Parda, 1949
Director: A.G. Soorma
Music: Sharmaji
Lyrics: Swami Ramanand Saraswati, Tanveer Naqvi
Playback: Asha Bhosle, Mohammed Rafi, Zohrabai, Kalyani Das, Rajkumari
Cast: Rehana, Amar, Chand, S. Nazir, Sadiq, Gulzar, Nazir Kashmiri, Ansari, Abubkar, Vazir, Kusum Thakkar

English subtitles included.

Razia and Aslam grew up as friends and that deepened into love at maturity. Unfortunately, Aslam was from a wealthy family and Razia from a poor one and Aslam's father disapproved. Instead, he arranged marriages to different partners for both of them. Our heroine got married off and became a good wife. But there's a snake in the grass in the form of Sadiq who wanted her for himself. As a result, unspeakable tragedies follow. What surprised me most about this film was the amount of pure violence in it, just one event after another. Other than that it seemed to want to show Rehana as more than just a slutty item dancer, but as a legitimate actress. And she does well, I think, in this very heavy drama.

Parts of the film have very bad video. I especially had trouble with the opening credits which still don't look very good as they flicker annoyingly. You can also easily tell when watchinging the credits just how much video is missing from the right side of the screen. And to balance the amount removed from the right side - to keep the aspect ratio - a whole lot was also lopped off the bottom. That can be easily seen during the movie when closeups of heads, especially, aren't centered properly and are sometimes cut off at the chin. The source was originally captured from a VHS tape very poorly.