Kohinoor Film Company

Kohinoor Film Company

Company type	Film production Film distribution
Industry	Entertainment
Genre	Fantasy mythology
Founded	1918–1919 [1]
Founder	Dwarkadas Sampat
Defunct	1932 [2]
Headquarters	Mumbai , India
Products	Mostly silent films

Kohinoor Film Company was an Indian film studio established in 1919 by Dwarkadas Sampat (1884-1958). ^{[2] [3]} According to Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Paul Willemen, it was the largest and most influential studio of the Indian silent film era. ^[2] The studio gained national prominence when its 1921 film Bhakta Vidur , was banned by the British colonial government ^[2] on the ground that the character Vidur, played by its producer Sampat, was "portrayed as a 'thinly-clad version' of Mahatma Gandhi." ^[4]

Under Kohinoor, directors such as Kanjibhai Rathod and Homi Master made some of the most popular films of the era. ^[5] For example, under Rathod's direction, the 1924 film Gul-e-Bakavali is widely regarded as the 'first all-India super hit'. ^{[6] [7]} Several stars of the time such as Zubeida, Khalil, and Raja Sandow started their careers at the studio. ^[2] Film scholar Suresh Chabria, a former director of the National Film Archive of India, ^[8] argues that Kohinoor Film Company was "perhaps the first Indian studio to decisively move away from the artisanal production practices of D. G. Phalke, S. N. Patankar, and others." ^[9]

History

Dwarkadas Narendas Sampat (1884–1958) started his career in Indian cinema in 1904, when he brought a projector and began to organise film screenings in Rajkot, Bombay Presidency. ^[10] He later entered film production and, through a partnership with S. N. Patankar, established Patankar Friends & Co, ^[10] which, according to Rajadhyaksha and Willemen, 'took off in 1917' with Sampat's entry. ^[11]

Film historian Amrit Gangar notes that Sampat established the Kohinoor Film Company after differences with Patankar. ^[12]

The studio also trained such people as Nandlal Jaswantlal and Mohan Bhavnani, and produced artists such as Goharbai, Zebunissa and Rampiyari.^{[ citation needed ]}

Along with Ranjit Movietone and the Imperial Film Company it was the largest movie studio when Indian talkies began in the 1930s. ^{[13] [ page needed ]}

Filmography

Film	Year	Director	Notes
Vikram Urvashi	1920	Kanjibhai Rathod	[14]
Mahasati Ansuya	1921	–	[15]
Bhakta Vidur	1921	–	[15]
Sukanya Savitri	1922	–	[16]
Gul-e-Bakavali	1924	–	[16]
Bismi Sadi	1924	Homi Master	[16]
Kala Naag	1924	K. Rathod	[17]
Cinema Ni Rani	1925	Mohan Bhavnani	[18]
Fankdo Fituri	1925	Homi Master	[18]
Kulin Kanta	1925	–	[18]
Lanka Ni Laadi	1925	–	[18]
Mojili Mumbai	1925	Manilal Joshi	[19]
Veer Kunal	1925	–	[20]
Telephone Ni Taruni	1926	Homi Master	[21]
Bhaneli Bhamini	1927	–	[22]
Gunsundari	1927	Chandulal Shah	[22]
Daily Mail	1930	Narayan G. Devare	[23]

References

1. Some sources date the company's establishment to 1918.
   • Chabria, Suresh; Usai, Paolo Cherchi (1994). Light of Asia: Indian Silent Cinema, 1912-1934. Wiley Eastern. p. 15. ISBN   978-81-224-0680-1. Arguably the most important production company in Bombay was Duarkadas Sampat's Kohinoor Film Co. established in 1918.
   • Kaul, Gautam (1998). Cinema and the Indian Freedom Struggle: Covering the Subcontinent. Sterling Publishers. p. 160. ISBN   978-81-207-2116-6. On the 'Diwali day'* of 1918, Sampat opened his own Kohinoor Film Company and went into filmmaking.
   • Thoraval, Yves (2000). The Cinemas of India. Macmillan India. p. 9. ISBN   978-0-333-93410-4. The studio system dominated the scene until the 1940s and '50s. One of the legendary ones was the Kohinoor Film Company, founded in 1918, in Bombay, by Dwarkadas N Sampat, a professional showman of repute.
2. Rajadhyaksha & Willemen 2014, p.  126.
3. "History of Cinema in India". Archived from the original on 6 May 2012. Retrieved 25 December 2011.
4. Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey (1996). The Oxford History of World Cinema. Oxford University Press. p. 403. ISBN   978-0-19-874242-5.
5. Abel 2005, p. 522.
6. _
   • Thomas 2015 , p.  9 , "The first all-India super hit, a storm across the country in 1924, was Gul-e-Bakavali (The Bakavali Flower, Kanjibhai Rathod)"
   • Rajadhyaksha 2016 , p.  21 , "Gul-e-Bakavali was almost certainly the first truly national commercial hit in India"
7. Gooptu, Sharmistha (6 June 2012). "Hundred years of Indian cinema". The Times of India . Retrieved 8 July 2025. There was also the genre of films like Gul-e-Bakavali (1924), inspired by the popular Parsi theatres of Bombay and Calcutta, and which also became the first blockbuster talkies.
8. Chabria, Suresh (20 April 2023). "Personal essay: How films became a bridge to my past and my present". Scroll.in . Retrieved 29 December 2025.
9. Abel 2005, p. 521–522.
10. Gokulsing & Dissanayake 2013, p. 89.
11. Rajadhyaksha & Willemen 2014, p.  172.
12. Gokulsing & Dissanayake 2013, p. 90.
13. Hayward, Susan (2006). Cinema studies: the key concepts. Taylor and Francis. ISBN   9780203020210.
14. Sengupta, S.; Roy, S.; Purkayastha, S. (2019). 'Bad' Women of Bombay Films: Studies in Desire and Anxiety. Springer International Publishing. p. 96. ISBN   978-3-030-26788-9.
15. Rajadhyaksha & Willemen 2014, p.  244.
16. Rajadhyaksha & Willemen 2014, p.  245.
17. Rajadhyaksha & Willemen 2014, p.  246.
18. Rajadhyaksha & Willemen 2014, p.  247.
19. Rajadhyaksha & Willemen 2014, p.  248.
20. Rajadhyaksha & Willemen 2014, p.  249.
21. Rajadhyaksha & Willemen 2014, p.  249–250.
22. Rajadhyaksha & Willemen 2014, p.  250.
23. Rajadhyaksha & Willemen 2014, p.  252.

Bibliography

• Garga, Bhagwan Das (1996). So Many Cinemas: The Motion Picture in India. Eminence Designs. ISBN   978-81-900602-1-9.
• Rajadhyaksha, Ashish; Willemen, Paul (2014). Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema. Routledge. ISBN   978-1-135-94318-9. Archived from the original on 4 December 2018.
• Kaul, Gautam (1998). Cinema and the Indian freedom struggle. Sterling Publishers. ISBN   9788120721166.
• Abel, Richard (2005). Encyclopedia of Early Cinema. Taylor & Francis. ISBN   978-0-415-23440-5.
• Thomas, Rosie (2015). Bombay before Bollywood: Film City Fantasies. State University of New York Press. ISBN   978-1-4384-5677-5.
• Rajadhyaksha, A. (2016). Indian Cinema: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-872309-7.
• Gokulsing, K.; Dissanayake, Wimal (2013). Routledge Handbook of Indian Cinemas. Routledge. ISBN   978-1-136-77291-7.