हंटरवाली

In 1935, while New Theatres was crafting prestige cinema, Bombay's Wadia Movietone made Hunterwali with the masked, whip-cracking 'Fearless Nadia' — a blockbuster hit that gave birth to the Indian stunt-film genre.

In the very year New Theatres in Calcutta sculpted the mournful poetry of Devdas, Bombay's Wadia Movietone chose the opposite road — speed, fists and the crack of a whip. Written by J.B.H. Wadia and directed by Homi Wadia, Hunterwali was not cinema's prestige face but its popular, pounding heart. These two stances were the real map of the thirties.

The heroine was Mary Ann Evans — on screen, 'Fearless Nadia'. She played Princess Madhuri, who took up mask, whip and horse to become 'Hunterwali' and fight injustice. Leaps onto moving carriages, the lash of the whip and fearless stunts — this was Nadia's first lead role, and it made her India's first stunt star.

Made for roughly eighty thousand rupees, the film ran twenty-five weeks and was a runaway success. The music was by Master Mohammed, and most of the lyrics in its eight songs were by Joseph David, alongside a traditional bhajan. Hunterwali laid the foundation of the stunt-action genre and grew so popular that 1943's Hunterwali Ki Beti became its sequel — the first Indian film to receive one.