Tent cinema returns with 'Hunterwali', rare silent and talkies

Tent cinema has returned to the Capital thanks to the ongoing Indian cinema centenary festival where the audience is enjoying the escapades of the legendary 'Hunterwali' in a 1940s talkie and rare silent films like 'Diler Jiger or Gallant Hearts (1931)'.
Propped up with the old tent paraphernalia, the wooden benches and the floor mats, the audience aged from 5 to 75 are having a gala time 'living' the olden days of the beginning of cinema in India.
Famous as Indian silver screen's first stunt queen, 'Fearless Nadia' as Mary Evans became popularly known later, earned the nickname for her intrepid and swashbuckling tricks on the screen as iconised in classics like 'Hunterwali (1935), 'Miss Frontier Mail (1936)', 'Hurrican Hansa (1937)', 'Hunterwali Ki Beti (1943)' among others.

'Hunterwali K Beti', screened at the tent facility erected here in a homage to the pioneering days of Indian cinema, was quite a hit with the audience.
'Gallant Hearts', a rare silent classic from 1931, the same year the first Indian talkie 'Alam Ara' was born, was also screened at the festival.
Septuagenarian and film collector O P Mago, who grew up in Lahore watching Punjabi films in tents and later after Partition in Ludhiana and Delhi, was delighted to witness the "good old days" again.
"I have seen Punjabi films in tent cinema and later in Ludhiana too. In Delhi, I remember seeing Dev Anand's 'Taxi Driver (1954)'. Among the silent films, I really liked the acting in 'Gallant Hearts' as the action kept me hooked on to it," Mago told PTI.

'Gallant Hearts', said to be inspired by Hollywood's Douglas Fairbanks starrer silent 'Thief of Baghdad (1924)', is also one of the rare surviving prints of the early silent era, made by 'Agrawal Film Company of Poona'. The other being 'Fall of Slavery or Gulaminu Patan (1931)' which was also screened.