Synopsis
Starring Shashi Kapoor and Jennifer Kendal, Bombay Talkie is Merchant Ivory’s affectionate, bemused view of Bollywood—India’s huge dream factory. The film is like a brightly colored, sumptuous Indian sweet covered in gold foil, and cameraman Subrata Mitra’s ravishing photography has never been surpassed in any other of James Ivory’s films. The story, set off by elaborate studio numbers, is a melodrama echoing those of Bombay’s mass audience movies and the sexy best sellers of the film’s heroine, American authoress Lucia Lane (Jennifer Kendal). Visiting India in search of “new material,” she becomes romantically involved with handsome movie star Vikram (Shashi Kapoor). When that doesn’t work out, she flees to an ashram to take up the spiritual life. That also, hilariously, doesn’t work out, and the ill-fated couple get together again with explosive results.
Cast
| Vikram | Shashi Kapoor |
| Lucia Lane | Jennifer Kendal |
| Hari | Zia Mohyeddin |
| Mala | Aparna Sen |
| Bose | Utpal Dutt |
Credits
| Director | James Ivory |
| Producer | Ismail Merchant |
| Screenplay | Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and James Ivory |
| Cinematography | Subrata Mitra |
| Music | Shankar Jalkishan |
Disc Features
- New digital transfer, enhanced for widescreen televisions
- Helen, Queen of the Nautch Girls, a documentary short film about the legendary Bollywood dancer Helen
- Conversation with the filmmakers, part of a new series of interviews with Ismail Merchant, James Ivory, and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
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