Bahar - Vyjayanthimala, Karan Dewan

Bahar, 1951 Director: M.V. Raman Music: S.D. Burman Lyrics: Rajinder Krishan Playback: Geeta Dutt, Kishore Kumar, Shamshad Begum, Talat Mahmood Cast: Vyjayantimala, Karan Dewan, Pran, Pandaribhai, Baby Tabassum, Sundar, Gope, Om Prakash, Leela Mishra English translation included. The Encyclopedia Of Indian Cinema has this to say about Bahar: Heroine Lata (Vyjayanthimala) is a modern girl, pursued by villain Shekhar (Pran) but in love with novelist Ashok (Dewan) who turns out to be her neighbor called Kumar. Shekhar fathers a child to the country girl Malati (Pandaribhai) who, unable to trace the perfidious Shekhar, abandons the child in Kumar’s house. Seeing Kumar playing parent to a mysterious child, Lata misunderstands the situation until the truth is revealed in the end. Pran, playing his usual villain role, undergoes an uncharacteristic change of heart to allow a happy ending for all. Intended mainly to showcase Vyjayanthimala in her Hindi debut, the film features her numerous dances as well as Kishore Kumar’s hit song Kusoor aap ka. This major hit, adapting Raman’s earlier hit Vazhkai/Jeevitham (1949), was the Madras based AVM Studio’s first foray into Hindi cinema. This one is at the odd resolution of 720x480. I have 2 versions of the film on DVD and they seem almost identical so I believe both used the same master for the DVDs. But the idiots that made the master didn't take into account the Display Aspect Ratio of DVDs - how they are resized depending on whether encoded as 4:3 or 16:9 and, as a result, resizing to the usual 640x480 makes everyone tall and skinny, and circles become ovals. 720x480 (1.5:1) is the 'natural' aspect ratio. You can see what I mean by the circle surrounding the RCA symbol at 0:45 (you can click on that). With a resize to 640x480 that circle becomes an oval. Some playback devices, such as blogs with older 'square' screens or some phones will display the film with added black bars on top and bottom. Another result of doing this to the film meant roughly 11% of the picture was removed. Picture is missing from the top and bottom so the compositions sometimes seem a bit 'cramped' with the tops of heads and the bottom of legs being cut off. Wonders never cease. TOOLS USED FOR THE FILM: AviSynth for the video editing Audacity for the audio work. Aegisub and Subtitle Edit for the subtitles COPYRIGHT INFORMATION: The Indian copyright law: http://copyright.gov.in/Documents/Cop... INDIAN COPYRIGHT ACT, 1957 CHAPTER I Preliminary (f) "cinematograph film" means any work of visual recording on any medium produced through a process from which a moving image may be produced by any means and includes a sound recording accompanying such visual recording and cinematograph shall be construed as including any work produced by any process analogous to cinematography including video films.” "CHAPTER V Term of Copyright 26.Term of copyright in cinematograph films. In the case of a cinematograph film, copyright shall subsist until sixty years from the beginning of the calendar year next following the year in which the film is published." My words: Indian film copyright (including video, dialog, music, lyrics, songs) lasts for sixty years and any film and its songs released more than sixty years ago is in the public domain. No extensions, no renewals, no exceptions. This film is no longer protected by copyright.