Alam Ara

Plot

The film is a love story between a prince and a gypsy girl, based on a Parsi play written by Joseph David. David later served as a writer at Irani's film company. The story centres on an imaginary, historical royal family in the kingdom of Kumarpur. The main characters are the king and his two warring wives, Dilbahar and Naubahar. Their rivalry escalates when a fakir predicts that Navbahar will bear the king's heir.

Dilbahar, in a fit, attempts to have an affair with the kingdom's chief minister, General Adil (Prithviraj Kapoor). The affair goes sour and a vengeful Dilbahar imprisons him and exiles his daughter, Alam Ara (Zubeida). In exile, Alam Ara is brought up by Gypsies. Upon returning to the palace at Kumarpur, Alam Ara meets and falls in love with the charming young prince (Master Vithal). In the end, Adil is released, Dilbahar is punished and the lovers marry.

Cast

Significance

Both the movie and its music were widely successful, including the hit song "De de khuda ke naam per", which was also the first song of the Indian cinema. It was sung by actor Wazir Mohammed Khan who played a fakir in the film. As playback singing had yet to start in Indian cinema, it was recorded live with musical accompaniment of a harmonium and a tabla.

The film marked the beginning of filmi music in the Cinema of India, as noted film director Shyam Benegal said, "It was not just a talkie. It was a talking and singing film with more singing and less talking. It had a number of songs and that actually set the template for the kind of films that were made later". In fact, the 1932 film Indrasabha had an overwhelming 71 songs in it.

Production

Ardeshir Irani handled the sound recording department, using the Tanar Sound System. It was shot with the Tanar single-system camera, which recorded sound directly onto the film. Since there were no soundproof studios available at the time, the shooting was done mostly at night, to avoid daytime noises, with microphones hidden near the actors.

Influences

The film was inspired by Show Boat (1929), released by Universal Pictures. It was the first and partly depending movie version of Jerome Kern's Broadway musical Show Boat, which was itself adaptated from the 1926 novel of the same name by Edna Ferber. There is no known copy of the film today. The National Archives of India says that they do not possess a print and couldn't locate one as far back as 1967. It was incorrectly reported that the last known prints, in Pune's film archives, were damaged by a fire in 2003 when in fact no copy was ever possessed by the film archive. According to P.K. Nair, founder director of the National Film Archives of India (NFAI), Pune, "The report that Alam Ara print was destroyed at the NFAI is incorrect."

Soundtrack

The film had music by Ferozshah M. Mistri and B. Irani, and had seven songs:

Legacy

Google celebrated 80th anniversary of the film's release by means of Google Doodle on 14 March 2011.