Vidur, who has started up a very enjoyable Noor Jehan fan site, made a special request that I post the other four songs availabe from the 1944 movie Dost. Though my favorite from that film is the one I posted the last week, these are all beautiful songs as well, so I am more than happy to comply.
Vidur also requested that I mention this is Sajjad Hussain’s first film. I don’t know that much else about Sajjad Hussain’s music at this point (I know he composed a few very interesting songs for Hulchul (1951)), but I see that some people say he was the most brilliant of all music directors, and judging by the music to Dost, I can understand why. (Also worth noting, as mentioned in Down Melody Lane, is that he got to be music director for Dost independently, “solely on the basis of his own talent.” It seems that this was always the main reason he would get a film score, while his personal dealings with people might have more often counted against him, since he was a moody, picky, temperamental kind of guy.)
Still, of course, the biggest attraction for this listener – and viewer - is the unmatchable Noor Jehan. As came out in comments to last week’s post, there are a few of us who would be very happy to find some more pre-Partition Noor Jehan films. If anybody else has any leads about finding those, please join the conversation and let us know!
Dear Mr. Richard,
If you would like to know about all pre-partition movies of Madam available on VCD/ DVD or the internet(to my knowledge), here is a list(I have a copy of each, except the post-partition ones).
1. Khandan – 1942
2. Lal Haveli – 1944
3. Gaon Ki Gori/Village Girl – 1945
4. Anmol Ghadi – 1946(I know you have that :) )
5. Jugnu – 1947(Aren’t you aware of it being in Youtube?)
As far as the post-partition movies are concerned, here is another list.
6. Chan We – 1951(Madam’s first Pakistani film)
7. Dupatta – 1952
8. Patay Khan – 1955
9. Intezar – 1956(I think you’ve seen this one too?)
10. Anarkali – 1958
11. Koel – 1959
12. Neend – 1959
Hoping this information would be useful to you,
Vidur
Vidur, thanks for the list. But as I mentioned before, I haven’t been buying DVDs online; I’ve mainly been looking for DVDs in stores in Jackson Heights, Queens, U.S., where many Indian or Pakistani movies are sold. And if I’m to buy a DVD, I would like it to have English subtitles, which narrows down the selection a bit.
Actually, I haven’t seen the pre-Partition movies in these stores. Anmol Ghadi supposedly has been available sometimes, but I couldn’t find it, so I got my copy from Doc Bollywood instead. :) As I mentioned in conversaion/comments a little while back, I did kind of watch Jugnu on YouTube, but without subtitles – and with bad video quality – it was a bit difficult to watch all the way through. Re. Village Girl, a store was supposed to order it for me, but they did not follow through, kept coming up with excuses that maybe it would be avialable the next week (while they kept trying to push other titles on me that I didn’t ask for – and at higher prices than some of the other stores. :) )
That’s about all I’ve found in the stores from the pre-Partition list.
Re the Pakistani movies, I’ve seen most of those on the shelves in the Pakistani DVD store, but only Dupatta could be found with English subtitles. (I bought the DVD, then I found out a little while later that it was also on YouTube.) I’ve watched all of Intezar and much of Koel and Anarkali (with some fast-forwarding here and there :) online without subtitles. (Anarkiali was in the Pakistani DVD store too but, once again, no subtitles, and the same copy was available online at the time.) I have watched scenes from Patay Khan (not just songs), but the person who put those online for some reason stopped without posting the whole movie. I have not seen Patay Khan in the store at all… I’ve have seen copies of Chan We and I think Neend, at one point, but once again, with no subtitles available to me, I decided just to keep watching the songs on YouTube (and listening to a few that I have in MP3).
I generally don’t buy things online. I have my own eccentric reasons for that (including lack of a usable personal credit card). But now that I am staying in a town other than NYC much of the time, maybe I’ll consider doing that (especially if I do start seeing things that I haven’t seen in the stores…).