Editing Hindi cinema (section)

=== Challenges and market expansion (1930s–1940s) ===
The 1930s and 1940s were tumultuous times; India was buffeted by the [[Great Depression]], [[World War II]], the [[Indian independence movement]], and the violence of the [[Partition of India|Partition]]. Although most early Bombay films were unabashedly [[escapism|escapist]], a number of filmmakers tackled tough social issues or used the struggle for Indian independence as a backdrop for their films.<ref name="britannica2">{{cite book|author1=Gulzar |author2=Nihalani, Govind |author3=Chatterji, Saibal |title=Encyclopaedia of Hindi Cinema|year=2003|publisher= Encyclopædia Britannica (India) Pvt Ltd.|isbn=978-81-7991-066-5|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8y8vN9A14nkC|pages=136–137}}</ref> Irani made the first [[Hindi]] colour film, ''[[Kisan Kanya]]'', in 1937. The following year, he made a colour version of ''[[Mother India (book)|Mother India]]''. However, colour did not become a popular feature until the late 1950s. At this time, lavish romantic musicals and melodramas were cinematic staples.

[[File:Hindi movie production trend.pdf|thumb|upright=1.5|left|Number of Hindi movies released since 1930. A rapid expansion was seen from the mid-1940s.]]

The decade of the 1940s saw an expansion of Bombay cinema's commercial market and its presence in the national consciousness. The year 1943 saw the arrival of Indian cinema's first 'blockbuster' offering, the movie ''[[Kismet (1943 film)|Kismet]]'', which grossed in excess of the important barrier of one [[crore]] (10 million) rupees, made on a budget of only two [[lakh]] (200,000) rupees.<ref>{{cite web | url = https://www.mid-day.com/articles/b-town-rewind-the-tale-of-the-first-bollywood-crore/15162064 | title = B-Town rewind: The tale of the first Bollywood crore | last = Unny | first = Divya | date = 19 March 2014 | website = mid-day.com | publisher = Jagran Group | access-date = 7 November 2020 | quote="However, it was in 1943, that ''Kismet'', directed by Gyan Mukherjee, became the first film to reach the coveted box office milestone of Rs 1 crore. Who would have thought that the journey of the crore in Indian films would begin with a movie made for under Rs 2 lakh? It was a time when India was in the throes of patriotic fervour. The Quit India movement had just been launched. Kismet, a crime thriller with patriotic sentiments, tapped into this feeling. "}}</ref> The film tackled contemporary issues, especially those arising from the Indian Independence movement, and went on to become "the longest running hit of Indian cinema", a title it held till the 1970s.<ref>{{cite journal | last = Mishra | first = Vijay | title = Decentering History: Some Versions of Bombay Cinema| journal = East-West Film Journal| volume = 6| issue = 1| publisher = East-West Center| location = Honolulu, HI, US| date = January 1992|quote="The next canonical text was Luck (Kismet, 1943), which, in 1970 at any rate, held the "record as the longest running hit of Indian cinema" (Star and Style, February 6, 1970,19). [Luck] owes its amazing, unexpected success to the time in which it was made." Achut Kanya and Kismet heralded a move away from what Shyam Benegal called alienating and orientalist cinema to movies that could "deal with reality""}}</ref> Film personalities like Bimal Roy, Sahir Ludhianvi and Prithviraj Kapoor participated in the creation of a national movement against colonial rule in India, while simultaneously leveraging the popular political movement to increase their own visibility and popularity.<ref>{{cite journal | last =  Agarwal | first = Bhumika | title = IPTA's Contribution in Awakening Nationalism.| journal = The Criterion| volume = 4| issue = 4| publisher = Rajaram College | location = Kolhapur, MH, India| date = August 2013| quote="Indian People’s Theatre Association, popularly known by its acronym IPTA, was formed in 1942 when India was struggling to free herself from the shackles of colonial rule. The established artists of the tmmes Prithviraj Kapoor, Bijon Bhattacharya, Ritwik Ghatak, Utpal Dutt, Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, Mulk Raj Anand, Salil Chowdhury, Pandit Ravi Shankar, Jyotirindra Moitra, Niranjan Singh Maan, S. Tera Singh Chan, Jagdish Faryadi, Khalili Faryadi, Rajendra Raghuvanshi, Safdar Mir and many others came forward and formed Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) in 1942."}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url = https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/gk-current-affairs/story/prithviraj-kapoor-birthday-349871-2016-11-03 | title = Remembering Prithviraj Kapoor | date = 3 November 2016 | website = indiatoday.in | publisher = Living Media India Limited | access-date = 7 November 2020 | quote="In 1946, Prithviraj Kapoor founded Prithvi Theatres, a theatre group that became a legend over decades. The house would stage influential patriotic plays and inspire the generation to join the Indian freedom movement and Mahatma Gandhi's Quit India movement"}}</ref> Themes from the Independence Movement deeply influenced Bombay film directors, screen-play writers, and lyricists, who saw their films in the context of social reform and the problems of the common people.<ref>{{cite book | last = Bandidiwekar| first = Anjali| title = Bollywood and Social Issues: Dichotomy or Symbiosis?| place = Hyderabad, India| publisher = ICFAI books| pages = 43| date = 2008 |quote="Indian cinema grew up in the days of the National Movement led by Mahatma Gandhi. The Gandhian philosophy of social reform deeply influenced Bollywood directors, screen-play writers, and lyricists. Their films became vehicles of social reform, taking up the cause of the common people."}}</ref>

Before the Partition, the Bombay film industry was closely linked to the [[Lollywood|Lahore film industry]] (known as "Lollywood"; now part of the [[Pakistani film industry]]); both produced films in [[Hindustani language|Hindustani]] (also known as Hindi-Urdu), the ''[[lingua franca]]'' of northern and central India.<ref name="Ghosh"/> Another centre of Hindustani-language film production was the [[Cinema of West Bengal|Bengal film industry]] in [[Calcutta]], [[Bengal Presidency]] (now Kolkata, [[West Bengal]]), which produced Hindustani-language films and local [[Bengali language]] films.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bose |first1=Mihir |title=From Midnight to Glorious Morning? India Since Independence |date=2017 |publisher=[[Haus Publishing]] |isbn=9781910376706 |page=182 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j9ssDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT182}}</ref><ref name="Routledge"/> Many actors, filmmakers and musicians from the Lahore industry migrated to the Bombay industry during the 1940s, including actors [[K. L. Saigal]], [[Prithviraj Kapoor]], [[Dilip Kumar]] and [[Dev Anand]] as well as playback singers [[Mohammed Rafi]], [[Noorjahan]] and [[Shamshad Begum]]. Around the same time, filmmakers and actors from the Calcutta film industry began migrating to Bombay; as a result, Bombay became the center of Hindustani-language film production.<ref name="Routledge"/>

The 1947 partition of India divided the country into the [[Republic of India]] and [[Pakistan]], which precipitated the migration of filmmaking talent from film production centres like [[Lahore]] and [[Calcutta]], which bore the brunt of the partition violence.<ref name="Ghosh">{{cite book|last1=Ghosh|first1=Partha S.|title=Migrants, Refugees and the Stateless in South Asia|date=2016|publisher=[[SAGE Publishing|SAGE Publications]]|isbn=9789351508557|page=263|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X242DAAAQBAJ&pg=PA263}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Bose |first1=Mihir |title=From Midnight to Glorious Morning?: India Since Independence |date=2017 |publisher=[[Haus Publishing]] |isbn=978-1-910376-70-6 |page=182 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j9ssDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT182}}</ref><ref name="Routledge">{{cite book |last1=Raju |first1=Zakir Hossain |title=Bangladesh Cinema and National Identity: In Search of the Modern? |date=2014 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-1-317-60181-4 |page=131 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XXDfBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA131}}</ref> This included actors, filmmakers and musicians from [[Bengal]], [[Punjab]] (particularly the present-day [[Pakistani Punjab]]),<ref name="Ghosh"/> and the [[North-West Frontier Province (1901–2010)|North-West Frontier Province]] (present-day [[Khyber Pakhtunkhwa]]).<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-20440607|title=Bollywood's Shah Rukh Khan, Dilip Kumar and the Peshawar club|work=BBC News|date=29 November 2012|access-date=22 June 2019|first=M. Ilyas|last=Khan}}</ref> These events further consolidated the Bombay film industry's position as the preeminent center for film production in India.