The movies of the good old days
It was not often, that we as youngsters, had a chance to frequent the movie houses. Neither were there too many cinema halls in Dhaka then. Gulistan, Naaz, Balaka and Modhumita and later Anando, Ovhishar and a few other halls started to attract a select audience. Shabistan, Nishat, Moon and other halls located in the old town were popular haunts too. Cinema as an entertainment gained a unique status in the society at that time. Today it is the exact opposite.
It was sometime in the late sixties that Walt Disney's Swiss family Robinson was being screened at Gulistan. Disney's masterful creation filled the spectators with amazement. It was about a ship-wrecked family left stranded in an unknown Island and the hilarious activities which followed in the jungle. How the castaway's dealt with the untamed animals and unknown surroundings created an impression on the young and old alike.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. My father took our cousins to the film in turn. Every time a new group was going, I made sure to be included. This is how I watched the movie several times. After this remarkable movie came another Walt Disney production, The Absent Minded Professor, with his invention of Flubber, a plastic ball which carried the Professor to great heights. The deep pink candy floss and a treat of three in one ice creams at the Baby ice cream parlor nearby, how ever, was an added attraction for everyone. When the Siamese King visited the halls, starring the incomparable Yule Branner in The King and I, every one in town repeated after him "etcetera, etcetera and etcetera."
As a treat for my 13th birthday we watched One Million-Year B.C at Naaz with a few of my friends. Starring the ravishing Raquel Welch, the movie was a great hit.
Like all other young couples my parents were ardent moviegoers too. I watched movies of reputed directors Subhash Dutt, Khan Ataur Rahman and Zahir Raihan with them. Filled with pure entertainment and family drama were the movies Mala starring Sultana Zaman, Shujata and Azim, Shuchonda and Razzak in Anwara, Shabnaam and Rahman in Chanda, Sutorang and a comedy Kaar Bou starring Subhash Dutt and Nasima Khan. The Trap at Modhumita, starring stunning Rita Tushingham, played the magnificent role of a deaf and dumb girl while Oliver Reed played the macho hunter of the hills. The boys and men preferred the cowboy movies, The Magnificent Seven, The Bridge on the River Kwai,The Guns of Navarone and so on.
Waheed Muraad, Zeba and Mohammad Ali were the great hits of Urdu movies. Akeley Na Jana was a super hit number of the cinema Armaan Then there were movies like The Fall of the Roman Empire, Cleopatra, Ben Hur, Spartacus, Doctor Zhivago, The Birds, The Cranes Are Flying, The Sound of Music, Roman Holiday, and the Bangla comedy Tero Nombor Feku Ostagaar Lane, Rupban a folk tale, Nawab Sirajuddowla and Jibon Thekey Neya, "a film that played a role that no other film in the history of the cinema played in depicting the destiny of a nation" was rightly said by film director Alamgir Kabir.
After independence Shundori,Golapi Ekhon Train Ey, Abaar Tora Manush Ho, Shurjo Dighol Baree, Shurjo Konnya, Shimana Periye, Sareng Bou, Boshundhorada, Palonko, Padma Nadir Majhi etc attracted a large audience to the cinema halls. Possibly Satyajit Ray's Satranj Ke Khilari, Ashani Sangket and Hirok Rajar Deshey we watched at the Film Festival held some fifteen years back.
It seems like ages since the practice of visiting the halls and enjoying movies with loved ones have died down. It is like a nightmare to even imagine going to cinema halls or to let our children go to movies. The shady atmosphere, screening of sub standard, vulgar and obscene films and the absence of security are the reasons behind the gradual detachment from such fun.
A few years back Shonkho Neel Karagaar, Padma Nadir Majhi and more recently Matir Moyna drew the spectators back. Humayun Ahmed and Amjad Hossain movies are once again beginning to attract a large number of jubilant spectators too. Watching the home videos can never replace the entertainment of big screens, otherwise western countries would by now be totally devoid of cinema halls.
Everyone involved with entertainment business should give it a major shakeup and decide if they want to cash in on a multi million dollar business providing neat entertainment, or just let it pass through their fingers to fulfill the lust of a handful of unscrupulous perverts.
Films are not only mere entertainment, it is also the voice of a nation. It is one of the most important medium of communication with the mass. For lack of pure entertainment the hapless citizens are gradually turning into a nation with little hope for a disciplined future. A H Mofazzal Karim, Chairman, festival committee, aptly said so in his inaugural speech at the International Film Festival at Osmani Auditorium that 'Entertainment is for human's, not for beasts,' Manober Jonney, Danober Jonney Noi.