Mahal (Palace), 1969
Set of 3 Showcards, c. 1969, 43cm X 75cm
tinted gelatin silver print and poster paint on board with screen-printed lettering.
Dev Anand was one of the most distinguished actors in the Indian film industry. His tremendous talent and charm won him awards for Best Actor, Best Film, Filmfare Lifetime Achievement, among many other national and international honours. His co-star in this film, Asha Parekh, was known as the ‘Dancing Queen of the Sixties’. She was one of the top stars in Hindi films in the 1960s and 1970s, and is said to have starred in more hit films than any other actress of her time.
"This film is about a driver who falls in love with his boss’s daughter. The driver, played by Dev Anand, goes to Darjeeling to take on another identity as a wealthy man’s son. Darjeeling is a hill station in the Himalayas, a popular tourist destination for mostly domestic travelers to escape the summer heat. Such locations were used in Hindi films as spaces of fantasy away from the reality of daily life. Cat. no. 29 features lovers in Western dress in the romantic mountain setting. The showcards represent the title of the film pictorally as an ominous red palace against a black background. Here, architecture and location seem to play a larger role than simply serving as a framing device for the main characters as in other showcards.
The film Mahal (1969) was produced by Roopkala Pictures and directed by Shankar Mukherjee. Music by Kalyanji Anandji. Colour, Hindi, starring Dev Anand, Asha Parekh and Farida Jalal."
--Text by Dr. Deepali Dewan and Alexandra McCarter, based on Deepali Dewan, ed. Bollywood Cinema Showcards: Indian Film Art from the 1950s to the 1980s. Showcards from The Hartwick Collection. Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum Press, 2011. Copyright of and reproduced here with the generous permission of the Royal Ontario Museum.
Literature
Deepali Dewan, ed. Bollywood Cinema Showcards: Indian Film Art from the 1950s to the 1980s. Showcards from The Hartwick Collection. Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum Press, 2011, p. 83, Cat. no. 28.