Treasures from the South Asian Cinema Collection: Main Hoon Jadugar (Jugal Kishor, India 1965)

This post was written by Lydia Creech, Project Film Specialist in the Moving Image Department. This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services: Grant #MA-245614-OMS-20. Visit www.imls.gov. Learn more about the grant in our previous post: Cinema Refugees: Conserving and Preserving South Asian Film.

Since our last blog, we have begun processing the Pakistani films in the South Asian Cinema Collection at the Eastman Museum. This collection consists primarily of 1960s–1980s 35mm acetate films in Urdu and Punjabi and presents different challenges while inspecting than the Contemporary Bollywood Collection.

When we start to inspect a film from the Pakistani collection (donated by the British Film Institute), the first step is to double check the identity of the film. There are a couple of very good online databases and the museum’s library includes several good reference books, including Pakistani Cinema 1947–1997 by Mushtaq Gazdar.

When I got to a title that wasn’t in any of our sources, Main Hoon Jadugar, I started to suspect that what I had wasn’t a Pakistani film at all…

The title of the film was showing up in online searches as a 1965 Bollywood film. Sure enough, as I wound through and began my inspection, I found this:

Confirmed by the certificate (complete with a “U” rating)! As shown in the picture, the certificate shows this is a Hindi language film, the title is correct, and the date of release (April 7th, 1965). The “U” rating stands for “universal,” which means it is appropriate for all audiences.

This was a pretty exciting find, as most of the other Bollywood films in our South Asian Cinema collection are from the 2000s and represent a different era and style for a more global audience. The fact that this was found in the Pakistani collections also led us to believe the film would have been shown in both India and Pakistan.

As I continued my inspection, I was intrigued by some of the striking images flashing before my eyes. Unfortunately, I could not find a digital copy streaming online or a DVD to purchase and view at home, which only piqued my interest further.

As I determined the print was in pretty good shape after my inspection (minimal damage, shrinkage, warpage; see previous blog for a discussion of these issues), and I was so curious about some of the things I was seeing, I asked to reserve a viewing room and play the film on the Steenbeck, a flatbed viewer that is very gentle on film.

To my delight and amazement, Main Hoon Jagudar lived up to the stills. It’s not subtitled (which makes sense, as it would not have been produced for international distribution, unlike many of the post-2000 prints we have), but the broad strokes of the story are easy to follow: an evil sorcerer abducts a beautiful princess, and the hero and his sidekicks must rescue her! They face giants, fly on a magic carpet, and fight with swords (in a sequence very like a Douglas Fairbanks adventure).

The most delightful thing about this film is that it is also a special effects film! I noted stop motion animated sequences, in-camera tricks (simply stopping the camera and moving out of frame before starting again, thus disappearing), and the use of mattes and optical printing, among others. One of the simplest tricks involved a group of henchmen fighting an “invisible” good guy, and the stunt performers simply fling themselves very hard onto the ground as they lose. Simple, but looks great and holds up to this day!

This was a treat for many reasons, not the least of which because of the unexpectedness of the find. The print is in good enough condition to be run through a viewer and showcases a great range of special effects techniques with an exciting, appealing story. We don’t have many Hindi language films from the 1960s, and certainly weren’t expecting one to be found in the Pakistani collection, which mostly consists of Urdu and Punjabi language films.

As my colleagues and I watched this film on a Tuesday morning, we enjoyed spending our time watching a print that has not seen the light of a projector in over 20 years. This made it extra special to see, not only to watch the characters come alive on the screen, but to give the print a chance to breathe and find its new home here in Rochester, NY,