Quantitatively, Pakistan Film Industry (Lollywood) ranks among the top twenty film producing nations of the world with an average of 60 full length feature films per year. Lollywood should take pride in achieving three distinct accolades. The first accomplishment relates to Noor Jehan, also known as `Melody Queen’ by music lovers. She is the country’s most celebrated singer and actress, enjoying popularity in a career spanning about sixty years. Unfortunately no ready data is available about the number of songs recorded by her, which by a conservative estimate may well be around 3000. Actor Sultan Rahi was yet another phenomenon with a total number of 670 films to his credit. He played key roles in 525 films in a period of almost forty years between 1956 to 1995, averaging 16.75 films a year. Pakistan’s third prodigy is the screenwriter Nasir Adib, who claims to have scripted more than 400 films in the last three decades.
In spite of all this, almost all Pakistani films cater to the local market and no serious effort has been made to broaden the audience base of our films or to enter these at international festivals. Very little, therefore, is known or heard about Lollywood outside the country. The indifference and timidity as evinced by this industry have a lot to do with the peculiar history of the evolution of cinema in Pakistan.
It is time to launch a fresh program of development to meet demands of the fast pace of globalization in the domains of information, art, music, culture, entertainment and aesthetics. In other fields such as sports, trade, commerce, and defence, Pakistan has matched and at time achieved an edge over many developing countries of the world through open competition and with government support. But on the cinema front no serious research has been taken in hand to formulate long-term policy. The strategy of prolonged protectionism of the industry has failed to solve its problems. The film world of the country has sunk into the mire of adhocism, surviving from day to day, moment to moment, in the pursuit of the magic wand of commercial success.
With the abundance of unspoilt natural beauty and historical treasures in the country, Lollywood, if it captures its legacy efficiently on celluloid, would achieve world-wide recognition. For all this one looks forward to the cultivation of a fresh crop of talented and committed young men and women to lead Pakistan’s film world towards a bright future in the next century.
The Silent Era (1896-1931)
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The Lumiere Brothers of France exhibited their short films in December 1895 at Grande Cafe, Paris. The following year, they brought the show to India and held its premiere at the Watson Hotel in Bombay on 7 July 1896.
From 18 July 1896, films were released at the Novelty Theatre on a regular basis. Entrance tickets ranged from four annas, i.e., twenty-five paisas, to two rupees. That was how cinema came to the subcontinent. Soon after, other major cities, including Lahore, had their first brush with the new invention and were listed in the film distribution territory.
In the next eighteen years, many cinema houses were built all over the country, exhibiting silent films from the West, mostly from the United States. Great excitement was generated amongst young people related to the indigenous production of theatre, radio and still photography. But film, unlike other forms of expression, involved understanding of a technology that integrated many different arts and crafts. There were no schools or institutions that imparted training of this sort. Moreover, the finances needed for such an enterprise were beyond the means of middle class enthusiasts. Neither the government of British India nor the distributors of foreign films were keen to augment their ambitions. But the zeal for the medium was too intense to be subdued. All over India, many individuals tried to make some sort of a film with their own meagre resources but to no avail.
However, in 1913, Raja Harishchandra, the first local and economically viable film, was produced in Bombay. It was almost a solo effort by Dhundiraj Govind, popularly known as Dadasaheb Phalke. He is the undisputed father of Indian cinema, and his Raja Harishchandra (1913) can be regarded as the first full-length feature film though it had no sound and music. He remained the uncrowned king of the Indian film scene for more than two decades. His reign ended when the first talkie Alam Ara gave sound and music to the Indian cinema in 1931.
Lahore’s first silent film, The Daughter of Today, was made in 1924, almost eleven years after the release of Phalke’s maiden venture. At that time the city had nine cinema houses, mostly showing films from Bombay and Calcutta, besides movies produced in Hollywood and London. The Daughter of Today was the brainchild of G.K. Mehta, an officer with NWR (North Western Railways), who managed to bring a movie camera from abroad. Mehta started with supplying newsreel coverage to international agencies and made some documentaries as well. But his interest in movie making was short-lived and he left for other commercial ventures.
In Lahore, Bhati Gate’s Mian Abdur Rashid Kardar (A.R. Kardar) should be given the credit for establishing film-making in this city, which was later to become Lollywood. He started in the era of silent movies with the production of Mysterious Eagle alias Husn Ka Daku that started earlier but was released in 1930, and founded the industry in Lahore. With him was Bhati Gate’s M. Ismail, another name among the pioneers of cinema in Lahore, a great friend of Kardar’s who had a similar passion for acting. They were professional calligraphists who also prepared posters and paint boards for silent films occasionally.
The two went to Bombay in 1927 and were lucky in getting roles in Imperial Film Company’s Heer Ranjha, in which Ismail played the villain Kaido and Kardar did a side role. But they returned to Lahore in 1928 to pursue a career in film-making, which was to credit them as bellwethers of the film industry in northern India.
Kardar had started his career as assistant director and hero of The Daughter of Today, produced by G.K. Mehta under the banner of Premier Film Company in 1928. The film was directed by Shankradev Arya with Wilayat Begum in the female lead and M. Ismail, Vijay Kumar, Heera Lal and Master Ghulam Qadir in the supporting cast. G.K. Mehta may thus be regarded as the first film-maker of Lahore. The Daughter of Today was produced in the first open studio in the city set up near the Bradlaw Hall. Some more films were also produced in this studio but it was closed down for financial reasons.
In 1925, Himansu Rai, a young foreign qualified Bengali, arrived in Delhi with a well-planned proposal to launch a joint film venture in collaboration with the Emelka Film Company of Munich, Germany. Himansu Rai was given financial support by Justice Moti Sagar, a retired Lahore High Court Judge and his businessman brother, Prem Sagar. Rai, was thus able to set up the Great Eastern Film Corporation. He produced The Light of Asia a.k.a. Prem Saryas. Its German title was Die Lenchte Asien. The movie was based on the life and times of Gautama Buddha. Rai played the main role with Sita Devi from Calcutta in the female lead. Franz Osten and Josef Wirsching, both from Germany, held the megaphone and did the camera work respectively. The post-production work was carried out abroad. The film was a tremendous success both in India and Europe.
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| M. Ismail in A.R. Kardar's silent film Shepherd King (1930) a.k.a Gudaria Sultan made in Lahore before partition. |
The success of Prem Sanyas prompted the Great Eastern Film Corporation to expand their activities in the Punjab capital. They selected Syed Imtiaz Mi Taj’s famous play Anarkali as the basis of their second ambitious project, The Loves of a Mughal Prince. Artistes from The Light of Asia, along with Imtiaz Ali Taj, Hakim Ahmed Shuja, and M.S. Dar acted in this venture. It offered a real opportunity for Lahore to enter mainstream cinema. Directed by Charu Roy, the art designer of the Buddha movie, it turned out to be a well-crafted and extravagant undertaking, both in terms of time and money. But the Imperial Film Company of Bombay, sensing the possibility of making good money from such a novel idea, made a quick film based on the same theme and ran it throughout the country before The Loves of a Mughal Prince could be released. As a result, this far superior and original work was looked upon as a copy. When it failed to click, the fate of the Lahore mission was sealed. Himansu Rai settled in Bombay and there, with the support of his highly educated and beautiful actress-wife Devika Rani, established Bombay Talkies.
With no work left after The Daughters of Today, A.R. Kardar and M. Ismail sold their belongings to set up a studio and a production company under the name of United Players Corporation in 1928. The studio was set up at Ravi Road (now timber market) where shooting was possible in daylight only. But they had good sites of the Ravi forest (Zakheera) and tombs of Jahangir and Noor Jahan to shoot at.
Their team reached the spot on tongas and once during a tonga ride a camera went down the river along with a technician. United Players produced eight successful films. The first was Mysterious Eagle, which was a debut for Kardar as director. He cast himself as the male lead opposite Gulzar Begum. Others in the cast included M. Ismail, Master Ghulam Qadir, Ahmad Din and an American actor Iris Crawford.
Kardar left acting and introduced debonair Gul Hameed as hero in his second film Brave Heart alias Sarfrosh, with more or less the same cast in addition to giving roles to Rafiq Ghaznavi who later became a music director.
Simultaneously, Roop Lal Shori, a resident of Brandreth Road, returned to Lahore after training in photography from America. He succeeded in getting finances from McLeod Road’s Dr Amar Barocha and Fleming Road’s trader Sheikh Mubarak Ali to produce Life After Death alias Qismat Ke Her Pher. Khurshid Begum and Herald Louis were the leading pair. The Shoris also made a great contribution in making Lahore as one of the top film-making centres of India and their name may be ranked with A.R. Kardar and Seth Dilsukh M. Pancholi.
Kardar’s third film was Safdar Jang in which he introduced Mumtaz Begum as heroine. All these films were released in Lahore’s Deepak cinema at Bhati Gate (later called Paramount, which no longer exists) between June and October 1930. His next film was Shephard King alias Gudaria Sultan. The fifth was Golden Dagger alias Sunehri Khanjar in which he introduced Nazeer, later a famous producer-director who married Swarnlata, in the male lead opposite Gulzar Begum.
Now that Kardar had established himself as a director, he hired the services of Jhelum’s J.K. Nanda, who had training in direction and photography from Germany, to direct his sixth film Wandering Dancer alias Aawara Raqqasa, which was a plagiarized version of a well-known Rudolph Valentino film, The Son of the Sheikh. The screenplay was written by M. Sadiq.
Kardar’s seventh film was Mistress Bandit. In the last three films Nazeer and Gulzar Begum had established themselves as successful leading pair and M. Ismail as a leading villain. Kardar’s eighth and last film was Sweetheart alias Qatil Katar, in which he again appeared as the hero opposite debutante Bahar Akhtar whom he introduced with her sister Sardar Akhtar, later a leading actress.
J.K. Nanda was the director of the film which could not be completed because Kardar married Bahar and destroyed all its negatives. This marked the end of the United Players Corporation.
The Pre-Independence Period (1931-1947)
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| A rare still from Ardeshir Irani's Alam Ara, the first Indian talkie (1931). |
11 March 1931 will remain as the second most important date in the annals of the region’s history of cinema. On that day Alam Ara, the first full length locally-produced talkie film, was released at the Majestic Cinema, in Bombay. It was made under the banner of the Imperial Film Company owned by Ardeshir Irani and his silent partner, Abdul Ali Yusuf Bhai. Though the film was only partly in sound, it created a great impact at the box office. The public response was overwhelming and for the first time tickets were sold in the black market for as much as twenty rupees for a normal seat otherwise worth a few annas. Alam Ara a.k.a. The Light of the World had top ranking artistes like Master Vithal, Zubeida, Prithivi Raj, Jillo Bai, Yaqub, Jagdish Sethi and W.M. Khan in the cast.
The film had a few songs, sung by the actors themselves and recorded at the time of shooting. The concept of playback singing, using the voice-over technique, was introduced later, after the invention of the optical sound recording and playing sound machine which could run in sync with the camera. The popularity of a lyrical composition, De de khuda ke naam par pyare (Give alms in the name of God) went beyond the imagination of any analyst. The film’s business soared as the melody spread to every nook and corner of the country. Though it was another five years before the era of silent films ended, the song, as a new element in the cinema of the subcontinent, had come to stay.
Alam Ara was closely followed by yet another talkie, Shirin Farhad, produced by Madan Theatres of Calcutta. Based on the love legend of Persia, it starred Master Nisar and Jahanara Kajjan, a popular duo of the time. The script and dialogues were penned by Agha Hashar Kashmiri. The film had as many as forty-two songs.
The first talkie of the Punjab was Heer Ranjha and it came within a year and a half of Alam Ara. It was produced under the banner of a newly-formed studio called Play Art Photo Tone, owned by Hakim Ram Parshad, the proprietor of the Capital Theatre (later Ranjit Cinema) in Lahore. Kardar directed the film in the Urdu language, casting Anwera Begum and Rafiq Ghaznavi (the flamboyant actor and music composer) in the main lead, with M. Ismail, Lala Yakub, and Walayat Begum also in the cast. The heroine and hero got married and are the maternal grandparents of Salma Agha, the glamorous singer-actress who achieved the distinction of acting in both Indian and Pakistani films during the late eighties.
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| Balo, who acted in Heer Sial (1938) was the mother of Pakistan's first superstar actress Sabiha Khanum. |
The story of Heer Ranjha was written by Syed Abid Ali Abid and the screenplay by M. Sadiq. The film was major box-office hit and Kardar’s fame reached Calcutta, his next destination. Other notables in the field were Seth Hari Ram who founded the Punjab Art Studios to produce Abla and Falcon under the direction of Ramgopal Kirpalani. Elephanta Movietone was set up as production unit in the Capital cinema building by film journalist B.R. Oberoi to produce Pavitar Nartiki. Daily Milap’s editor Lala Nanak Chand set up the Ravi Talkies to produce Paap Ki Nagri. It was during this period that Sant Nagar’s Jaswant Singh purchased land from landlord Fida Husain to set up a studio on the banks of the Lahore canal. This was named Northern India Studios which later came to be known as Punjab Studio. The first film produced here was R.L. Shori’s Radhe Shyam, which Shori directed with the help of A.P. Kapoor in 1932.
Lahore talkie productions found easy access to the mainstream distribution market and attracted many entrepreneurs including a rich Lahorite, Dr Daulat Ram, who invested in a film studio at Muslim Town. He made three films: Sacred Ganges and Suhag Din directed by Imtiaz Ali Taj and also Surag Ki Seerhi. All the scripts were written by Syed Imtiaz Ali Taj and directed by J.K. Nanda. The cast included Bibbo (Ishrat Sultana), Prem Adeeb and Jeevan. Swarg Ki Seerhi was the first film of Master Ghulam Haider as music director. It was during the shooting of the same film that Haider fell in love with Umrao Zia and married her. Commercially, none of the films clicked at the box office.
While Dr Daulat Ram was making sound films, two other cineasts, Roshan Lal Shorey and Dalsukh Pancholi, were planning to make talkies in Lahore. R.L. Shorey started his career in the photolitho department of the Military Staff College, Quetta. From there he went to the USA for training in photography. On his return, he settled in Lahore and founded Kamla Movietone in 1924. During the era of silent movies, his film work was mostly sponsored by the government of British India. With the advent of sound he turned towards feature production and made his first film Radhe Shyam based on Hindu mythology. Later his Quetta-born son, Roop Kishore, better known as Roop. K. Shorey, expanded the family enterprise and attained the status of a movie mogul. The first film Roshan Lal Shorey directed and produced was Majnu (1935). Herald Louis was the hero opposite Shyama Zatshti, the daughter of a Lahore barrister. Sheyama was a Congress leader who took part in political activities, therefore she bid farewell to the film world later. Other cast members included Mukhtar, Sultan Beg (Khosat), Hakam Singh and Kamla. This was also the first film of Wali Sahib as writer. Herald Louis earned such fame from the film that he was known for the rest of his life as Majnu.
Dulla Bhatti (1940), and the Punjabi blockbuster of 1942, Mangti with an all Lahorite cast of Mumtaz Shanti, Masud Pervaiz, Majnoon and Manorma were other hit films produced by Kamla Movietone. The same company later produced Koel and Nishani. But when the two films failed, the Shoris left the Northern Studios and shifted to a smaller studio behind Regent cinema.
The other cineast, Dalsukh M. Pancholi (1906-59) was born in Karachi. Dalsukh studied script-writing and cinematography at New York. He expanded the film distribution network started by his father during the First World War and became the largest importer of American motion pictures in northern and western India. His first feature was a Punjabi film Gul Bakavli, released in 1938. It marked the debut of child star Noor Jehan as a singer in films. One of the two compositions of Ghulam Haider, Shala Jawania, was cheered all over Punjab and earned a name for its singer.
Later, Seth Pancholi sent shock waves by producing Zamindar, a major box-office hit. Shanta Apte was called to lead the female cast opposite Dr S.D. Narang. The next Pancholi film, Poonji, was also a great hit. The film had, for the first time, a chorus in color.
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| Pran and Ranjana in Pancholi's Yamla Jatt (1940). |
Pancholi also offered Shaukat Hussain Rizvi his directorial debut in Khandan. It was, according to the local cinema genre, a Muslim social film. Noor Jehan and Pran Krishna were paired in this film as heroine and hero. In post-independence Bombay, Pran dropped Krishna from his name and had a long and highly successful career playing the villain and later doing several memorable character roles. Khandan featured some of Ghulam Haider’s refreshing tunes sung in the melodious voice of Noor Jehan.
Tu kaun si badli me mere chand hey aaja and Meri ammi ka raj bhala became popular all over India. The film broke all previous collection records for Urdu films. Noor Jehan and Shaukat Hussain went to Bombay to pursue higher ambitions and soon got married there. Through the Hindi-Urdu productions of Pancholi Art Pictures, Lahore cinema penetrated the country-wide distribution network.
The years 1942-43 saw Lahore reaching the zenith of the Indian film industry when more than one dozen production units were set up. Syed Ataullah Shah Hashmi, then editing a film weekly Adakar ventured Ravi Par directed by Zia Sarhady. Patwari, directed by Raj Hans, Ik Musafir,directed by R.K. Shori, and Pagli were also made that year.
Rashid Attrre made his debut as music director in Pagli. Another notable film of the period was Gawandhi, in which Shyam appeared for the first time as hero and Veena as heroine. Veena’s real name was Tajour Sultana and she belonged to Lahore’s Chuna Mandi.
Seth Pancholi then gave another super hit, Daasi, which saw the first appearance of Om Parkash and G.N. Butt. Najmul Hasan was the hero with Raagini in the female lead. Direction was by Haran Bose, called from Calcutta, and film had music by Pandit Amarnath. Other less important films followed; and then came Gul Baloch (Punjabi), a film made in 1943-44 which was comedian Nazar’s first film. It also introduced Mohammad Rafi as a playback singer. Nigar Production’s Panchhi saw Ajmal in the male lead for the first and last time.
The success of Pancholi’s films can be mainly attributed to the enchanting musical score of Ghulam Haider. The team worked well through five films but then Pancholi broke away from the maestro. Of Pancholi’s five latter films including Shireen Farhad, Dhamki and Kaise Kahoon, none clicked at the box office. Pancholi fled to Bombay when communal riots erupted in most parts of the subcontinent at the time of independence.
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| Nasir Khan and Asha Posley played the lead in Pakistan's first feature film (1948). Produced by Deewan Sardari Lal, Teri Yaad was released on 2 September 1948 at a side theatre in Lahore. It was lacking in production quality and that along with the Quaid's death soon after contributed to its failure. |
Pakistani Film Industry was trying to recover from the debris of social, political and economical catastrophe. Unrestricted imports of Indian films kept cinema houses running, thereby providing a big chunk of business for Bombay producers and their local Pakistani distributors. Most of the Urdu films of this period failed not only because of Indian competition but also because distributors here were reluctant to promote them. Finance for production, usually provided by the distributor, was practically non-existent for Pakistani films.
Like Bombay, Calcutta, Madras and Poona, Lahore was also producing a few Urdu and Punjabi films during the pre-independence days. Four full-fledged studios catered to the needs of the regional industry in Lahore till 1947. Of the four studios, one was burnt down during the riots, one was sealed as its owner had migrated to India, and the other two Pancholi No.1 and No2 could not be utilized. Most cinemas and film production and distribution offices had been sealed, as there was nobody to take care of them. There was not a single artiste enjoying star value. Only M. Ismail, Akhtari, Asha Posley and a few others were left to make rounds of the Puncholi(later named as the Punjab Art Studio) in search of work or kill time. With the return of normalcy, cinema houses which had been sealed, were allotted to Muslim refugees in Lahore, Karachi and Dhaka. Indian films were then openly allowed, because there was no local film production.
Meanwhile, Muslim film personalities started pouring in from various parts of India. Among those who came in the first batch were Syed Shoukat Husain Rizvi, W.Z. Ahmed, Noor Jehan, Sibtain Fazli, Shamim Bano, Luqman, Nasir Khan, Nazir, Swarnalata, Raagini, Khursheed, Charlie, Majid, Pyare Khan, Feroz Nizami, Rashid Attre, Himaliawala, Arsh Lukhnavi, Nazir Ajmeri, Zahoor Raja, Geeta Nizami, S.Gul and others. They devoted their time, money and energy to establish and develop film industry in Pakistan. However, credit goes to Dewan Sardari Lal, who completed Pakistan’s first full length feature film Teri Yaad with Nasir Khan (younger brother of Dilip Kumar) and Asha Posley in the romantic lead. Released on September 2, 1948, it proved to be a big flop in front of Indian films. By the year 1949, the fledgling film industry of Lahore had registered upward growth.
Noor Jehan and Syed Shaukat Hussain Rizvi also came here in a few more months and Lahore as the only film-making centre of the new state started buzzing with activity again. Shori Studios had been allotted to Rizvi and Noor Jehan, who renamed it Shahnoor Studios, which began production activity from day one. But it took another three years for before a hit film was produced.
Do Ansoo (1950), a pathetic and tragic tale in which the father’s crime completely ruins the lives of two innocent persons, the mother and the daughter, was the first Silver Jubilee Urdu film of Pakistan. Do Ansoo, starred the romantic pair of Sabiha and Santosh for the first time. It was Sabiha’s second film after her debut in Beli. Another notable film of the year was Beli (1950), which was directed by Masud Pervez and based on his maternal nephew Saadat Hasan Manto’s story anout the perils of the 1947 exodus.
In 1951, Shaukat Hussain Rizvi produced Chanwey in Punjabi, which was directed by his then wife, Noor Jehan. It was also the first Pakistani film to have been directed by a woman and was the only hit film among the 10 films released in 1951.
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| Ajay Kumar and Noor Jehan in Dopatta (1952). |
Anwar Kamal Pasha’s Ghulam, Nazir’s Shehri Babu and Imtiaz Ali Taj’s Gulnar were classic films of 1953.
W.Z. Ahmad’s Roohi had all the ingredients to be the top quality film of the year 1954, but was a major failure at the box office. This came on the heels of the action by the government which banned its exhibition in East Pakistan thinking that the film might promote thoughts repugnant to Pakistan ideology. Anwar Kamal Pasha’s Gumnaam and Daud Chand’s Sassi were the hits of 1954. Sassi was a big budget movie and was filmed around the most picturesque areas of the country. It was the first Golden Jubilee film of Pakistan and established Sabiha as the first superstar, than only a starlet. Gumnaam offered the best in production, direction, script, acting and music. An excellent film about a crazy wife waiting for her husband to return from the war front. The husband never returns but she receives the telegram with a sad news when police takes in the hero for a murder.
1955 saw the release of two classic Urdu films Qatil and Inteqam, directed by Anwar Kamal Pasha with excellent production values. Luqman’s Pattan, Ataullah Shah Hashmi’s Naukar, Nazir’s Heer and M.A. Rashid’s Patey Khan were other hit films of the year. Naukar was a plagiarized version of a Bombay production, Aulad. Swaranlata as maid and Nazir as her husband were at their best in this film.
In 1955, Hollywoods’ Bhowani Junction, starring Ava Gardner and Stewart Granger, was shot in and around Lahore, under the direction of George Cukor. Based on John Masters’ novel, it was set in the post-World War II period, showing the inner conflict of a Eurasian woman, torn between commitment to the country of her birth and her love for a British colonel. MGM’s production is remembered for the striking photography of the location. It was the most prestigious extravaganza ever filmed in Pakistan.
The Golden Era (1956 – 1966)
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| Nayyar Sultana, an accomplished actress, played mostly dramatic roles in the sixties. She played the title role in Baji (1963), one of the finest films directed by S. Suleman. |
The Period of Great Change (1967 – 1978)
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| Love across the frontiers of state and religion can only end in tragedy in a Pakistani movie. The last scene from Lakhoun Mein Aik (1967 - Shamim Ara, Ejaz) directed by Raza Mir. |
During this period, Pakistan witnessed great political and social upheaval. The country lost its other half. Nurul Haq’s Jalte Suraj Ke Neeche was the last Urdu film from the golden land of what was known as East Pakistan. The former eastern wing (now Bangladesh) was an important film market for the Urdu films of Lahore and Karachi and contributed around thirty-three per cent of the total investment in a production. The drying up of this source of revenue was a major blow to the national film industry. On the other hand, it became a turning point for the development of regional cinema as the producers looked into the financial viability of making more films in the provincial languages – Punjabi, Pashto and Sindhi. The seventies also brought the husband-wife-cum-director-star team of Hasan Tariq and Rani to the forefront of Urdu cinema. The Rani-Tariq team’s filmography consists of almost two dozen ventures including such classics as Mera Ghar Meri Jannat (1968), Anjuman (1970), Umrao Jan Ada (1972) and Ek Gunah aur Sahi (1975). Aina (1977), a musical love story with a tinge of social comment established Calcutta – born Nazrul Islam as one of the topmost directors of Pakistani Cinema. The film created history for having the longest combined run in Karachi – almost 250 weeks.
Also during this period, a small group of influential film makers managed to get away with some explicit scenes, which normally would not have been allowed by the Censor Board. Eager male audiences thronged the theatres to watch a series of yellow movies like Khatarnak, Khaufnak, Khanzada, Nawabzada, and Malikzada. Lewd dances and songs, rape scenes, and semi nude actresses dancing in the rain were common ingredients of such blockbusters.
The Period of Crisis (1979 – 1990)
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| Movies of the eighties increasingly focused on violence; films featuring gangsters and the mob started taking centre stage. |
Pakistani Cinema became loud and localized, wanting in artistic or aesthetic merits. The large number of films produced in various vernaculars speaks for itself about the decline of the film world during this decade. The cancellation of all censor certificates of all films issued prior to the imposition of martial law, the new code of censorship, Indian television and finally the influx of uncensored pirated movies from Hollywood and Bollywood resulted in the overall decline of film quality and good number of cinema houses were closed down.
The Period full of Ups and Downs – (1991-1999)
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| Ghoonghat, a family musical drama with delightful melodies by Amjad Bobby made big profits for the producer and the distributors. Shaan appeared in the film as an obsessive psychopath and gave a fantastic performance. |
The nineties saw complete downfall of the film industry with the demise of Nazrul Islam. There were no good directors to make good films, the situation nose-dived further as satellite TV, cable and CD invaded the market. Directors like Iqbal Kashmiri, Sangeeta and Pervaiz Rana churned out mediocrity in dozens. Syed Noor who has scripted around two hundred films in the 70s and 80s, turned to direction and came out with Qasam, Sargam, Sangam, Ghoonghat, Deewaney Terey Pyar Key, and Daku Rani. He showed some spark, but it turned out to be as temporary as a spark is. The director chose to go the quantity way and dipped himself into a pool of films. The decade also saw rise, fall and rise of Shaan who made an entry with Javed Fazil’s Bulandi (1990), but lost his way in the industry with time. The actor bounced back with Sangeeta’s Khilona (1996), and then ruled the box office throughout the decade.
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