Magic of Movies - 1928

1928
1.Devdas
https://www.cinestaan.com/movies/devdas-464

Devdas is a 1928 silent film based on the Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay novel, Devdas. It was the first film adaptation of the novel. It was directed by Naresh Mitra who also acted in the film. Nitin Bose was the cinematographer. The film was shot in erstwhile Calcutta in British India.
Cast
Phani Burma as Devdas
(Phani Burma (born 1897 in Kolkata ) was a Bengali actor and film director. He began his film career as an actor in 1928 with the title role of Debda in Naresh Mitra's first film adaptation of Sharatchandra Chattopadhyay's famous novel. Until 1934 he often played under Charu Roy , but also under Jyotish Bannerjee and PC Barua . After ten years of screen break , he appeared again in 1944 in Chhabi Biswas ' first directorial work Pratikar .
In 1930, Phani Burma first directed the film for Shesh Path . From 1936 he moved to continuous directing and turned until 1957, seventeen other Bengali films.)
Tarakbala as Parbati (Paro)
Parulbala as Chandramukhi
It was later to be remade eight more times in Indian Cinema with the most popular version still cited as P. C. Barua’s Devdas in 1935 starring K. L. Saigal.
2.Khoon-e-Nahak was the first Indian screen adaptation of Hamlet. A silent film, it was directed by Athavale based on Mehdi Hasan Ahsan's version of the Hamlet play, written originally for the Parsi theatre.
3.Madhuri directed by Rama Choudhary for the Imperial Film Company, and Anarkali, also called Loves of a Mughal Prince directed by Charu Roy and Prafulla Roy for Great Eastern Corporation, were successful films starring Sulochana (Ruby Myers). Both films were made into Talkie versions later, with Madhuri in 1932 and Anarkali in 1935.
Director: R.S. Choudhury
Stars: Ruby Mayer, Dinshaw Bilimoria, Jillo

Dinshaw Bilimoria (born 1904 in Kirkee ) was an Indian film actor and director.
Dinshaw Bilimoria made his film debut in 1925 in ND Sarpotdar's mythological-historical film Chhatrapati Sambhaji . In 1927 he moved to the Imperial Film Company and had there as a film partner of Sulochana in Mohan Bhavnani's Wildcat of Bombay (1927) and RS Choudhurys Anarkali (1928) his first major successes. At the end of the silent film era from 1927 to 1929 and in the early sound film in India from 1933 to 1939, Bilimoria and Sulochana formed a popular screen pair , which inspired a wide audience, especially in romantic-colored dramas by director Choudhury. He was considered the highest paid silent movie star in India. Of several of the silent film successes they turned after 1932 sound film remakes, including Anarkali (1935) and Bambai Ki Billi / Wildcat of Bombay (1936). He played between 1929 and 1932 in several films for the film company Ranjit Movietone under the directors Chandulal Shah , Nanubhai Vakil and Nandlal Jaswantlal . In two films in 1940 and 1942 Bilimoria probably also directed; however, Azadi-e-Watan (1940) may be a synchronized version of a US import. His brother was the actor Eddie Bilimoria .

Jilloo Maa was a female actor in Bollywood Hindi films based in Mumbai, India. She acted in Mother India and Mughal-e-Azam, the two biggest commercial and critical successes of the 1950s. She also acted in many movies also but in very small roles. She portrayed the role of the mother-in-law of Radha, the protagonist of Mother India, and the mother of Anarkali, the lead female character of Mughal-e-Azam. She acted in several other films, including Madhosh (1951 film), where she played Meena Kumari's mother.


4.Shiraz
Shiraz is a German - British - Indian film directed by Franz Osten , released in 1928. It is the second part of a triptych of Himanshu Rai that begins with Prem Sanyas (1925) and ends with Prapancha Pash (1929). The three films evoke Indian themes and in particular the religions of this country. The first recalls Buddhism by telling the origins of Gautama Buddha . The last one refers to Hinduism by proposing a variation around the theme of the dice game between the Pandavas and the Kauravas in the Mahābhārata . Shiraz has its roots in the Muslim India of the Mughal Empire.
Directed in an orientalist style, Shiraz tells the events that led to the construction of the Taj Mahal . Like Shahjahan (1924) or Mumtaz Mahal (1926) before him, and Shahjehan (1946) or Taj Mahal (1963) after him, Shiraz moved away from historical reality in favor of an imaginary tale.

Himanshu Roy was born in an aristocratic family, and spent several years in Santiniketan for his schooling. After obtaining a law-degree from Kolkata, he went to London to become a barrister. There he met a playwright and screenwriter Niranjan Pal. That association led to making of a film The Light of Asia, which he co-directed with Franz Osten. Rai was also one of the main actors in this film. After Himanshu married Devika Rani in 1929, they went to Germany and worked in the UFA studio in Germany. But as the sound film arrived, UFA was completely reorganized and as a result many a staff member had to leave the studios and the German career of Himanshu Rai and Devika Rani ended abruptly. It was also combined with the worldwide economic depression that sounded the death knell for joint ventures, but with Rani, Rai made his first sound film Karma in 1933. Karma, an "Indo-German-British" collaboration, was released two years after the Alam Ara (1931), the first Indian talkie. Karma was made targeting the international audience. The film was entirely shot in India while the post-production process was carried out in Stoll Studios, London. The film was the first talkie produced by Rai. The film initially premiered in London in May 1933. Devika Rani's performance was lauded by the critics in London. However, when the film was released later in Hindi as Naagan Ki Raagini, it failed to impress the Indian audience. The film was among the first in India to feature an on-screen kiss. The four-minute long scene between Devika Rani and Rai, her husband in real life, is also known to being the longest such scene in Indian cinema. Upon release, the film became controversial in the then "orthodox India" for featuring a kissing scene. Though largely ignored in India during its release, Karma is considered a landmark in Indian cinema due to its unprecedented kissing scene. In 2012, The Times of India described it as the "first Indian talkie with English dialogue which set all London talking". Returning to India, the couple established their production studio Bombay Talkies in 1934. They produced many women-centric films throughout the decade, with Devika Rani portraying lead roles in most of them. Himanshu Rai died in 1940 at the age of 48.After Rai's death, there was a struggle for studio control. His widow Devika Rani was in conflict with Sashadhar Mukherjee. Eventually there was dual control and alternate production of films by the two camps. During this era Mukherjee produced the studio's biggest hit Kismet in 1943. Then Mukherjee broke away to form Filmistan Studio in partnership, and Devika Rani, fully in charge of the studio, did not have as much success.

Franz Osten (23 December 1876 – 2 December 1956) was a German filmmaker who along with Himansu Rai was among the first retainers of Bombay Talkies. Osten partnered with Rai on a number of India's earliest blockbuster films like Achhut Kanya and Jeevan Naiya.
Osten was born Franz Ostermayr in Munich on 23 December, 1876. He trained to be a photographer like his father and gave acting a try. In 1907, he founded a traveling cinema called the "Original Physograph Company" with his brother Peter Ostermayr, who later established the predecessor to Bavaria Film Studios, today one of Germany's largest film studios. Amongst other films, he showed Life in India, a short documentary film about the Munich carnival. The run was not very successful: three days after the opening, the projector exploded in flames. Osten decided to make films and in 1911 directed his first feature, Erna Valeska. His career was interrupted by the start of the First World War. He worked first as a correspondent, then became a soldier. After the war Osten made peasant dramas like The War of the Oxen and Chain of Guilt for EMELKA in Munich.
Franz Osten's silent films tell varieties of Indian stories. The Light of Asia (1925) dealt with the life of Buddha. Shiraz (1928) dramatises the events that led to the construction of the Taj Mahal. A Throw of Dice (1929) was based on myths and legends drawn from Indian epic Mahabarata. These movies contributed to increasing the understanding of eastern religions and offered visual splendour and escapism, featuring live elephants in festive decoration and utilising thousands of extras.
Since early 2000s, there has been a revived interest in silent films in general and the trilogy of Osten are in focus. Shiraz was shown at the Castro Theatre at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival in 2002, Prem Sanyas at the same festival in 2005, and A Throw of Dice in 2008. Prapancha Pash was re-released in 2006.
Director (Indian Films)
Prem Sanyas (1925) / Shiraz (1928) / Prapancha Pash (1929) / Jawani Ki Hawa (1935)
Achhut Kanya (1936) / Janmabhoomi (1936)/Jeevan Naiya (1936)/Mamta and Miya Aur Biwi" (1936)/Izzat (1937)/Jeevan Prabhat (1937)/Prem Kahani (1937)/Savitri (1937)/Bhabhi (1938)
Nirmala (1938)/Vachan (1938)/Durga (1939)/Kangan (1939)

5.Vigathakumaran also called The Lost Child was the first feature length Malayalam film, directed by J. C. Daniel. It was produced by Daniel for his production company Travancore National Pictures.