''Mukh O Mukhosh'' ( bn, মুখ ও মুখোশ, translation='The Face and the Mask', italic=yes) was the first Bengali-language feature film to be made in

East Pakistan East Pakistan was a Pakistani province established in 1955 by the One Unit Policy, renaming the province as such from East Bengal, which, in modern times, is split between India and Bangladesh. Its land borders were with India and Myanmar, wi ...

(now

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

). It was produced by Iqbal Films and directed by

Abdul Jabbar Khan Justice Abdul Jabbar Khan (30 June 1902 – 23 April 1984) was the 6th Speaker of the National Assembly of Pakistan. He was preceded by Fazlul Qadir Chaudhry. Early life He was born on 1 January 1902 in Baher char, Barisal. He graduated ...

. The film was released in East Pakistan on 3 August 1956. It was released in

Dhaka Dhaka ( or ; bn, ঢাকা, Ḍhākā, ), formerly known as Dacca, is the capital and largest city of Bangladesh, as well as the world's largest Bengali-speaking city. It is the eighth largest and sixth most densely populated city i ...

, Chittagong, Narayanganj, and Khulna. The film was a great success as viewers thronged to watch the first film to be made in the region. It earned a total of during its initial run.

Background

Ali Mansoor and Zahrat Ara in Mukh O Mukhosh

Abdul Jabbar Khan started working on the film in 1953. At that time, the film industry in erstwhile

was virtually non-existent, and local film theatres screened mostly Urdu films from

Lahore Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city ...

, Hindi films from

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

, and Bengal films from

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

. To establish the film making infrastructures, a meeting was held in 1953 where F. Dossani, a West Pakistani film distributor, claimed the local climate was not suitable for film production. Khan challenged him and start making the film. He went to

and discussed with Moni Bose, a prominent scriptwriter, to select the story. Khan primarily planned to make the film from the literary works of

Kazi Nazrul Islam , pseudonym = bn, ধূমকেতু, Dhūmketu , image = Nazrul.jpg , image_size = , caption = Nazrul in Chittagong, 1926 , birth_date = 11 ''Joiṣṭhyô'', 1306 '' Bônggabdô ...

Jasimuddin Jasimuddin ( bn, জসীম উদ্‌দীন; 1 January 1903 – 13 March 1976), popularly called Palli Kabi (), was a Bengali poet, lyricist, composer and writer widely celebrated for his modern ballad sagas in the pastoral mode. Althoug ...

. But Bose selected ''Dakaat'' (Robbers), a

play Play most commonly refers to: * Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment * Play (theatre), a work of drama Play may refer also to: Computers and technology * Google Play, a digital content service * Play Framework, a Java framework * P ...

, and later a novel, written by Khan on a true story of robbery published in

newspapers A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports ...

. Bose himself wrote the first 3 scenes. Khan finished the rest and started working on the films. He had to manage all the things, even the film camera, as then there wasn't any in East Pakistan. He worked on the film for two years. In the absence of any local film production studios, the negatives of the film had to be taken to

for development.

Cast

* Aminul Haque * Inam Ahmed * Ali Mansoor * Zahrat Ara *

* Kazi Khaliq * Purnima Sengupta * Piyari Begum *

Saifuddin Ahmed Saifuddin Ahmed (1927 – 27 September 2010) was a Bangladeshi actor. He acted in around 400 films and over 100 television plays. He won a Bangladesh National Film Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the film '' Sundori'' (1979). ...

* Golam Mostafa * Abul Khair * Sona Mia * Bilkis Bari

Production

Playback singers for the two songs in the film were

Abdul Alim ʻAbd al-ʻAlīm (ALA-LC romanization of ar, عبد العليم) is a male Muslim given name. It is built from the Arabic words '' ʻabd'' and ''al-ʻAlīm'', one of the names of God in the Qur'an Names of God in Islam ( ar, أَسْمَاءُ ...

and Mahbuba Rahman. However, the song by Abdul Alim is lost, as the film of that part of the film has deteriorated completely. Mahbuba sang the other song in the film - ''Moner Boney Dola Laage Hashlo Dokhin Hawa''. All lyrics written by M. A. Gafur (Sharathee). Samar Das directed the music of the film. Q.M. Zaman served as the cameraman. Shyam Babu was the make-up artist.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mukh O Mukhosh 1956 films 1956 drama films Bengali-language Pakistani films Bangladeshi drama films 1950s Bengali-language films