Shalom Bollywood – The Untold Story of Indian Cinema (Rating 9)

(Reviewed by John Glennie)

A fascinating documentary by Melbourne film maker Danny Ben-Moshe covering the history of Bollywood movies.

When the Indian film industry started over 100 years ago, it was taboo for Hindu or Islamic women to perform in public so men used to dress up and play the female roles. Eventually a solution was provided via the extremely small Jewish population in India. They proved ideal as they could speak Hindi and looked a lot like Indians but with slightly fairer skin and higher cheek bones.

The documentary follows the careers of the early pioneers of Jewish actresses starting with the 1920s silent movie era which was dominated by Ruby Meyers, known as Sulochana – which means ‘the one with the beautiful eyes’. She became India’s first superstar and in the movie ‘Wild Cat of Bombay’ she played 8 roles – only one of which was as a female!

Following in Sulochana’s footsteps came Rose Ezra (aka Miss Rose) in the 1930s. Many roles were art imitating life – in ‘Nai Kahani’ she played the role of a wealthy modern woman. Rose’s cousin was keen to get involved in acting as well and her chance came when visiting Rose on set. The director said Rose was not tall enough for the role and she said “what about my cousin – she’s tall”. Esther Abraham (aka Pramila) was signed up. Pramila was beautiful, became a very popular actress and was the first Miss India in 1947.

The Golden Era saw the likes of Farhal Ezekiel (Nadira) taking over the big screen and David Abraham (Uncle David) dropping his career as a lawyer to become an unlikely top actor. He was very short and balding but possessed incredible charm and was extremely popular.

In the late 1940s the taboo on Hindu and Islamic women becoming actors began to break down and the demand for more Indian-looking women increased. However, there were still roles made available for the experienced Sulochana, Rose and Pramila.

In the modern era Rose’s grand-daughter, Rachel Reuben, also took to acting but became more interested in editing and writing. Similarly, Pramila’s son Haidar Ali has been persistently chasing roles over the years and his breakthrough came when he was asked to write a story for a producer, in which Haidar plays the lead role.

Shalom Bollywood is an excellent documentary about the history of Indian cinema stars and is definitely worth seeing. Though I have seen less than a handful of Bollywood movies, I found it very interesting and informative.