90 Years of India's First Talkie Film 'Alam Ara'

 

Today on 14th March 1931, India's first Talkie Film 'Alam Ara' was released. It was released in one cinema theatre' Majestic'in Mumbai. The first show was started at 3 PM was a house full. The theatre was mobbed, people started collecting to buy tickets from 9 in the morning. The tickets which were costing 4 Annas(a Fourth of a Rupee) that time was sold for Rs 5 in the black market. That was the craze for this film

If you see the publicity poster of this film, it says 'All Living, Breathing, 100 % Talking' , 'All Talking Singing and Dancing' and  ' 70 Murda Insaan Zinda Ho Gaye, Unko Bolte Dekho' 

The film ran the full house for 8 weeks in Majestic Cinema, later the full unit visited all over the country along with the print, the projector and sound equipment. The film drew a crowd all over the cities of India.

Since Alam Ara was a talkie, the casting was of utmost importance. As it was imperative for actors to know the language, Zubeida got the nod to play the title role instead of the studio’s top star, Sulochana.  The reason being not taking Sulochna as the heroine was that she was not proficient in Urdu or Hindustani and thus lost out on the opportunity to be the first talkie heroine of Indian cinema.

Similarly, for the role of hero, Ardeshir Irani first signed Mehboob Khan( the producer, director of Mother India)as the hero but then decided to go for a more commercially viable name. As Alam Ara was a tale that also involved stunts and fight sequences, Irani thought of casting the biggest stunt star of silent cinema, Master Vithal.

A total of 70 actors were part of this film, Prithviraj Kapoor was also one of the actors in this film. He played the role of General Adil Khan. The film was a love story between a prince and a gypsy girl, based on a traditional Parsi play. The film had music by Ferozshah M. Mistri and B. Irani, and had seven songs. The songs were in the Hindustani language, primarily the Urdu dialect. It was the first filmi Hindi songs soundtrack, and the first in the filmi-ghazal style,