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