'''Krishna Film Company'''


Silent studio; Est: 1924 as a diversification of
the Krishna Film Laboratory in Bombay by
Maneklal Patel, a former exhibitor in
Ahmedabad, scenarist (usually under name of
Krishna Kumar), film-maker and partner in the
Kohinoor Studio. Among the most successful
of Kohinoor’s offshoots, they made 44 films
1925-31, including works by Luhar’s partner
Harshadrai Mehta, Kanjibhai Rathod,
Mohanlal Shah, A.P. Kapur and Prafulla Ghosh,
cameramen Gordhanbhai Patel and Ambalal
Patel and actors such as Gulab, Ermeline,
Nandram and Rampiary. Its most famous silent
productions were Prafulla Ghosh’s mammoth
4-part serial, Hatimtai (1929), the muchdiscussed
(e.g. by the 1928 Cinematograph
Committee) Janjirne Jankare (1927) and the
K.M. Munshi story Kono Vank? The studio
made a major financial investment in sound as
Krishnatone, making 5 talkies in 1931 (4 by
Rathod), but it closed in 1935 following major
litigation concerning their last film,
Fashionable India (1935), with financiers
Kapurchand & Co. and the agency supplying
imported film stock. In the silent days, Krishna
filmed the work of several noted Gujarati
novelists, e.g. Narayanji Vassanji Thakker,
Gopalji Delwadakar, Shaida, K.M. Munshi,
Champshi Udeshi and Ramanlal Desai, and also
hired some of them as scenarists.

[[Studio]]