Advanced search
- TITLES
- NAMES
- COLLABORATIONS
Search filters
Enter full date
to
or just enter yyyy, or yyyy-mm below
to
to
to
Exclude
Only includes titles with the selected topics
to
In minutes
to
1-50 of 52
- A drama set amid an earthquake in Bihar. Miss Renee (Khote) looks after the victims while her lover, the businessman Sardar (Mohanned), wants to make money from the disaster. She comes under the spell of the blind itinerant Musafir (Dey in his usual persona) whose low opinion of the depravity of the wealthy provides the film's moral backbone. She eventually discovers that as a child she had been promised to Musafir but had been rejected by his family for being of a lower caste.
- Based on the life story of Tansen, a renowned musician in the court of the Mughal emperor Akbar.
- Devdas (Saigal/Barua), son of a zamindar, and Parvati (aka Paro)(Jamuna), his poor neighbour's daughter, are childhood sweethearts. Status and caste differences prevent their marriage and Devdas is sent to Calcutta while Paro is married off to an aged but rich widower. In Calcutta the hero meets the prostitute Chandramukhi (Rajkumari/Chandrabati Devi) but remorse drives him to alcohol and (after a long train journey in which he attempts to run away from himself) he comes to die in front of his true love's house.
- The simple-minded Rajat (Barua) loves neighbor Jayanti (Menaka Devi). He is advised on how to court her by his street-smart cousin Bishwanath (Sanyal) and Bishwanath's friend Samir (Bannerjee). Bishwanath and Samir try to get Rajat's miserly guardian Bagalcharan (Choudhury) to loan them money so that Samir can make a 'European-style art film'. Rajat's and Jayanti's guardians meanwhile become enemies. Rajat's guardian first falls in to the hands of a Quaker -crook Gajanan and from there into the clutches of two professional crooks Natoraj (Indu Mukherjee) and his daughter Supta (Molina Devi) who pretend to be multimillionaires. They eye the jewelries kept fro Rajat's would be bride. Supta pretends to like Rajat, and the alliance is accepted by Rajat's guardian and in rebound Jayanti agrees to marry Bishwanath. How to spoil the crook's plan, whom none know to be crooks?
- A boy is brought up lovingly and luxuriously by his parents who are landowners. He weds and fathers a daughter. Subsequently, he leaves his wife and daughter, giving up his rich life.
- The story of an unemployed graduate who falls in love with a woman who ran away from her cruel husband.
- Reformist melodrama about widow-remarriage. Jai Narain, owner of a colliery, forms a happy family with his wife, his daughter Saroj, son-in-law Kailash, an engineer at the colliery, and their son Nannha. Kailash dies in a colliery accident caused by Jai Narain. Nannha is sent to an orphanage and Saroj marries Ramesh, who loves her but is unaware of her previous marriage or of being a stepfather, while Saroj misses her dead husband and longs for her absent son. A former suitor, Ranjit appears, knowing her past history. Repeated scenes show Nannha pining for his mother.
- The film's story tells of two childhood friends, Bhulwa (Saigal) and Manju (Kanan Devi), who grow up to become street singers in Calcutta. Bhulwa dreams of becoming a stage star but it is Manju who succeeds. At the height of her fame Manju almost forgets Bhulwa until at the end - in an obviously symbolic landscape (literally showing a boat washed ashore in a storm) the two are united.
- The poor but educated Mahim and his childhood friend, the rich but conservative Suresh, both fall in love with the same woman, the liberated Achala. Mahim marries her and they move to a village but she cannot forget Suresh. Her smouldering unhappiness takes the form of a resentment towards the orphaned Mrinal, raised by Mahim's father, and receives a dramatically visual embodiment when their house burns down. Mahim falls ill, is rescued by Suresh and nursed back to health by Achala. On a train (a metaphor for the irreversibly linear course of life) to a health-resort where Mahim is supposed to convalesce, Suresh on a rainswept night gives in to temptation and elopes with Achala. At the end of the film, there is a dubious reconciliation as Achala is shown following Mahim's 'good' traditionalism with Saratchandra's barely concealed hostility towards Achala's liberated Brhamo Samaj upbringing.
- Classic celebration of Mithila's King Shiva Singha's (Bannerjee/Kapoor) love for his wife while chronicling the influence of the pacifist court poet Bidyapati (Sanyal). Invited to the royal court by the king, Bidyapati arrives with his faithful follower Anuradha (Kanan Devi). Queen Laxmi (Chhaya Devi) falls in love with the poet, much to the distress of the king. The king falls ill and starts neglecting his royal duties until Anuradha persuades him that true love does not need reciprocation. The queen, equally distressed by her divided loyalties, contemplates suicide, encouraged by the prime minister who is worried by the nefarious impact of Bidyapati's poetry on the king. Both the king and queen sacrifice their lives before the statue of the god Vishnu who appears to weep at the tragedy.
- Primitivist love story and popular musical set among the Shaivite clan of snake-charmers. Renouned snake-charmer Jahar (Bhattacharya), the survivor of 99 snakebites thanks to rigorous self-discipline including sexual abstinence, rescues a young girl from snakebite and raises her as a boy called Chandan (Kanan Devi). As he starts feeling sexually attracted to 'him', the clan discovers that Jahar is sheltering a young woman and so they seek to depose him as chief. Meanwhile, the young Jhumro (Sanyal) elopes with Chandan and in a fit of fury Jahar sends a deadly snake in pursuit of the couple. The snake bites Jhumro and only Jahar's powers can save the boy...
- Devdas, the son of Zamindar Narayan Mukherjee, was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He grew up in the lush village of Taj Sonapur, where he spent his childhood, indulged by his lovely playmate Paro. They grew up sharing a special relationship, in which they existed only to each other. Oblivious of all the differences of status and background, a bond that would never break grew between them. Slowly, it changed to love but it was still unsaid. But the reverie was broken when his family sent Devdas to Calcutta for education. Paro's world crashed knowing that her Devdas would be gone and she lit a diya, for it signified the fast coming back of her loved one. Years passed and Devdas returned. Devdas was besotted by her stunning beauty and longed to have her back. But Zamindar Narayan Mukherjee, Devdas' father, met Paro's mother Sumitra's marriage proposal with condescending arrogance. It caused a rift between the families and even though Devdas tried to convince his father, the only antagonism came his way. Finally, he moved away from Paro and wrote a letter to her, asking her to forget him. Only, he didn't realize that he would never be able to forget her ever. And much later, when he reached out to her, it was too late as she was far too humiliated. She scorned him for not standing by her and they parted forever with a heart-broken Paro entering into a chaste marriage with a wealthy, much older man, Zamindar Bhuvan, while a shattered Devdas walked towards anguish, alcoholism and Chandramukhi. Chandramukhi, a stunning courtesan instantly lost her heart to Devdas. A unique bond was formed between both as he could share with her the intense pain of his unfulfilled love for Paro. Meanwhile, Paro, on the other hand, performed her worldly duties sincerely, but inside her heart, she could never forget Devdas for a moment. Strange was the fate of Devdas. Intensely loved by two women, who were never meant to be his.
- During the war of independence of Bangladesh, a number of women was victimized by Pakistani Military. A film actor feels to take the responsibility of the war heroines.
- K.L. Saigal stars as Chandidas and Umasashi as Rami, featuring several of their popular duets (e.g. Prem nagar mein banaongi ghar main) and other songs with Sanyal. This film is about Chandidas, a legendary 15th-C. Bengali Vaishnavite poet whose biography remains obscure but was an influence on the better documented Chaitanya (1486-1533), a school teacher who promoted the Vaishnavite ideology in Bengal, mostly through hymns about the Radha-Krishna legend. The film stressed the poet's teachings through the love story between Chandidas and a low-caste washerwoman, Rami. The conventional villain of the saint film genre, who represents the established order threatened by the outsider's revolutionary influence on common people, is the rapacious upper-caste merchant Bijoynarayan. When Rami rejects his advances, he persuades the high priest to insist that Chandidas must repent or be punished for associating with a low-caste woman. Chandidas agrees to repent but when he sees the injuries Rami has suffered at the hands of the merchant's goons, he rejects institutionalized religion in favor of the higher Vaishnavite call for a more democratic god and leaves the village with Rami.
- Shyamlal kidnaps Deepak, the son of his elder brother Hiralal, to get a larger share in Hiralal's will. Deepak is raised by the blind singer and stage performer Surdas. Deepak grows up and falls in love with Meera. Plagues by the uncertainty of his parentage, they decide to elope and are chased by detectives employed by Hiralal. Following an accident, Deepak loses his memory, only to regain it when he sees Surdas on the stage.
- A famous Saigal musical narrating a strange love story set against 1930s industrialization and worker-management relations. The 16-year-old Prabhavati (Chandarbati Devi/Kumari) inherits a mill and turns it into an extremely profitable enterprise. Prakash (Saigal) is a worker who designs a more efficient machine for the factory for which he first gets sacked and then is re-employed. He falls in love with Prabhavati's sister Sheila (Desai), who later makes way for Prabhavati who is also in love with Prakash. Her withdrawal distresses Prakash, causing her to bully the workers who then go on strike.
- Maya (Jamuna) is the poor cousin of rich socialite Shanta (Azoorie). Shanta is supposed to marry the equally rich Pratap (P. Sanyal), but he falls in love with Maya and fathers her child before going abroad. Shanta causes a seperation by intercepting Pratap's letters to Maya. When he returns, a successful lawyer, he us unable to trace her, while her efforts to meet him are foiled.
- Adventure movie featuring Saigal as the wild Pervez, heir to the throne of Kascand. In protest at the marriage with the princess (Rajkumari) of neighbouring Bijapore arranged by his mother (Zutshi) and the vizir (Hamid), he leaves and joins a band of traveling qypsies where Zarina (Rattan Bai) falls in love with him. The bad Tikkim, who wants to marry the princess himself, has her kidnapped by the qypsies. In the qypsy camp, Pervez sees her as a dancing girl.
- This classic adultery story tells of an artist, Prasanta (Barua) presented in the stereotypically romantic image: dedicated to his vocation, paying no heed to his scandalous reputation (he paints nude models) and with a cavalier attitude to his conservative father-in-law's (Choudhury) demands for a good social behaviour. He is married to the rich Chitra (Kanan Devi). The couple are in love but neither partner is prepared to compromise their ideals. The marriage falls apart. Prasanta concedes his wife's demand for a divorce and goes to the jungles of Assam, where for many years his closest associates are a wild elephant and Jharna (Menaka), the wife of an innkeeper named Pahari (P. Mullick). He also makes a sworn enemy of a local trader (Nawab/A. Mullick). Chitra marries the millionaire Bipul (Mukherjee) and they go an elephant hunt. They kill Prasanta's pet elephant. Since Chitra believes Prasanta to be dead he avoids meeting her, but is forced to rescue her from the villainous trader.. Prasanta succeeds but dies at Chitra's feet. The film interprets his death as Chitra's final achievement of the freedom she had craved. Barua contrasts the regressive story presented as static and unresolved, both as narrative and as performance, with a hyperactive environment that overwhelms the trivial nature of the lead couple's desires.
- Melodrama about lineage and property questions. Nikhilesh (Barua) loves heiress Indira (Jamuna). A poor orphan girl, Radha (Menaka Devi), arrives claiming to be Indira's stepsister and therefore part inheritor of the family estate. Indira agrees to share her inheritance but then Radha makes a play for Nikhilesh. Ultimately, Radha turns out to be the real and sole heir. Love proves to be stronger than material possession as Indira and Nikhilesh get married and Radha finds happiness with Ratan, a man she had known and loved during her days of poverty. As each character returns to the class of his/her birth, the message hammered home is a warning to people never to transcend their social status.
- The poor but educated Mahim and his childhood friend, the rich but conservative Suresh, both fall in love with the same woman, the liberated Achala. Mahim marries her and they move to a village but she cannot forget Suresh. Her smouldering unhappiness takes the form of a resentment towards the orphaned Mrinal, raised by Mahim's father, and receives a dramatically visual embodiment when their house burns down. Mahim falls ill, is rescued by Suresh and nursed back to health by Achala. On a train (a metaphor for the irreversibly linear course of life) to a health-resort where Mahim is supposed to convalesce, Suresh on a rainswept night gives in to temptation and elopes with Achala. At the end of the film, there is a dubious reconciliation as Achala is shown following Mahim's 'good' traditionalism with Saratchandra's barely concealed hostility towards Achala's liberated Brhamo Samaj upbringing.