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House Full- The
Golden Age of Hindi Cinema;
The book talks about important films and filmmakers who shaped the destiny of the Hindi film industry. These titans of the industry not just commented on but even impacted society. The personas and films of Bimal Roy, Guru Dutt, Raj Kapoor, V Shantaram, The Anand brothers- Dev, Vijay and Chetan, Shakti Samanth, The Chopras are brought alive in the pages of the books. Journalists Ziya Us Salam, Suresh Kohli, Anuj Kumar, and Vijay Lokapally have compiled the work. Ziya Us Salam, the editor of House Full, has been a film critic with The Hindu since 2000. The foreword is by Mahesh Bhatt who says, "Every nation needs its memories- memories hold in check the possibility of history being relegated to oblivion". It’s truly fascinating to be re-introduced to the legends we’ve grown up with. While some of us belong to the era of the actors, directors, cinematographers and musicians mentioned, many of us know them through their work. Even if we have not seen these films in the picture halls where they ran to gold and diamond jubilees (hard to imagine that a film could run for over three weeks anywhere), we have heard the evergreen songs and seen their movies on television. The book is sweetly nostalgic without being maudlin or sentimental. It’s as if the author is revisiting his favourite movies and swapping stories with the reader about them. However, in the book, is a structure, which he follows strictly. Each chapter- devoted to one of the leading filmmakers of the era- has an introduction by an eminent personality, followed by the credits and summary of the major films of the filmmaker. We read about the music and songs of the movie and the best part is the short facts that pepper each section. The authors share little stories about the film or the filmmaker or the actors that most people would not know and that delight the reader. For example, the author tells us that Nargis would go and share food with her make up man and his family in their single room apartment and chatter away with them in Marathi. That Raj Kapoor was a kind man who helped out senior, struggling artist with a role and money. Mehboob Khan, the maker of Mother India was a devout Muslim, who would carry his prayer mat to shootings, that Guru Dutt ghost directed several films. We read about great friendships among the directors and musicians; how great music was composed and path breaking ‘effects’ were created.Interesting content, tight editing and movies galore! What more could a reader want.
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