बॉम्बे टॉकीज़ का जन्म

Bombay Talkies Limited, founded in Malad, Bombay in 1934 by Himanshu Rai and Devika Rani, was Hindi cinema's first public limited company — with German technicians, soundproofed stages and Hollywood-style management. From here emerged stars like Ashok Kumar and the foundations of the modern Hindi film industry.

Himanshu Rai's road to cinema was not direct. Born in Calcutta, educated in law in London, it was his contact with Germany's Emelka film company that changed his course. In 1925 he made Prem Sanyas (The Light of Asia) with German director Franz Osten and cinematographer Josef Wirsching. Shiraz (1928) and A Throw of Dice (1929) further established his international reputation. Playwright Niranjan Pal — son of nationalist leader Bipin Chandra Pal — was his script collaborator. In Karma (1933) Devika Rani — trained at UFA studios in Berlin and a great-grandniece of Rabindranath Tagore — appeared as leading lady for the first time. Now Rai had a vision, a team, and the desire to build a new world — in India, for Indians.

In 1934 Himanshu Rai, Devika Rani and Rajnarayan Dube established Bombay Talkies Limited in Malad, a northern suburb of Bombay — a public limited company registered under the Indian Companies Act, the first such venture in Hindi cinema. Franz Osten was brought in as director, Josef Wirsching as cinematographer, Karl von Spreti as production designer, and Bertl Schultes as assistant director — all veterans of Germany's Emelka company. The studio complex in Malad was equipped with soundproofed shooting stages, a laboratory, editing rooms and a preview theatre. Rajnarayan Dube managed business affairs while Rai and Devika Rani led creative operations — exactly the model of Hollywood's major studios. For the first time, Hindi cinema had a modern studio within a corporate structure.

The first film came in 1935 — Jawani Ki Hawa, with Devika Rani as lead. But the studio's greatest gift to Hindi cinema was Ashok Kumar — who arrived as a laboratory technician and was thrust into the lead role in Jeevan Naiya (1936). His understated, naturalistic acting style gave Hindi cinema a new ideal. After Himanshu Rai's death in 1940, Devika Rani took over the studio's reins and sustained its standing until 1945. In its twenty years Bombay Talkies produced forty films; when the British government barred German technicians in 1939, both the studio's strengths and its dependencies were exposed — but by then the foundation had been laid on which modern Hindi cinema would stand.