Showing posts with label homi wadia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label homi wadia. Show all posts

Thursday 11 June 2020

Tarzans of Bollywood


Tarzan is a fictional character created by the fictional writer Edgar Rice Burroughs in the novel "Tarzan of the Apes" published in 1914. The first Tarzan film was a silent film released in 1918, With the advent of talking pictures, a popular Tarzan movie franchise was developed.  Starting with Tarzan the Ape Man in 1932 through twelve films until 1948, the franchise was anchored by former Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller in the title role.
In India, the first Tarzan film was TOOFANI TARZAN  produced by Wadia Brothers in 1937 It starred John Cawas as Tarzan. This film went on to become the studio’s biggest grosser. Wadia also made Tarzan an Indian man and never again was his Indian-ness challenged. He always sang and danced and spoke fluent Hindi before the interval.

The next Tarzan film was Zimbo released in 1958. Homi Wadia now created an Indian Tarzan, it was a remake of Toofani Tarzan This time the role was played by Azad, he made a much better Tarzan than Cawas. Perhaps, the reason behind choosing Azad to play Tarzan was his resemblance to WeissmullerThis film became a hit, Azad did many Tarzan films in the 60s. In fact, many Tarzan films were made in the 60s.
Zimbo was a 1958 Hindi action-adventure film directed by Homi Wadia and produced by Basant Pictures. The film starred Azad, Krishna Kumari, Chitra, Achala Sachdev
Professor Chakravarty and his wife Uma (Achala Sachdev) live with their four-year-old son in the jungle where he carries out experiments. He has discovered the formula to prevent aging. Adversity strikes when their house is attacked by lions, killing him, while his wife goes mad with grief. The professor's son goes missing in the melee. The story then follows the arrival of several people seventeen years later from the city. One of them is the Professor's brother who has traveled to the jungle with his daughter in search of the missing formula and to look for the professor's son. There are villains in the group of people, wanting the formula for their own purposes. Chakravarty's son Zimbo has been brought up by the apes and the story takes a turn when they try to relocate him with Dada (Pedro the Chimpanzee) to the city.
In 1962 Navshakti films came out with the earlier title Toofani Tarzan with Azad playing the Tarzan role. 

The story was different here the Explorers searching for a hidden treasure encounter the titular jungle man (Azad) who refuses to let them pass through his forest. When Tarzan falls in love with Sushma (Shanta Kumari), one of the travelers, the magician Samri, who is also a part of the group, creates a duplicate of the woman in an effort to overpower Tarzan. 
By this time Azad has typecast the Tarzan or Zimbo. He was many offers to play this role in the forthcoming films. The next in line was TARZAN AUR JADUGAR released in 1963.
This film was produced by Nattu and directed by Radhakant The story of this film has another angle of a magician. Magic was a hot subject in the 60s This film had both the interesting subject of that era. In this film, Tarzan is referred to as the king of the beasts, who lives in the forest of fairies, and of an evil sorceress who wants to control it.
Khanna, his wife Kamla, and their little son Tony start out on a sea voyage only to face tragedy when the ship sinks, flinging each of the three onto different parts of massive jungle land.  Khanna becomes a laborer for a contractor in the jungle. Kamla meets a lady magician named Rooplekha, who she grows to love as a daughter. And little Tony is rescued by a fairy from Paristan and placed in the loving hands of the animals of the jungle and grows up to be known as Tarzan (Azad). 


Another Tarzan film released in 1963 was Tarzan Aur Gorilla, directed by Pyarelal for hind Films. The main lead remains the same Azad as Tarzan and Chitra, his love interest but in this film, the highlight was given to  Pedro the Chimpanzee 



In 1964 three Tarzan films were released and in all the three films Azad played the role of Tarzan. Director Radhakant once again comes with Azad as Tarzan in the 1964 film "Tarzan Aur Jalpari "
In this film, Tarzan is saved by a “Jalpari” played by Chitra. In the end, it is Tarzan’s turn to help the Jalpari who has become the victim of a notorious magician. 

The second Tarzan film of 1964 was "Tarzan And Delilah" produced by Heera Sawant, A. Shamsheer, and directed by A Shamsheer with the same star cast, Azad as Tarzan and Chitra as Delilah.
Tarzan is in love with Princess Delilah, a captive of the evil queen Laila, who has her eyes on the beefy jungle hero. Sunanda and Fernades who was thrown from a vessel, land on an island inhabited by Tarzan (Azad). Tarzan and Zippy to free Delilah and the other lasses who are being held against their will behind the “magic door” belonging to Queen Laila.


TARZAN AND CAPTAIN KISHORE was the third Tarzan film of 1964 with similar leading pair. Azad and Chitra.
Three young boys become separated during a shipwreck. One grows up to be a jungle man named Tarzan, another becomes a ship’s captain named Kishore, while the third, William turns into a smuggler. The story is about stealing valuable scientific formulas. 


In 1965 three Tarzan films were released, this time Dara Singh appeared as Tarzan with Mumtaz as his heroine in Tarzan comes to Delhi. This film was produced by Surinder Kapoor, the father of Anil Kapoor and Boney Kapoor. The film was an average in Bollywood but the audience liked Dara Singh as Tarzan.
This film was a remake of TARZAN’S NEW YORK ADVENTURE (1942).  Rekha (Mumtaz), and her professor father go to a jungle with a guide Shekhar played by Sidhu, who steals a priceless necklace off of a tribal idol. The tribesmen blame the theft on the interlopers and threaten the life of the professor until it is returned. With Tarzan’s help, Rekha and her father search for the gem and it takes them from the wilderness to the big city of Delhi where the jungle man experiences a mighty big case of culture shock.


The second film was "Tarzan and Kingkong", in this film Tarzan is played by Randhawa, the younger brother of Dara Singh. Dara Singh appears in this film in a Guest appearance. The highlight of this film was the role of Kingkong played by himself.
This film was produced by A Jaiswal and directed by A Shamsheer, who earlier directed "Tarzan And Delilah" with Azad as Tarzan, now take Randhawa as Tarzan. A jungle queen (Bela Bose) captures the survivors of a plane crash, planning to sacrifice them to the goddess Bali. Tarzan (Randhawa) intervenes and in the process falls in love with Sharmila (Mumtaz), one of the stranded passengers.
The queen teams up with her commander, Romi (Shyam Kumar), and a strong-man named King Kong (King Kong), to destroy Tarzan and his lady love.


The third Tarzan film was "Tarzan and Circus" with Azad once again as Tarzan. This film was produced by S.J.Rajdeo and directed by Shiv Kumar with Chitra as the heroine.
IN this film we see a ringmaster of a circus who has lost his only son; Bimla, a love-hungry circus owner; and Keshav (Mohan Sherry), the wicked circus manager whose goal is to gain Bimla’s wealth and possess Malti’s youth. Malti is played by Chitra. 


In 1966 three Tarzan films released. The first release was Tarzan Aur Herculis produced by Herculis and directed by Mahmood, not the comedian Mehmood. The other film was Tiger And Jadui Chirag and the third was Tarzan Ki Mehbooba
Azad once again appears as Tarzan, his life is in danger, both from monsters created by a magician who is searching the jungle for a buried treasure and by royals who have discovered that the jungle man is the lost heir to a kingdom they have overthrown


D R Films Tarzan Ki Mehbooba was directed by Ram Rasila. In this film, Tabassum was the heroine of Tarzan played once again by Azad.
Tarzan loves a jungle nymph named Nimoni (Tabassum), who is the daughter of a tribal chief, Tomoki. The tribe’s witch doctor, Limo, wishes for Nimoni to become his bride, and to help make that happen he murders Timoki and takes over as chief. He then sets out to destroy Tarzan’s peaceful rule of the jungle.


In 1968 another Tarzan film released, directed by Sushil Gupta with once again Azad as Tarzan in Tarzan In Fairyland
The star cast includes Azad, Indira, Shyam Kumar, Amar, Ram Kumar, Ram Mohan, Sheikh, The story about a professor and his daughter (Indira), who are in search for a treasure thought to belong to a civilization that was buried during an earthquake thousand of years before. They run afoul of a mad magician, who captures the group. Tarzan came to rescue them from the magician and help them to find the treasure.

In 1970, a new Indian Tarzan was introduced, this time the great wrestler Master Chandagiram( Hind Kesri 1962 and 1968). The film was produced by Radhakant, who earlier a Tarzan film in 1963.
Tarzan (Chandgi Ram) takes to task a band of gold smugglers while at the same time falling in love with the gang leader’s pretty daughter, Rama (Shabnam).
Slowly the attraction of Tarzan was fading new characters were emerging like Rambo or Rocky. It took 15 years for Tarzan to reappear in 1985 film TARZAN (aka: ADVENTURES OF TARZAN)
The film directed by B Subhash, starring Hemant BirjeDalip TahilKimi Katkar, and Om Shivpuri. The film was successful commercially. The film was much talked about in its time, mainly due to the steamy scenes between the lead actors and popular hit songs. 
Like earlier films here also A small boy, lost in the jungle, becomes the ward of the jungle animals and grows up to become Tarzan (Hemant Birje). He was found by Dr. Sethi and his daughter, Ruby (Kimi Katkar) whom he saves. They fall in love. 
Ruby's dad and D.K plan to capture Tarzan and take him to work for the Apollo Circus, owned by Krishnakant Verma. Tarzan is captured before Tarzan and Ruby's romance could take wing. Tarzan is chained and taken to the circus and made to spend the rest of his days performing various acts, 


17 years later The sequel of the above movie named Tarzan Ki Beti was released in 2002. Tarzan was played by Hemant Birje. This movie was released in 2002 under the banner of Kusum Art International as a sequel of the Adventures of Tarzan
The star cast includes Hemant Birje, Ritika Singh, Gouri Varma, Raza Murad, Dhananjay (Junior Dharmendra) which was a look-alike of Dharmendra. Hemant Nirje plays Tarzan and Ritika Singh plays his daughter.
Dhananjay Singh plays Arjun, he loves an orphan girl Kiran.  When they are about to be married. Kiran knows from her mother that her father is Tarzan. Kiran also has a sister, Aarti who still lives in the jungle. Some hunters try to catch Arti in the jungle. A forest ranger helps Aarti to reunite with her family. 


In 2004 a film was released Tarzan and Wonder Car starring Ajay Devgan. The film was not a Tarzan film but there was car named as Tarzan. Ajay Devgan plays Deven who was an Automobile engineer who possessed this car. He was killed by four of his friends to grab this car. Ultimately this car was purchased by Deven's son after many years.  Deven's spirit possesses Taarzan and starts killing all the gentlemen responsible for the murder, including Inspector Sanjay Sharma. Since the car now belongs to Raj, he becomes a suspect in eyes of Inspector Khurana (Gulshan Grover)

Songs of Tarzan

Song of Toofani Tarzan 1937


Song of Zimbo 1958


Song of Tarzan Aur Jadugar 1964

Song of Tarzan Comes to Delhi 1965



Song of Tarzan 1985


Song of Tarzan 1985




Wednesday 8 January 2020

Nadia- India’s original stunt queen


She was also called as Fearless Nadia or Nadia- The Hunterwali. Born as Mary Ann Evans in Australia, she came to India when she was 5 years old. By the time Mary reached her mid-twenties, she had trained herself in horse riding, ballet, tap dance, and gymnastics. She is most remembered as the masked, cloaked adventurer in Hunterwali, released in 1935, which was one of the earliest female-lead Indian films
Nadia proved a huge hit with the audience, whereupon, considering her skills at performing circus and other stunts, J.B.H., by then joined by his younger brother Homi, chose to develop her into a star.

Born on January 8, 1908, she wanted to be a singer and dancer and learned Scottish dances from her father and Greek songs from her mother. She went on to sing in church choirs in school but even as a young girl, she was different. While her classmates played with fluffy soft toys, she spent most of her time with a pony that became her best friend. She also spent time learning fishing, hunting, horse riding and everything normally considered audacious for girls of her age at the time.
Her father died when she was only 15 so she started to look for a job. Nadia tried her hand at several other jobs. From working in a secretarial position, traveling as a theatre artist to performing as a trapeze artist at a circus, she did it all. She also worked hard to train herself as a gymnast and her graceful cartwheels, daredevil stunts and charming presence soon won her a lot of fans.
 Eruch Kanga, a cinema owner from Lahore, spotted her in performance and suggested her name to J. B. H. Wadia and Homi Wadia, the brothers who owned a major production house called Wadia Movietone. Initially, she was given a small role in two of their upcoming movies, Desh Deepak and Noor-e-Yaman. Her cameos as a slave girl in the former and as a princess in the latter were well-liked by the audience.
Her big break came with the 1935 film Hunterwali.  This movie was the first one to showcase Nadia’s fearlessness, her athletic prowess, and her affinity for the stunt genre. The audience loved her. Over the next decade, Nadia went on to star in over 50 films, performing her own stunts in every single film. She went on to achieve great stardom and became one of the highest-paid actresses in the Indian film industry during this period. 
Nadia married Homi Wadia in 1961 and thus became Nadia Wadia  In 1967-68 when she was in her late 50s, she appeared in a James Bond spoof called Khiladi (The Player). That was her last film.
In 1993, Nadia's great-grandnephew, Riyad Vinci Wadia, made a documentary of her life and films, called Fearless: The Hunterwali Story. After watching the documentary at the 1993 Berlin International Film Festival, Dorothee Wenner, a German freelance writer, and film curator wrote Fearless Nadia - The true story of Bollywood's original stunt queen, which was subsequently translated into English in 2005. She died on 9th Jan 1996 due to age-related diseases.
Song of Hunterwali 1935








                       Dile Nadan Tujhe Hua Kya Hai - Hunterwali Ki Beti - Fearless Nadia



Monday 22 May 2017

Remembering Homi Wadia -The Original Stunt Film Maker on his 106th Birth Anniversary


Homi Wadia was a filmmaker of 30s and continued to make films upto 80s . He was the founder of Wadia Movietone and Basant Pictures. In a career spanning 5 decades, Wadia started as a cinematographer in Lal-e-Yaman (1933) and subsequently produced and directed around 40 films including adventurous flicks like Hunterwali, Miss Frontier Mail, Diamond Queen and fantasy films like Hatim Tai

In 1981, he got into a labour dispute with union leader Datta Samant, unable to take on the dispute, he decided to quit film making and closed down Basant Studios.
He was born on May 18, 1911, in Surat, Gujarat, was married to actress and stunt woman Fearless NadiaNadia was undoubtedly Wadia's most brilliant discovery and creation.Both of them together gave many memorable films.Nadia quit films in 50s.

 He was also a founding member of the Film & Television Producers Guild of India, established in 1954. He remained active, and even after his wife Nadia died in 1996, he regularly visited Basant theatre in Chembur. He died at the age of 93, in Mumbai in 2004.
Director Homi Wadia and the stunt film icon, who is one of the inspirations for Kangana Ranaut's Julia in 'Rangoon', rewind to the terrific '30s
List of films 

Songs from Wadia's Films




Song from Hunterwali Ki Beti


Song from Hatim Tai (1956)


Song from Zabak (1961)


Song from Char Dervesh (1964)