This review is written by Mr Arunkumar Deshmukh
VIDYAPATI-1937,was indeed a landmark movie.
Produced by New Theatres, Calcutta, it was special in many respects. The director was Debaki Bose, who wrote the story, screenplay and dialogues also along with Qazi Nazrul Islam, one of the greatest Rebel poets of Bengal.
Qazi Nazrul Islam(1899-1976) migrated to Bangladesh in 1972, on that Govt’s invitation and died there only. He is called the National poet of Bangla Desh. He has written over 4000 songs and is considered next only to Tagore.
The music was by R.C.Boral and all songs were written by Kidar Sharma. Kidar Sharma was doing his stint at Calcutta, just before going over to Bombay in 1940 and churning out films in Ranjit Movietone.
It was only 5-6 years since the Talkies started and Music played a major role in any film’s success those days. People used to throng at Theatres to listen to songs, as Record availability was not that common till then and otherwise also having a Gramophone was a luxury in any case.
The film had a very impressive star cast of that time-Prithwiraj Kapoor, Pahadi Sanyal, Kanan Devi, K.C.Dey, Chhaya devi, K.N.Singh, RamPyari (more about this actress some other time), Leela Desai, Nemo, Kidar etc.
The story and screenplay was fast moving and a new technique of moving the camera on Trolleys was used-as against the usual static camera position. Music also played a major role in its success.
The story hovered around King of Mithila, Shiv Singh(Prithviraj Kapoor), who loves his wife Queen Laxmi(Chhaya Devi) very much. The king invites noted poet Vidyapati(Pahadi Sanyal-real name Nagendra Nath) as a Court Poet. He comes with his trusted follower Anuradha(Kanan Devi).
Queen Laxmi falls in love with Vidyapati.The king becomes very sad and falls ill, after knowing this. Anuradha tries to console him. The queen also is disturbed due to her duel loyalties and decides to commit suicide.
She is encouraged by the Prime Minister(K.N.Singh), for his own reasons.
At the end of the film both the King and Queen sacrifice their lives before the statue of God Vishnu(who sheds tears, in the film). K.C.Dey’s song ‘Panghat pe kanhaiya aata hai’ became very famous. In the film this song is almost 8 minutes long with chorus. He does the role of Rajguru.
Bollywood movies 