Film's Golden Age On The Silver Screen

Ardheshir Irani, a Parsi film executive, establishes a new film studio in Bombay in 1926 — Imperial Films. Shortly thereafter, three more new studios are set up — Prabhat Film Company (Kolhapur, 1929); New Theatres (Calcutta, 1933) and Bombay Talkies (Bombay, 1934). Together, these studios will play an important role, producing major films in Hindi and other regional languages, in silent and talkie formats. The themes of films made by these studios, and others of the period range from mythologicals, to musicals, to social dramas, and literary adaptations.

Like Hollywood, studios in India employ a roster of technicians, writers and artists, and produce movies at their own cost. This system of film-making will undergo a drastic change in the years immediately after India’s independence.

Film studios will become platforms for the rise of major stars of Hindi cinema in both the pre and post-Independence eras, even as the studio system itself will collapse. Bombay Talkies will give Madhubala, Dev Anand and Dilip Kumar early opportunities — they later become major stars. Directors Bimal Roy and Nitin Bose will begin their careers at New Theatres. Guru Dutt — who will become one of the most influential filmmakers of post-independence India — begins working as a choreographer at Prabhat, and Dev Anand will also make his early appearances in the studio’s films.

The Indian People’s Theatre Association is founded in Bombay, and alongside the Progressive Writers' Association becomes significant for its cultural activism in India. Its street theatre plays draw on established traditional performing arts like Tamasha, Powada, Kathakali and Burrakatha, while addressing major events of the time such as the Bengal Famine and communist struggles in Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. Although IPTA is not formally affiliated to the Communist Party of India, its work remains closely aligned with leftist cultural politics.

Through this decade, IPTA supports the production of many social commentary films produced by leading directors of the time. More broadly, Hindi cinema absorbs the influences of Urdu-Parsi, Marathi and Bengali theatre traditions in various ways, from story-telling to the use of music. Writers and technicians active in Urdu-Parsi theatre — which is centred in Bombay — had already moved to working with the cinema industry in the 1930s, with the arrival of the talkies. By the 1940s, and the 50s, several prominent individuals of the film industry have ties with theatre companies.

In 1946, Chetan Anand’s Neecha Nagar — a film supported by IPTA, and a social critique of class inequality — wins the Grand Prix at Cannes. This moment marks the entry of Indian films in the international film festival circuits. Over the next decade, several Indian films will receive recognition at Cannes. Hindi and other regional language films will be screened and awarded at major European film festivals in Venice, Edinburgh and Berlin, among others.

India gains independence after the British parliamentary act in 1947, which triggers the partition of Punjab and Bengal, widespread communal conflict across new borders, and the forced migration of nearly 1,50,00,000 people.

In the same year, Shaukat Hussain Rizvi directs and produces Jugnu, starring Dilip Kumar, and Rizvi’s  wife and star, Noor Jehan. The film is Dilip Kumar’s breakout hit, marking the beginning of the star-actor trend in post-Independence Hindi cinema. Jugnu experiences commercial success but also intense criticism over its perceived vulgarity and indecency. The backlash is possibly a result of the political climate. The film’s portrayal of college romances runs contrary to the contemporary belief that youth must focus on nation-building. Bombay and other provincial governments ban the film. It is re-released a few months later, with twenty-eight minutes removed from the original runtime of 156 minutes.

It becomes Noor Jehan’s last film in the Bombay industry, before she and Rizvi migrate to newly-formed Pakistan.

MK Gandhi, leader of the independence movement, is assassinated in Delhi on 30th January. While he had been critical of cinema, considering it a corrupting influence on society, his image nevertheless circulates widely within film culture during the 1930s and 1940s, appearing on publicity posters alongside lead actors. Following his death, Hindi cinema increasingly incorporates songs and references that commemorate his life and ideals.

Around this time, provincial governments, including that of Bombay, impose a freeze on the construction of new cinema halls, which lasts until the mid-1950s. This is in response to the challenges of refugee housing in the wake of Partition, shortages of building materials, and the prioritisation of infrastructural development.

The cinema hall at this time is the primary space for the Indian public to engage with films, besides the radio; television has not yet arrived in India. Film screening spaces range from large, single-screen halls and makeshift theatres in major cities that seat several hundreds of people together, to temporary tent and mobile cinemas that tour rural areas and exhibit films during local fairs and festivals. These spaces bring together audiences, cutting across class and gender. The seating arrangements offered reflect these socio-economic aspects — stalls close to the screen are cheaper than balcony and dress circle seats. 

The diversity of the audience watching a single movie in one space also shapes the structure or formula of the Hindi film — made to fit multiple elements, and to have wider appeal — from song and dance sequences, dramatic and romantic plot points to set action pieces.

Produced at a lavish scale by SS Vasan, founder of Gemini Studios Madras, Chandralekha is released and becomes independent-India’s first pan-regional hit film. A fantastical story, it is most well known for an elaborate drum dance sequence featuring nearly four-hundred dancers and some forty-feet high drums. It also features one of the longest sword-fight action scenes in Indian cinema. The Hindi version follows the Tamil release and is accompanied by a publicity blitz. During the 1950s and 1960s, southern Indian studios such as Gemini and AVM Studios produce Hindi films, working with stars like Dev Anand and Dilip Kumar.

The actor Dev Anand and his brother Chetan establish their own production house, Navketan Films, following Raj Kapoor’s establishment of his production banner, RK Films, in 1948. In the same year, the directors Bimal Roy and Mehboob Khan also set up their eponymous production banners. These developments mark a drastic shift from the Hollywood-style, contract-based studio systems that were in place in the Hindi film industry of the 1930s and early 1940s. 

The process of filmmaking now adopts a looser, more collaborative style, with actors becoming the central attraction, and directors, writers, music composers and technicians working for different banners. Much like the studios of the past, these production houses become launch pads for prominent talents of the film industry. 

The Government of India establishes a Film Enquiry Committee, led by the political leader SK Patil, with members including the director V Shantaram and producer BN Sircar. Over the next two years, the committee interviews people from the film industry, noting the impact of issues such as access to raw material like film stock, changes to the structure of movie production, taxation, film financing, the state of cinema houses, and star culture and its impact on film content and distribution. Its report recommends the establishment of a Film Council of India to advise and support the industry, training institutions, and a Film Finance Corporation to support filmmakers with low interest loans to make movies, and optimising the utilisation of entertainment tax revenue. None of these measures will translate into policies until the 1960s, when the Government establishes the Film Finance Corporation and also sets up the Film Institute of India.

In the same year, Dharti ke Lal (Children of the Earth, 1946) — the only feature film produced by the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) — receives a widely-distributed release in the USSR, and later, in China. Centred on the Bengal Famine of 1943–44, which had claimed the lives of an estimated five million people, and the film is an adaptation of the Bengali play Nabanna (New Harvest, produced by IPTA and written by Bijon Bhattacharya) and a Hindi story, Annadata (Food Giver, by Krishen Chander).

The film — influential for its social realism in cinema — is the directorial debut of journalist and writer KA Abbas, an IPTA member, who will have an acclaimed career as director and screenwriter, contributing to some of the best-known films in Hindi cinema.

Popularly described as independent India’s first ‘horror’ film, Mahal — Kamal Amrohi’s directorial debut — is a complex narrative that incorporates elements of drama, thrills and romance. The film features Madhubala, who will go on to become a star, appearing as several iconic characters in the films of the 1950s and early 1960s. The last production released by Bombay Talkies, Mahal becomes one of the studio’s last great financial successes.

Listeners of All India Radio – which airs both film music as well as Indian classical music at this time – begin swamping the station, demanding to know the voice behind the song “Aayega Aanewala” (The One I Await Will Come), from the film. The artist is the young, twenty-year-old Lata Mangeshkar, who, over the course of a decades-long career, will earn the sobriquet of ‘The Nightingale of India’. The popularity of the song cements the status of a playback singer and film music as a genre by itself. The days of the actor-singer decline, and playback singing becomes an important part of the Indian film industry, integral to the film’s narrative, its popular appeal, and its marketing.

On January 26, 1950, India adopts its own constitution, and becomes a republic. In this decade, India also leads the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), an international forum of developing countries, several of which are former European colonies who have recently gained their independence. The organisation seeks to advocate for the political and economic interests of its members, in a global political scenario divided into ideological blocs led by the USA and the USSR at the start of the Cold War. In the decade that follows, countries in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and eastern Europe will become markets for Hindi cinema.

Phani Majumdar’s Andolan is released, and underlines how films draw on the Indian independence movement for inspiration, building on the trend of patriotic-themed movies, which had begun earlier with films such as Shaheed (1948) and Samadhi (1950). Andolan stars Kishore Kumar and narrates the story of a Bengali family against the key events of the Indian independence movement. A year later, Hemen Gupta’s Anandmath will be released, based on the eponymous historical novel by Bankim Chandra Chatterji, which centres around the Sanyasi Rebellion and the Great Bengal Famine of the late eighteenth century. Anandmath also marks the Bengali composer Hemant Kumar's first Hindi film foray.

The poem Vande Mataram (I Bow to Thee, Mother), an ode to the motherland, originally published in Chatterji’s novel, has already enjoyed immense popularity and political importance in the Indian Independence movement. The poem was officially adopted as India’s National Song, in 1950; it appears in Andolan and Anandmath. 

The second film to be made at RK Studios, Raj Kapoor’s Awara, in which he stars alongside Nargis, becomes one of his most successful and influential films. Kapoor plays Raj, the estranged son of Raghunath, a judge who believes that a thief’s son will be a thief. The narrative arc depicts how Raj, a petty criminal, redeems himself in the eyes of his father, and reunites with his childhood sweetheart Rita (Nargis), who defends him in court. Kapoor’s portrayal of Raj also marks his association with the Charlie Chaplin-inspired character of the loveable tramp, seen in later films of the 1950s. The screenplay is a stylised treatment of issues ranging from nature versus nurture, to class and social status, and the city as the setting for a loss of innocence. The music, composed by the duo Shankar-Jaikishan, is a major element of the film, and one of the film’s best-known segments is a musical dream sequence staged on elaborately constructed sets which provide the backdrop for the protagonist Raj’s moral dilemma. A commercial success, it is the highest-grossing Hindi film that year.

The film will be released in the USSR, China and Turkey in the next few years, and subsequently become a phenomenon in the Soviet Union and Middle East, catapulting Kapoor and Nargis to star status. In the wake of World War II, the film’s theme resonates with audiences in these regions; its music is immensely popular, with its songs even being sung at state banquets. It is amongst the first Indian films that find popularity overseas.

Guru Dutt’s directorial debut, Baazi (1951) — produced by Navketan Films and starring Dev Anand, Kalpana Kartik and Geeta Bali — sparks off the short-lived genre of Bombay noir in Hindi cinema. Dutt shares story credits for the film with Balraj Sahni. Inspired by the Hollywood noir genre of the 1940s, Bombay noir films are thrillers or mysteries set in the city, and feature morally ambiguous protagonists. Bali stars as Nina, a cabaret dancer. Baazi is a breakout hit for composer SD Burman, who, among his other compositions for the film, takes Sahir Ludhianvi’s ghazal “Tadbeer Se Bigdi Hui Takdeer [Bana Le]” (Turn Your Fortunes Around, Through Striving) and turns it into a Western-music inspired number. The film also marks the first screen appearance of the actor Badruddin Jamaluddin Kazi with his screen name of Johnny Walker, who will work regularly with Guru Dutt over the next decade. Walker’s inimitable style and comic timing set the template of a standalone comic role in Hindi films.

The Indian Cinematograph Act 1952 is passed one year after the Indian government establishes the Central Board of Film Censors (now Central Board of Film Certification). The process of film censorship is centralised, replacing the previous system of disparate regional censor boards, established by the British in Bombay, Calcutta, Madras and Lahore. The Act qualifies the right to free speech within the framework of films, specifying that the censor board can withhold the release of a film for a range of reasons, including its potential to harm India’s integrity or diplomatic relations, its effects on public order, or on grounds related to decency and morality. The Act also empowers the censor board to certify films for unrestricted or restricted (adults only) viewership and suggest modifications to filmmakers. The Act and its subsequent amendments regulate film censorship and certification even today.

Even as the government intervenes in censorship of cinema, the industry itself is ignored in the First Five Year Plan (1951-56), a programme for the country’s economic development.

Even as a popular debate rages about the effect of Hindi film music on Indian classical music, Baiju Bawra (1952), exemplifies how some composers bridge both worlds, using classical music as a key element in their storylines.

The film uses the voices of classical singers Ustad Amir Khan, and DV Paluskar in a tale of a contest between the singers Baijnath and Tansen. Twelve of its thirteen songs — composed by Naushad — are arranged to classical ragas, and its singers include Lata Mangeshkar and Mohammed Rafi. The film is a critical and commercial success, bringing accolades to its actors Bharat Bhushan and Meena Kumari. Bharat Bhushan also plays memorable roles as a singer or a poet in Mirza Ghalib (1954), Basant Bahar (1956), and Barsaat ki Raat (1960).

In the next decade, prominent film composers like Naushad and Shankar-Jaikishan will collaborate with classical music exponents such as Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Bhimsen Joshi, Pannalal Ghosh, Vilayat Khan, Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan, Bismillah Khan and Alla Rakha, to produce film songs.

One of India’s earliest big-budget colour films, shot in Gevacolour and printed in Technicolour, Aan features Dilip Kumar in an adventure-fantasy, alongside Nimmi, and debutant Nadira. The story — an action-romance with princes and royal intrigues — casts Dilip Kumar, previously known for his serious dramatic portrayals, in a swashbuckling role. The Mehboob Khan film, India’s most expensive for the time, has an extensive worldwide release in subsequent years, across the USA, England, Europe, Egypt and Japan. The American filmmaker Cecil B DeMille pens a note of praise for Mehboob Khan, after viewing the film.

In December 1952, Binaca Geetmala, hosted by Ameen Sayani, is launched on Radio Ceylon. Despite being broadcast on short wave radio from Ceylon, and facing patchy connectivity across India, the show transforms the fan culture around Hindi film music, making playback singers and composers — Lata Mangeshkar, Mohammed Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Geeta Dutt, Asha Bhosle, Manna Dey, Mukesh, SD Burman, Naushad, C Ramachandran — household names. The show’s popularity is helped by the All India Radio ban on the broadcast of Hindi film songs, effected in the same year, to promote classical and folk music.

Binaca Geetmala ranks songs based on metrics, ranging from audience requests to music sales, and also becomes an important source for statistics of Hindi film songs for several years. The weekly and special annual shows enthrall fans who maintain diaries of the chart lists and form radio clubs around the show. Music directors use Geetmala rankings to negotiate for higher compensation. The popularity of the show will ultimately drive All India Radio to launch Vividh Bharati — a special channel dedicated to light music — in 1957.

The first International Film Festival of India is held in Bombay, Delhi, Madras and Calcutta. With a selection of fifty feature films and seventy-nine documentaries from twenty-three countries, the festival gives Indian audiences and filmmakers an insight into the craft of global auteurs, including Vittorio De Sica, Roberto Rossellini, Akira Kurosawa and Tomotaka Tasaka. The screenings and interactions with international filmmakers will have a lasting influence on Indian film-making, including Hindi cinema and the New Cinema movement that emerges in the late 1960s. Indian directors begin frequently shooting films in outdoor settings, drawing inspiration from the aesthetics and thematic treatment of neorealism in Italian cinema through films in the 1950s, such as Raj Kapoor’s Boot Polish (1954) and Jagte Raho (1956), and Bimal Roy’s Do Bigha Zamin (1953).

Bimal Roy’s Do Bigha Zamin critiques the feudal structure of rural India through the story of Shambhu, a farmer whose debt to a moneylender forces him to move to and work in the city as a rickshaw puller to attempt to save his land and family. The film draws on diverse influences: its story is inspired by the story Rickshaw-wala by Salil Choudhury and, according to some scholars, by Rabindranath Tagore’s poem Dui Bigha Jomi, while the Italian film Ladri di Biciclette (Bicycle Thieves, 1948) by the auteur Vittorio De Sica inspires Roy’s exploration of social realism. Choudhury also composes the music for the film, which includes the song “Dharti Kahe Pukar Ke” (The Earth Calls Out), inspired by a Soviet Red Army marching tune. Balraj Sahni earns acclaim for his role as the protagonist Shambhu, and the film becomes an important example of Roy’s neorealist style of filmmaking.

Do Bigha Zamin wins the Social Progressive Award at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Czechoslovakia in the same year; a year later it will win an award at the Cannes Film Festival, France.

Roy’s career — across the Bengali and Hindi film industries — underlines the flow of talent between Bombay and Calcutta. Music composer and writer Salil Choudhury is active in both industries, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, who will earn acclaim for his middle-class rooted family films of the 1970s, begins working as an editor for Roy in the 1950s.

The Indian government institutes the State Awards for Films (the National Film Awards, today) to recognise cinematic excellence across languages and formats including feature films, documentaries, children’s films and educational movies. Selected by a panel, the awards recognise the best film at a national level, along with certificate awards for films in different languages. The first Hindi language film to be awarded the Best Film is Mirza Ghalib (1954), directed by Sohrab Modi, and starring Bharat Bhushan and Soraiya.

A year later, Filmfare, an English language cinema magazine, will conduct its first film awards, along the lines of Hollywood’s Academy Awards. Originally named the Clare Awards, after the film critic, Clare Mendonca, Filmfare’s popular awards will combine the inputs of a select jury with public voting, enabled through the magazine.

Deriving its name from Section 420, the Indian Penal Code statute for fraud, Raj Kapoor’s Shree 420 follows Awara (1951) in its exploration of a social story, conflicts of wealth, poverty and morals, and the trappings of greed, crime and exploitation in a city. KA Abbas and VP Sathe’s screenplay sets the two female protagonists, Nargis and Nadira — named Vidya (knowledge) and Maya (illusion) respectively — as symbols of this conflict with the protagonist Raj (Raj Kapoor), who arrives in Bombay from a small town. Kapoor builds on the lovable tramp character first seen in Awara, which draws inspiration from Charlie Chaplin’s films that shine a light on the lives of ordinary people.

The film is a hit, and its music becomes iconic, through songs like “Pyaar Hua Ikraar Hua Hain” (Love Has Happened; A Promise Has Been Made), “Ramaiya Vastavaiya” (from a Telugu phrase that asks, ‘Rama, Will You Come?’) and “Mud Mud ke na Dekh” (Don’t Look Back). It is, however, the film’s opening song, “Mera Joota Hai Japani” (My Shoes are Japanese), that becomes a classic, reflecting a cosmopolitan world and a sense of the evolving Indian identity in this new world.

Nadira’s role in Shree 420 exemplifies the development of the vamp as a common strand in the films of the 1950s and 1960s. The character, sometimes depicted as a cabaret performer, is usually associated with the film’s antagonists. Representing ideas of westernisation, sexuality and desire, she is a counterfoil to the chaste and idealised heroine. Even as Geeta Bali and Nadira essay the roles in this decade, actors Cuckoo and Helen become popularly associated with the trope of the cabaret dancer. Helen becomes a star in the 1950s through to the early 1970s, earning the sobriquet ‘Queen of Cabaret’.

India’s Second Five Year Plan is launched, with a focus on industrialisation and mechanisation and a push towards increased employment and income levels. Symbols of this new emphasis on industry, and the push towards modernisation are depicted on screen, in icons like dams and factories. There is no official policy programme for films in India within the plan.

In the same year, the States Reorganisation Act is passed, allowing for the formation of new states based on language. This also impacts the development of regional-language cinema, seen most prominently in southern India. The states of Andhra Pradesh, Mysore (later to become part of Karnataka), Kerala and Karnataka are formed. Where Madras was once the centre of film-making for Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu languages, film-making centres emerge in the capital cities of new states, such as Mysore, Bangalore and Hyderabad, in the 1950s and 1960s.

In 1956, Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali – the first of the Apu Trilogy, which also includes Aparajito (1956) and The World of Apu (1959) – wins the Best Human Document award at Cannes.

In southern India, the emergence of distinct linguistic state regions and their respective cinema industries goes on to have political and social ramifications as well. In the following decades, established star actors like Dr Rajkumar (Kannada), NT Rama Rao (Telugu), MG Ramachandran (Tamil) and Sivaji Ganesan (Tamil) influence local political and social issues and linguistic regionalism, either through their work in active politics or their status as stars.

This genre of cine-politics also impacts filmmaking. The Dravidian movement’s impact is seen in Tamil cinema of the time through the works of screenwriters like C Annadurai and M Karunanidhi, and the impact of socio-political issues shapes Tamil cinema over decades, continuing until the present day. Karunanidhi and MG Ramachandran (popularly known as MGR) both serve as chief ministers of the state and helm their respective political parties, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and All India Anna Dravidar Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). Meanwhile, Telugu and Kannada cinema turn to epics, local mythologies, folklore and histories to help make cinema an element of the social and linguistic identities of the state.

Widely acknowledged as one of independent India’s greatest Hindi films, Mother India, directed by Mehboob Khan, releases to critical and popular acclaim. The film, a remake of an earlier Khan film titled Aurat (1946), stars Nargis as Radha, and Sunil Dutt and Rajendra Kumar as her sons. Radha’s arc in the film romanticises rural life and presents the challenges of rural poverty, financial exploitation, illiteracy, natural disaster and the gendered idea of honour. The song “Duniya Mein Hum Aaye Hain [Toh Jeena Hi Padega]” (We Have Come Into This World [and Must Live In It]) will later be widely interpreted as a metaphor for the struggle of nation-building in independent India. 

In addition to a star-studded release in India, the film is dubbed in foreign languages, including Spanish, French and Russian and, over the next few years, will be released in Europe, the Middle East, Russia, Africa, North America and parts of South America. In Greece and Russia particularly, the film enjoys an immensely popular run. 

The film sweeps popular awards and also travels to international film festivals. It is the first Indian film to garner an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Feature Film in 1958, losing to Federico Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria by just one vote. 

The film and Nargis’s role embody one kind of representation that women receive in the cinema of these years. Female protagonists also become symbols for larger, gendered narratives of the time: representing tradition versus modernity, or standing in for values like integrity and moral righteousness, often placed in contrast to a character like the vamp or the cabaret performer. 

In Pyaasa, Guru Dutt plays the lead role of a poet who gains fame after he is believed to have died. The film deals with themes of the value of artists, the apathy of society and the ephemeral nature of fame. Pyaasa also stars Mala Sinha, and Waheeda Rehman; this is the latter's second film under Dutt’s direction, and a landmark role for her. Two years later, Rehman and Dutt will be reunited in Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959), which sees Dutt play the role of a film director and Rehman an actor, with contrasting career arcs and fame.

Both films showcase Dutt's directorial visual style, of chiaroscuro lighting, framing and tracking shots, realised by cinematographer VK Murthy. These elements are visible through the films as well as in classic songs, such as “Yeh Duniya Agar Mil Bhi Jaaye” (What is the Worth of This World?, Pyaasa) and “Waqt ne Kiya Kya Haseen Sitam” (The Beautiful Injustice of Time, Kaagaz ke Phool).

While Pyaasa will become a commercial and critical hit, Kaagaz ke Phool — the first Hindi film to be shot in CinemaScope — does not succeed and will only gain prominence years after Guru Dutt’s death in 1964.

Bimal Roy’s biggest commercial hit is based on a story written by the Bengali auteur Ritwik Ghatak and a screenplay by the Urdu novelist Rajinder Singh Bedi. Madhumati is a story of reincarnation set in the context of tribal communities and feudal landowners. Dilip Kumar and Vyjayanthimala star as protagonists and star-crossed lovers, with Pran as the villain. The film builds on Gothic elements like the lone mansion on a stormy night and the effects of sounds, screams and mysterious shadows, adding melodrama and songs to adapt it to the style of Hindi films. The music, composed by Salil Chowdhury, will remain popular decades after the film’s release. Madhumati is one of the most popular Hindi films to present the topic of reincarnation, alongside Mahal (1949), and later films like Karz (1980) and Karan Arjun (1995). It will later also inspire parts of the 2007 Hindi film, Om Shanti Om.

The film Pardesi (Khozheniye Za Tri Morya aka The Foreigner) – which releases in 1958 – marks collaborations between the Hindi and Soviet film industries beyond the screening of films. The film is co-produced by KA Abbas’ home banner, Naya Sansar, and Mosfilm, one of the oldest Russian film studios. Abbas and Vassily M Pronin co-direct the film, a tale set in the fifteenth century that centres around a Russian trader’s discovery of India’s history and civilisations. The film reflects the political and diplomatic thaw between India and the Soviet Union in the mid-1950s, but further attempts at similar collaborations do not materialise. 

In the years immediately after independence, Hindi films and film stars are seen as significant in the space of cultural diplomacy, particularly against the backdrop of India’s political thrust of socialism and the success of Hindi films in the USSR. Aan was screened during a visit of an Indian film delegation to the United States in 1952, in which Raj Kapoor and Nargis are also participants. Awara’s success in the Soviet Union spurred the Indian government to make the film a part of a cultural delegation to China in 1952, where it is later released in 1955, becoming a success.

The Urdu magazine, Shama, invites its readers to suggest names for the newborn son of two of the biggest film stars of the time, Nargis and Sunil Dutt. They present a shortlist of twenty names to the actors. Nargis later writes a letter of gratitude to the winner who suggests the name Sanjay Kumar. 

Film magazines play an important role in the wider print culture of this period, linking filmgoers and fans to the industry outside the cinema hall. They continue to draw on the template established by successful publications like Chitra, Shama and Filmindia. Film publications print news of the romantic and professional lives of the stars, who in turn engage with enthusiasts through guest advice columns in magazines.

As the Hindi film industry grows, the world of the film magazine expands. Major newspaper groups, The Indian Express and The Times of India, launched their English language film magazines, Screen and Filmfare in 1951 and 1953 respectively. Trade Guide, a trade journal for the Hindi film industry was launched in 1953 and in 1958, Shama launched its sister Hindi publication, Sushama, featuring film news and song lyrics, alongside literary contributions. Sushama also allows readers to access film reviews over the telephone. Several smaller imprints are also published in other cities, including Delhi and Indore. 

Film magazines and other print ephemera — like posters, calendars, advertisements, postcards and booklets — featuring actors become collectibles. Fans wait outside actors’ homes, to catch a glimpse of the stars. Actors are also inundated with postcards and letters and some, like Waheeda Rehman, oblige fans with signed photographs. Hindi film also influences fashion, with fans copying trends like Dev Anand’s trademark puffed hair and western attire, to fitted clothing silhouettes and the iconic bangs that become famous as the ‘Sadhana haircut’.

The Indian government establishes the Film Finance Corporation (FFC) and the Film Institute of India (today Film and Television Institute of India), almost a decade after the recommendations of the 1949 Film Enquiry Committee’s report.

The FFC, with its ambit of providing financial support in the form of loans to filmmakers, starts out by supporting popular directors such as V Shantaram and Satyajit Ray. By the end of the decade, it will move to support newer directors, who will go on to have defining roles in India's parallel cinema of the 1970s and 1980s.

The Film Institute opens its doors in Pune, within the erstwhile Prabhat Studios. The large campus, complete with studios, editing and viewing rooms, attracts students from all over India, as well as parts of Asia and Africa.

K Asif’s Mughal-e-Azam makes it to the big screen after having been in production for fifteen years. Asif originally had begun work on the film in 1945, but its progress was affected by the Partition, with its financier, Shiraz Ali Hakim migrating to Pakistan. After multiple changes to the cast, delays and ever mounting budgets, the film is finally produced by Bombay-based civil contractors, Shapoorji Pallonji. Its budget of around Rs fifteen million, is the highest in the Hindi film industry at this time. 

The film centres around the romance between the Mughal prince Salim (Dilip Kumar) and the courtesan Anarkali (Madhubala), and Salim’s conflict with his father Akbar (Prithviraj Kapoor). The film has opulent sets and costumes, and expensively staged battle scenes. 

The Sheesh Mahal (Mirrored Palace) — the set for the song “Pyaar Kiya Toh Darna Kya” (I Have Loved, So What is There to Fear?), which was the only sequence of the film shot in colour — takes nearly two years to make, with Asif bringing in hundreds of artisans from Firozabad, Uttar Pradesh, a centre of glass handicrafts, to construct the set. 

Naushad composes the film’s music, and Asif enlists prominent artistes like the Kathak-exponent Lachchu Maharaj and singer Bade Ghulam Ali Khan for the choreography and songs. Although Madhubala is already a star by the time the film is released, Mughal-e-Azam becomes one of her best-known and acclaimed roles. 

Mughal-e-Azam is the most successful film to be based on the fictional story of the courtesan Anarkali and the Mughal court, which had its origins in a play in 1920s Lahore. Earlier Hindi films based on the story include Anarkali (1928), Ulfat-e-Mohammed (1929), and Anarkali (1953). The story was also adapted into films in Telugu. 

The premiere for Mughal-e-Azam, sees a crowd of around 25,000 gather near the Maratha Mandir cinema hall in Mumbai and the film’s print is brought into the hall on decorated elephants, in keeping with the theme of the story.

The vision of Shammi Kapoor sliding over snow, yelling “Yahoo!” heralds a new decade, a new style of storytelling and a new type of hero for the 1960s. Junglee is a breakout success for Kapoor, who fashions himself as an actor and performer in the moulds of American icons like Elvis Presley and James Dean, dancing to western-style songs and paired opposite a generation of actors like Asha Parekh, Saira Banu and Sharmila Tagore. Junglee is a romantic story depicting the protagonists (played by Kapoor and Banu) falling in love and overcoming familial opposition. The success of the film — directed by Subodh Mukherjee — and its songs, marks the trend of romance and family films being shot in colour, a technology previously reserved for large-scale, big-budget spectaculars like Aan or Mother India.

Written, produced by and starring Dilip Kumar, with his brother Nasir Khan, Ganga Jamuna takes up the trope of brothers on opposing sides of the law, seen earlier in Mother India (1957) and later, most notably, in the film Deewar (1975). Ganga Jamuna becomes a commercial hit, marking Dilip Kumar’s versatility as an actor, whose work ranges from intense, melodramatic roles to lighter, fantastical characters in films like Aan (1952), Daag (1952), Devdas (1955), Naya Daur (1957) and Kohinoor (1960). The film, which stars Vyjayanthimala as Kumar’s romantic lead, is also noted for its use of the Bhojpuri dialect in both songs and dialogues. Its global travels include a release in Mexico in 1966.

Between October 20 and November 20, 1962, a short border conflict unfolds in Northeastern India, and the region of Ladakh between the armies of India and China, which results in a decisive rout for the Indian armed forces. 

The conflict is shaped by different political events of the previous years. The war is preceded by smaller clashes along different parts of the border, before a full-scale conflict in October 1962. The Chinese army reaches as far as Assam in eastern India, but withdraws unilaterally in November, after the United States supports India with military aid. 

The Hindi film industry responds to calls for monetary donations in aid of the war, and artists including Dilip Kumar, singer Mohammed Rafi and composer C Ramachandra tour border posts to hold concerts for soldiers, after the war. On January 26, 1963, Lata Mangeshkar sings “Aye Mere Watan ke Logon” (Oh, People of My Country) — composed by C Ramachandra and written by Kavi Pradeep — as a tribute to the soldiers who died in the war. The song, which reportedly moves Jawaharlal Nehru to tears, will become a classic patriotic track for decades to come.

Chetan Anand’s Haqeeqat — widely considered one of India’s best war films — portrays the Indian army’s loss in the 1962 war in a sympathetic light, underscoring India’s philosophy of non-violence as a moral victory, and casting the Chinese army and Premier Zhou Enlai in villainous terms. Anand dedicates the film to Indian soldiers and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who dies in May 1964. The film is shot in Ladakh, one of the theatres of the war, and combines the story with documentary footage to narrate the story of a group of Indian soldiers, played by actors including Balraj Sahni and Dharmendra. 

The songs of the film, written by Kaifi Azmi and composed by Madan Mohan, are celebrated, and include “Kar Chale Hum Fida” (We Now Depart, Having Laid Down Our Lives) and “Hoke Majboor Mujhe Usne Bhulaya Hoga” (Helplessly, She Would Have Tried to Forget Me), centred around life on the frontlines. 

Sangam (1964) is Raj Kapoor’s first film to be shot in colour and his first movie to feature foreign settings such as the Swiss Alps, Venice, London and Paris. The love triangle stars Kapoor, Rajendra Kumar and Vyjayanthimala. While its songs become popular, the film also establishes a trend of shooting abroad, one that continues to date. Films like An Evening in Paris (1967) and Love in Tokyo (1966), released in subsequent years, build on the trend. 

Films of this period are increasingly shot in colour and represent the shift in emphasis of mainstream films from stories centred on social narratives to light-hearted family romances that also depict the lifestyles of the wealthy, seen through gadgets, lavish homes and flashy cars, evoking a sense of appeal and aspiration. The music of such films, heavily inspired by western genres like jazz and pop rock, is also aimed at appealing to a younger audience and the trend will develop significantly in the 1970s. 

The Bengali filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak becomes vice principal of the Film Institute of India (today Film and Television Institute of India), Pune. He helps shape filmmakers like Mani Kaul, Kumar Shahani and Adoor Gopalakrishnan. By the end of the 1960s, the Film Finance Corporation also moves to fund low-budget experimental films from newer directors. These include Mrinal Sen’s Bhuvan Shome (1969), Kaul’s Uski Roti (1969) and Basu Chatterji’s Sara Akash (1969). These films mark the arrival of an evolved New Cinema genre in the late 1960s and 1970s, running in parallel to commercial Hindi films. A similar evolution also occurs in other regional film industries from the late 1960s onwards through the 1970s. While films supported by the FFC win acclaim, the organisation’s constraints in distributing these films and their reliance on traditional distribution channels (with an extensive dependence on star popularity) hampers the effectiveness of the organisation.

Genres like romances, family and patriotic dramas, comedies and thrillers inspired by the visual world of James Bond movies abound in the late 1960s and 1970s. Smaller slice-of-life films – typified by Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s movies and Amol Palekar’s middle-class common man characters – also find commercial success in the 1970s and 1980s. A theme that prominently emerges in this period is associated with the character of the angry young man. Typified by the actor Amitabh Bachchan, with scripts and stories by the writers Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, such movies respond to the social situation of this period, reflecting issues like unemployment, smuggling, student unrest and shift from the optimism of a newly-independent country to a more cynical world view. Bachchan and Rajesh Khanna are the major stars of the period, while Film Institute alumni like Jaya Bhaduri (later Jaya Bachchan), Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi carve out distinct spaces, across commercial and parallel cinema.