in partnership with
+Maneklal Patel, then an Ahmedabad exhibitor,
+some of the studio’s first films were
+documentaries informed mainly by Sampat’s
+Gandhian adherences, e.g. the film of the Ali
+brothers’ arrival (1920) and Horniman’s return
+to Bombay after release from prison (1925).
+Also known in this period for topicals and
+newsreels, incl. e.g. Bodhgaya-Benares, Taj
+Mahal and St. Xavier’s Exposition. Early
+Kanjibhai Rathod films were restricted to
+Bombay and Western Indian exhibition outlets
+but the studio made a national impact in the
+wake of the notoriety generated by the
+banning of the nationalist Bhakta Vidur
+(1921), followed by the success of Gul-e-
+Bakavali and Kala Naag (both 1924), all
+aimed at a pan-Indian audience. The big
+breakthrough was the appointment of
+independent distribution agents, Bachubhai
+Bhagubhai, who bought rights to all their films.
+By 1925 the studio’s monthly booking revenue
+exceeded Rs 50,000. The idea of the
+Hollywood-style film factory with several
+simultaneous productions, of story sessions
+and the building of star careers, transformed
+the production practices of the till then
+Phalke-dominated notion of a studio as a
+family-based cottage industry. Early
+cameramen incl. V.B. Joshi and D.D. Dabke.
+Although Kohinoor’s surviving publicity
+pamphlets indicate only one overdetermining
+authorial presence, writer Mohanlal Dave
+(until Manilal Joshi shifted the practice by
+writing his own screenplays and giving a full
+list of credits, even the actors were rarely
+mentioned and almost never the director), it
+was nevertheless the place where the star
+system was born with Moti and Jamna and
+where the silent cinema’s most successful filmmaker,
+Homi Master, did his best-known
+films. Tara, Khalil, Raja Sandow and Zubeida
+started there, as did Sulochana in Bhavnani’s
+Veer Bala (1925). Other major Kohinoor figures
+include Chimanlal Luhar, Harshadrai
+Mehta, cameraman Pandurang Naik, Gohar,
+V.M. Vyas, Haribhai Desai (later of Surya Film)
+and Ranjit proprietor Chandulal Shah.
+Virtually the entire Imperial stable of directors,
+including R.S. Choudhury, Bhavnani,
+Nandlal Jaswantlal and R.N. Vaidya came
+from Kohinoor. After a fire virtually destroyed
+the studio in 1923, Maneklal Patel pulled out to
+start Krishna, and after 1928 Devare was
+mostly responsible for the studio’s new
+incarnation as the employee-run co-operative
+venture Kohinoor United Artists. A key figure
+in the studio’s later years was cameramandirector
+N.G. Devare. It closed in 1932.
+
+[[Studio]]