Plot
Exactly a month before the Independence of India and Pakistan, bonafide producer, Shrikant Roy, who owns the studio, Roy Talkies, in Bombay, is currently on the search for a new actor to debut and act in his latest film, Sunghursh, as the protagonist. He hopes to give the pseudonym, 'Madan Kumar', to the person selected. A theatre actor, Jamshed Khan, is selected. However, Jamshed is currently in an extra-marital affair with Sumitra Kumari, a high-profile Bollywood actress and Roy's wife. They both plan to run away to Karachi. Binod Das, the projector boy of Roy Talkies and Roy's right-hand man, is sent to Lucknow to bring both Jamshed and Sumitra back to the studio.
On the train ride to Lucknow, Binod meets playwright Jay Khanna, Jamshed's best friend, whose family own a theater company in Karachi. Binod tries to convince Kumari to go back to Bombay with him, but she remains steadfast in her decision and does not budge. Binod meets Jamshed, who is about to act in a theater production of Hamlet , using a different alias. He indirectly threatens Jamshed of the repercussions of not acting in Roy's new film. However, Jamshed secretly sneaks out of the theater to leave to Karachi by train. As the riots break out as a result of announcing the Partition, Jamshed is unable to find a ride to the train station. Binod offers him a ride, howvever, not before Jamshed mistakenly comes upon Binod's true identity. Jamshed attacks Binod, causing the car to swerve out of control and crash in the street. Binod extricates himself from the wreck, leaving Jamshed trapped inside.
Revealing his plans to take up the mantle of Madan Kumar for himself, Binod beats Jamshed unconscious. However, a group of rioters come upon them, and Binod manages to escape before he is found by Jay. With Binod and Jay watching from a nearby alleyway, the rioters attack Jamshed, beating him senseless before carrying him away and killing him. Upon going back to Bombay, Binod tells everyone that Jamshed went to Karachi. When questioned by Roy, he succeeds in distracting him by auditioning in front of him. Highly impressed, Binod is selected for the role and given the pseudonym of ‘Madan Kumar’. But Sumitra Kumari is suspicious of him, and unsuccessfully attempts to sabotage Binod's screen test. Roy managed to have photographs of Binod beating Jamshed unconscious in Lucknow, before his death, clicked, which he keeps. Meanwhile, Jay, whose family has lost their theater company and house in Karachi, come to Bombay as refugees. He aspires to make it big as a director with his story, Taxi Driver, for which he wanted to cast Jamshed in. He falls in love with the tawaif, Niloufer.
Jay's script gets rejected by Roy, solely for the hero being poor. He then tries to narrate it to Roy's financer, Shamsher Walia, but gets rejected again, as Walia does not want to produce films. After Roy and him get into a feud, Jay confronts Walia for his inability to take risks. Walia agrees and produces Jay's film, helping him create his own studio. Jay and Walia are eventually pitted against Roy and Madan Kumar. After Taxi Driver is released to rave reviews, Madan tries to get Niloufer on his side by casting her in his next film, Raj Mahal. She is more than happy as she admires Madan. They begin an affair, which Jay soon learns of. He later has a public spat with Madan, which makes it into the news.
Jay in-turn takes Sumitra Kumari as the heroine for his next film, Baiju Awara. The film is a runaway hit, for its instant connection with the middle class, while Raj Mahal flops badly, as Roy changed the story last minute to suit Madan and Niloufer's real-life scandal. Jay becomes a huge star. Pratap Singh, a teacher who had helped Jay after the partition and now works in his studio wants to get him married to his daughter Kiran. But Jay still loves Niloufer and comforts her after her split from Madan. He's also mesmerized by the new technology of cinemascope that is about to get introduced by Roy. Roy invites him to work with him but Walia is against it as the film would involve American technology and Jay is in an agreement with the Soviet government.
Madan meets with the Soviet representatives, promising them that his younger brother Naren Das will play the lead role in their propaganda films under his aegis. To break free of Roy Talkies, Madan uses a fake government letter to persuade Roy (a frequent gambler) to invest all of Roy Talkies' money into cotton stocks, then alerts the Income Tax Department. The police subsequently raid Roy Talkies and place Roy under arrest. Distraught at Madan's betrayal, Roy kills himself, but before doing so prepares an envelope for Sumitra. Within the envelope, Sumitra finds photographs which prove that Madan killed Jamshed. Madan is charged with murder which tarnishes his image. Jay is called to court as a witness, but he lies as a pay-off for Madan saving him during the riots and their earlier friendship, claiming that Madan was trying to rescue Jamshed Khan from the car and only knocked him unconsciousness so he would not suffer a painful death at the hands of the rioters. A distraught Sumitra commits suicide.
A phone call of Jay and Niloufer gets recorded by the Soviets, in which Jay admits that Madan did not try to rescue Jamshed and instead left him to die. Pratap Singh uses the call to blackmail Jay, and to save his studio and career he marries Kiran, abandoning Niloufer in Pune. Binod retires from acting and leaves Bombay with his wife, while his younger brother Naren runs away from home and becomes a beggar on the streets of Bombay. With both its owners dead, Roy Talkies is shut down. [3]
