80th Anniversary of Alam Ara

- NDFS Desk

14th March is a special day for the Indian film industry. This is the day when first Indian talkies Alam Ara was released in 1931. As mentioned at IMDB It was a period fantasy of the ageing king of Kamarpur, and his two rival queens, Navbahar and Dilbahar, and their rivalry when a fakir predicts that Navbahar will bear the king's heir. Dilbahar unsuccessfully tries to seduce the army chief Adil (Vithal) and vengefully destroys his family, leaving his daughter Alam Ara (Zubeida) to be raised by nomads. Eventually, Alam Ara's nomad friends invade the palace, expose Dilbahar's schemes, release Adil from the dungeon and she marries the prince of the realm.

Google also salutes Indian Film Industry and reminds us this historic date by putting a wonderful and most visible image from the film. NDFS blog has earlier published a piece on Alam Ara as excerpts of a wonderful book on Alam Ara written by Sharad Dutt. We will soon publish part 2 of that wonderful article. Till then go to archives and enjoy that piece on making of Alam Ara.