Hamlet (1954 film)

Hamlet () is a 1954 Hindi tragedy drama film, produced and directed by Kishore Sahu. The film was a free adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy, with Sahu playing Hamlet as well as writing the screenplay, while the dialogues were by Amanat Hilal and B. D. Verma. It was produced under the "Hindustan Chitra" banner, a production company started by Sahu in 1944. It was Ramesh Naidu's debut film as a music composer. The film starred Mala Sinha, Kishore Sahu, Venus Banerji, Kamaljeet and Jankidas.
Sahu was influenced by "classic European sources". Though termed a "free adaptation" in the credit roll of the film, Sahu's "Hamlet" stayed true to the title, its setting, and the original names in the play, remaining as close as possible to Laurence Olivier's "Hamlet" (1948).
Plot.
After seeing his father's ghost the film follows the play focusing on Hamlet's revenge on his Uncle Claudius, who has married his mother Gertrude after murdering Hamlet's father. He pretends to be insane and is in the process of staging a play where he plans to denounce his mother and Uncle.
Production.
There were several plot changes, with Ophelia telling her part in flashback and singing songs with friends, while the gravediggers were "used for comic effect", thus giving in to Indian film-goers sensibilities. The film had its inspiration from the Parsi theatre days, with Sahu's monologue inculcating couplets from famous Indian poets and using parts of dialogues from Ahsan's "Khoon-Nahak" (1928). Ophelia sang Bahadur Shah Zafar's "Na Kisi Ki Ankh Ka Noor Hoon", and a dying Hamlet quoted Zauq's "Layee Hayaat Aaye, Qaza Le Chali Chale".
The "Parsi theatre tradition", which gave rise to several freely adapted Hindi films from Shakespeare, like Modi's "Khoon Ka Khoon" (1935), Akhtar Hussain's "Romeo and Juliet" (1947) and "Cleopatra" (1950), came to an end with "Hamlet".
Reception.
The film did "reasonably well" at the box office. Acclaimed by the "Filmfare" critic, it was panned harshly by "Filmindia", which called it a "slander" to Shakespeare. As stated by Manju Jain, Sybil Thorndyke who was present at the premiere of the film in Bombay thought that Gertrude was "magnificent".
Soundtrack.
Ramesh Naidu was the debutant music director. He went on to score music for Telugu films in the 1970s, the most popular being "Meghasandesam" (1983), for which he won the National Film Award for Best Music Direction. The lyrics were written by Hasrat Jaipuri, while the playback singing was provided by Asha Bhosle, Mohammed Rafi and Jagmohan Bakshi.