बहादुर

Bahadur is a 1944 Hindi action-adventure feature directed by and starring Master Bhagwan (Bhagwan Dada), made for Jagriti Pictures during the wartime years when Bhagwan was carving out a niche as Bombay's resident stunt-and-action filmmaker. Like most of Bhagwan's low-budget action films of the period, its commercial draw was its energetic set-pieces and its songs rather than literary ambition.

The complete score was composed by Ram Chitalkar (C. Ramchandra) with all lyrics written by Ehsan Rizvi. The album of eight songs ranges from devotional numbers (a Krishna invocation, 'Suno Suno Krishna Murari') to lighthearted and proverb-flavoured pieces ('Samay Bura Jab Aaye To'), reflecting the variety expected of a 1940s action film's musical programme.

Bahadur belongs to the formative chapter of one of Hindi cinema's most important creative partnerships — that of director-actor Bhagwan Dada and composer C. Ramchandra, who scored the film under his early name Ram Chitalkar. Their collaboration, which had begun with Sukhi Jeevan (1942), would eventually culminate in the landmark musical hit Albela (1951). Films like Bahadur are where Ramchandra served his apprenticeship and where the rhythmic, dance-driven musical sensibility he later made famous was first being worked out.