Khan Bahadur Ardeshir Irani (5 December 1886 – 14 October 1969) was a writer, director, producer, actor, film distributor, film showman and cinematographer in the silent and sound eras of early

Indian cinema The Cinema of India consists of motion pictures produced in India, which had a large effect on world cinema since the late 20th century. Major centers of film production across the country include Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, ...

. He was the one of the greatest legend of today's Indian Cinema. He was the director of India's first sound film Alam Ara. He was the producer of India's first colour film Kisan Kanya. He was renowned for making films in

Hindi Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

, Telugu, English, German, Indonesian,

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' Tamil. He was a successful entrepreneur who owned film theatres, a gramophone agency, and a car agency.

Life and career

Ardeshir Irani was born into a

Parsi Parsis () or Parsees are an ethnoreligious group of the Indian subcontinent adhering to Zoroastrianism. They are descended from Persians who migrated to Medieval India during and after the Arab conquest of Iran (part of the early Muslim conq ...

Zoroastrian Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a monotheistic ...

family on 5 December 1886 in

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, ( the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million As of 2021, Pune Metropolitan Region is the largest i ...

, Bombay Presidency. In 1905, Irani became the Indian representative of

Universal Studios Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Americ ...

and he ran Alexander Cinema in

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second-m ...

with Abdulally Esoofally for over forty years. It was at Alexandera Cinema that Ardeshir Irani learnt the rules of the art of filmmaking and became fascinated by the medium. In 1917, Irani entered the field of film production and produced his first silent feature film, ''Nala Damayanti'', which released in 1920. In 1922, Irani joined Bhogilal Dave, the former manager of

Dadasaheb Phalke Dhundiraj Govind Phalke (Pronunciation: ̪ʱuɳɖiɾaːd͡ʒ pʰaːɭke, popularly known as Dadasaheb Phalke () (30 April 1870 – 16 February 1944), was an Indian producer-director-screenwriter, known as "the Father of Indian cinema". His de ...

's Hindustan Films, and established Star Films. Their first silent feature film, ''Veer Abhimanyu'' was released in 1922 and starred Fatima Begum in the female lead. Dave, a graduate of the New York School of Photography, shot the films while Irani directed and produced them. Star Films produced seventeen films before Irani and Dave dissolved the partnership. Ardeshir Irani recording Alam Ara, 1931

In 1924, Irani founded Majestic Films, joined by two talented youngsters, B.P. Mishra and Naval Gandhi. At this establishment, Irani produced the films and either Mishra or Gandhi directed the films. Despite its success, fifteen films later, Majestic Films closed, giving way to the equally short-lived Royal Art Studios which had exactly the same life-span as the earlier two, however, it became famous for a certain type of romantic films. Irani improved on it, using new talent to great effect. In 1925, Irani founded Imperial Films, where he made sixty-two films. By the age of forty, Irani was an established filmmaker of Indian cinema. Ardeshir Irani became the father of talkie films with the release of his sound feature film, '' Alam Ara'' on 14 March 1931. Many of the films he produced were later made into talkie films with the same cast and crew. He is also accredited with making the first Indian English feature film, ''Noor Jahan'' (1931). He completed his hat-trick of earning fame when he made the first colour feature film of India, '' Kisan Kanya'' (1937). His contribution does not end only with giving voice to the silent cinema and colour to black-and-white films. He gave a new courageous outlook to filmmaking in India and provided such a wide range of choice for stories in films that till date, there are films being made which have a theme relating to one of the one hundred fifty-eight films made by Irani. In 1933, Irani produced and directed the first Persian

talkie A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before ...

, '' Dokhtar-e-Lor''. The script was written by Abdolhossein Sepanta who also acted in the film along with members of the local

community.Iranian Cinema: Before the Revolutions
/ref> Irani's Imperial Films introduced a number of new actors to Indian Cinema, including Prithviraj Kapoor and

Mehboob Khan Mehboob Khan (born Mehboob Khan Ramzan Khan; 9 September 1907
at filmreference.com. – 28 ...

. He also interfered with the medium. He produced '' Kalidas'' in Telugu and Tamil, as a bilingual talkie, on the sets of ''Alam Ara'', with songs and major casting in Telugu. Also, Irani visited

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

for fifteen days to study sound recording and recorded the sounds of ''Alam Ara'' on the basis of this knowledge. In the process, he created a whole new trend unknowingly. In those days, outdoor shootings were shot in sunlight with the help of reflectors. However, the outdoor undesirable sounds were disturbing him so greatly that he shot the entire sequence in the studio under heavy lights. Thus, he began the trend of shooting under artificial light. Irani made one hundred fifty-eight films in a long and illustrious career of twenty-five years, between the First and

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

s. He made his last film, ''Pujari'', in 1945. Irani was not compelled to live like

for he realised that the war was a time not suitable for film business and therefore he suspended his film business during that time. He died on 14 October 1969 at the age of eighty-two, in Mumbai, Maharashtra.

Filmography

As director

* 1922 : ''Veer Abhimanyu''- Silent * 1924: ''Vir Durgadhar'' - Silent * 1924: ''Paap No Fej'' - Silent * 1924: ''Bombay Ni Sethani''/Call of Satan - Silent * 1924: ''Shahjehan'' - Silent * 1925: ''Narsingh Dakoo'' - Silent * 1925: ''Navalsha Hirji'' - Silent * 1927: Wild Cat of Bombay - Silent * 1931: '' Alam Ara'' - First Indian Talkie * 1933: '' Lor Girl'' - First film in Persian * 1937: "carlos"

As producer

* ''Anarkali'' (1928) * '' Draupadi'' (1931) * '' Shirin and Farhad '' (1934) * '' Kisan Kanya'' - First Indian Colour (1937)

As actor

* '' Ferdowsi'' (1934)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Irani, Ardeshir 20th-century Indian film directors People from Pune Irani people 1886 births 1969 deaths Film directors from Mumbai Hindi-language film directors Indian silent film directors