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The English Films Of Bollywood|| Introduction || Silent Movies || The Era of Talkies || The Early Films-I || The Early Films-II || Recent Films || New Star Kids || Melody & Music || Parallel or New Cinema || Regional Cinema || English Films || International Arena || Film Censorship || Film Awards || Famous Cine Personalities || English films were the earliest entrants into India. During the silent era, it was a common practice to have the main titles in English and Urdu. Several indigenous films were made in English versions with an eye on the foreign market. Thus, we had Dhiren Ganguli's Bherat Ferat as England Returned; Baburao Painter's Savkari Pash as Indian Shylock; Indulal Yagnik's Anarkali as Monument of Tears and Debaki Bose's Inquilab as After the Earthquake, to name a few. Numerous short films were made in English during 1900-1909, like Thanwalla's Splendid New Views of Bombay; Hiralal Sen's Indian Life and Scenes; Elphinstone Co's Dancing of Indian Nautch Girls and Amir of Kabul's Procession; Phalke's Growth of a Planet and How Films are Made, etc. Himanshu Rai's Light of Asia (1931) was perhaps the earliest Indian feature film attempted in English. Ardashir Irani, the pioneer of the Indian talkie, attempted to make an English version of his film Noor Jehan in 1931 with Exra Mir as its director. This was followed by Rai's Karma (1933). J.B.Wadia's Court Dancer (1941) can be considered as the first wholly indigenous film made in English. In 1946, V.Shantaram made an English version of his film Dr. Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani as The Journey of Dr.Kotnis. The first technicolour film, Sohrab Modi's Jhansi Ki Rani (1951) was made in English as Tiger and the Flame; likewise, G.P.Sippy's Shahenshah (1953) was made in English as Queen of Araby. In 1952, the Modern Theatres produced the first English movie in South India The Jungle, with Cesar Romero, Rod Cameron and Mary Windsor in the cast. In 1964, Ismail Merchant joined hands with James Ivory to make the English-Hindi film Gharbaar (The House-holder), which was a laudable effort towards projecting Indian cinema abroad. The same team produced other notable films like Shakespearewallah (1965), The Guru, Savages, The Wild Party, Roseland, Quartet, Bostonians, Autobiography of a Princess (1975) and Heat and Dust (1982). Dev Anand's popular hit film Guide (1965) was made as a separate English version by Pearl Buck and Tad Danielewski. Shashi Kapoor's 36 Choringhee Lane (1981) won several National awards, besides the Golden Eagle at the First Manila International Film Festival in 1982. Shashi Kapoor produced another noteworthy film Utsav (Festival of Love) in English. Victor Banerjee made his directorial debut with An August Requiem (1981). Richard Attenborough's Gandhi rekindled the interest of the West in the Indian themes. Miss Beatty's Children (Pamela Rooks), English August (Dev Benegal), Elizabeth (Shekhar Kapoor) are some of the important English films produced during nineties. Elizabeth created a sensation by winning several Oscar nominations. Shekhar Kapoor is said to be working on several other English projects like Mandela, The Phantom of Opera, Steinbeck's Point of View and Lady of the Clouds. The Indian director-screen writer Manoj Night Shyamalan recently had a US and worldwide box-office hit with The Sixth Sense, starring Bruce Willis. The movie had won three People's Choice awards in California and five Oscar nominations. Shyamalan is making another movie called Unbreakable as follow-up to The Sixth Sense.
|| Introduction || Silent Movies || The Era of Talkies || The Early Films-I || The Early Films-II || Recent Films || New Star Kids || Melody & Music || Parallel or New Cinema || Regional Cinema || English Films || International Arena || Film Censorship || Film Awards || Famous Cine Personalities || |
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