| 8 | | Apparently honed his craft writing lively synopses in publicity hand-outs for Pathé’s imports. Entered films with [[S.N. Patankar]] and moved to National Studio (where he was already paid Rs 10,000 a year to write a minimum of 15 stories) and Kohinoor, where he made his reputation and wrote about one screenplay a week. Thereafter worked at Jayant Pics. and at Imperial with the coming of sound, where he often teamed up with director [[ |
| | 8 | Apparently honed his craft writing lively synopses in publicity hand-outs for Pathé’s imports. Entered films with [[S.N. Patankar]] and moved to National Studio (where he was already paid Rs 10,000 a year to write a minimum of 15 stories) and Kohinoor, where he made his reputation and wrote about one screenplay a week. Thereafter worked at Jayant Pics. and at Imperial with the coming of sound, where he often teamed up with director [[Nandlal Jaswantlal|Jaswantlal]]. As a professional, he handled all genres, but his narrative style is related to the then emerging popular Gujarati fiction as introduced to the cinema by ex-novelists like Naranji Vassanji Thakkar, Gopalji Delwadekar, Shaida etc. His scripts are said to have included detailed camera movements, fades etc., as in [[Rathod]]’s complicated [[Gul-E-Bakavali (1924)|Gul-e-Bakavali]] (1924), written in 92 scenes. Major early scripts: the politically controversial [[Bhakta Vidur]] (1921), the Rathod hit [[Kala Naag]] (1924), [[Chandulal Shah]]’s début film Panchdanda (1925) and [[Homi Master]]’s [[Fankdo Fituri (1925)|Fankdo Fituri]] (1925). His sound films were often rewrites of his own silent hits with dialogue. His major successes were with [[V.M. Vyas]], including the Gujarati film [[Ranakdevi]] (1946). Remained a popular writer until the 60s. |