Entertainment

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Introduction

The 1940 saw a great upsurge in entertainment in the city of Calcutta. The war had swept both new audiences into town as well as more money to spend. The many Americans brought new tastes but Indian nationalism also demanded to be heard in the sphere of entertainment. Cinemas were full but wartime restrictions on materials made new Indian films rarer. Radio often initially installed just for the news gained much popularity with music and comedy broadcasts. Some of Britain’s famous entertainers even went on tour to Calcutta entertaining the troops. Park Street blossomed with many professional live bands and new types of food, but even roadside entertainers found a willing audience of fascinated outsiders everywhere.

All the while social change swept away the old Bengali commercial theatre and the formal upperclass ways of the traditional colonial ‘Calcutta Winter Season’.

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Entertainment

_____Pictures of 1940s Calcutta________________________

_____Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta___

_____Memories of 1940s Calcutta_______________________

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Films & Cinemas

_____Pictures of 1940s Calcutta________________________

Cinema Previews

collected by Malcolm Moncrieff Stuart, I.C.S. (Indian Civil Service) District Magistrate Howrah, Calcutta, 1941

(source: personal scrapbook kept by Malcolm Moncrieff Stuart O.B.E., I.C.S. seen on 20-Dec-2005 / Reproduced by courtesy of Mrs. Malcolm Moncrieff Stuart)

‘The Years Between’ by a budding film critic (me being fancy)

Malcolm Moncrieff Stuart, I.C.S. (Indian Civil Service), Calcutta, mid1940s

(source: personal scrapbook kept by Malcolm Moncrieff Stuart O.B.E., I.C.S. seen on 20-Dec-2005 / Reproduced by courtesy of Mrs. Malcolm Moncrieff Stuart)

_____Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta___

Movies and Plays

The movies you see at the European theatres will be mostly American-made films, surprisingly recent, unless you have just arrived from the States. For American-slanted reviews on films currently showing in town consult the Command Post, or pick up a paper any morning to see what's scheduled for that day. Plays and variety entertainment are offered at 30 Park Street. Produced by BESA these shows are sometimes good, sometimes indifferent. Seats reserved. Rs. 2/8 for officers; annas 8 for E.M. and one guest. Six days a week at 2100 plus extra shows at 1800 on Tues., Thurs., and Sat. As a part of your experience in India try at least one Indian movie. You may not like them. Long, slow moving, principally made in Hindustani, based mostly on modern Indian life glamorized.

Movie Tips.  All seats reserved. Buy your tickets the day before, or early in the morning; every show is a sell-out. The ARC Clubs buy up a number of tickets for each of the two later shows and hold them for resale to you. Most theatres make concessions in prices for E.M. Ask for them at the theatres if they are not forthcoming. No concessions on Saturday or Sunday; and usually no cheaper seats on these two days. In any theatre the dress circle (loges to you) is considered tops, balcony second best, and then downstairs there are rear stalls, lower stalls, and front stalls, with the price scale running right down along the line. You will find the lower stalls (middle of orchestra) to be both comfortable and cheap. Smoke anywhere in the theatre. Interval between showing of newsreels and other shorts and the showing of the feature - step out into the lounges and order yourself a cooling drink.

MOVIE HOUSES - EUROPEAN

Elite - Corporation St. - Not air conditioned.

Globe - Lindsay St. opp. New Market - Not air conditioned.

Lighthouse - 2 Humayan Pl. - Air conditioned, first-run.

New Metro - 5 Chowringhee Rd. - Air conditioned, first-run.

New Empire - Humayan Pl., behind Firpo's - Air conditioned, first-run.

Regal - 4 Corporation St. - Not air conditioned.

Tiger - Chowringhee Rd., above Firpo's - Not air conditioned.

Note: Showings subject to change. Consult newspapers for movie times.

MOVIE HOUSES - INDIAN

Roxy Theatre - 4 Chowringhee Place.

Paradise Theatre - 9 Bentnick Street.

(source: “The Calcutta Key” Services of Supply Base Section Two Division, Information and education Branch, United States Army Forces in India - Burma, 1945: at: http://cbi-theater-12.home.comcast.net/~cbi-theater-12/calcuttakey/calcutta_key.html)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Addresses of Cinemas in 1940

Aleya—220A Rash Behari Avenue. Phone, P.K. 1475.

Aurora—41 Kasi Mitter Ghat Street, Baghbazar- Phone, B.B. 2874.

Bangalakshmi—40 Harrison Road.

Bharat Lakshmi —2/2/1 Chittaranjan Avenue. Phone, B.B. 2683.

Bijoli—6/l Russa Road. Phone, South 667.

Chaya—122 Upper Circular Road. Phone, B.B. 282.

Chhabi-Ghar—10 Harrison Road. Phone, B.B. 2740.

Chinese Theatre—2 Chandney Chowk Street. Phone, Cal. 4395.

Chitra—83 Cornwallis Street. Phone, B.B- 1133.

Chitra Puri—131/2 Circular Garden Reach Road. Phe., South 767.

City—150 Lower Chitpore Road. Phone, Cat. 4465.

Dipali—13/1 Adwaitya Ch. Mullick Lane.

Ganesh—373 Upper Chitpore Road. Phone, B.B. 745.

Globe—7 Lindsay Street. Phone, Cal. 1571.

lntally—2/3 South Road, Entally. Phone, Cal. 1303.

Lighthouse—2 Humayun Place- Phone, Cal. 200.

Majestic—12/1 Wellesley Street. Phone, Cal. 2091.

Metro (TheHomeof the Stars)—5 ChowringheeRd. Phe., Cal.234.

Minerva—Chowringhee Place. Phone, Cal. 887.

Moti Mahal—156/2 Upper Circular Road. Phone, B.B. 4868.

National—l2/l Watgunge Street. Phone, South 1523.

New Cinema—171 Dharamtala Street. Phone, Cal. 5819.

New Empire—1 Humayun Place. Phone, Cal. 200.

New Imperial—190 Lower Circular Road. Phone, P.K. 1309.

New Royal—5B Maharanee Surnomoyee Road. Phone, B.B. 4068.

Novelty—2 Krishna Lal Das Road.

P. Son—Paharpur Road, Garden Reach. Phone, South 1331.

Paradise—39 Bentinck Street. Phone. Cal. 4251.

Park Show-House—3/5 New Park Street. Phone, P.K. 1971.

Prabhat—136 Surendra Nath Banerjee Road. Phone, Cal. 5855.

Purna—2 Russa Road. Phone, South 3t.

Regal—4 Corporation Street. Phone, Cal. 3040.

Robin—134 Rajendra Lal Mitter Road.

Roxy—30 Tara Chand Dutt Street. Phone, B.B. 385.

Ruby—32 Dharamtala Street. Phone, Cal. 1900.

Rupabani—76/3 Cornwallis Street. Phone, B.B. 3413.

Rupali—45B Ashutosh Mukerjee Road. Phone, South 953.

Rupam—213 Bow Bazar Street. Phone, B.B. 4397.

Shree Bharat Lakshini—2 Chittaranjan Avenue.

Sree—138 Cornwallis Street. Phone. B.B. 1515.

Suchitra—Diamond Harbour Road, Behala. Phone, South 812.

Taj Mahal—2 Krishna Lal Das Road, Chitpore. Phone, B.B. 4707.

Talkie Show House—13A Faria Puker Street. Phone, B.B. 2270.

Taswir Mahal—7B Gas Street. Phone. B.B. 4450.

Tejmahal—38 Keshub Chunder Sen Street. Phone, B.B. 3556.

Tiger—19 Chowringhee Road. Phone, Cal. 300.

Uttara—138/1 Cornwallis Street. Phone, B.B. 2202.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 243-244 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

1940s Film Quotes

There's no place like home, there's no place like home...

--Dorothy's ticket back to Kansas (The Wizard Of Oz)

It's alive! It's alive!

--Colin Clive creates Boris Karloff (Frankenstein)

Frankly, my dear....I don't give a damn.

--Rhett tells Scarlett how it is...but don't worry, Scarlett...tomorrow is another day! (Gone With The Wind)

One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I'll never know.

--Groucho as Captain Spaulding in Animal Crackers.

You're going out there a youngster, but you've got to come back a star!

--Warner Baxter gives Ruby Keeler a pep talk (42nd Street)

Here's lookin' at you, kid...

--Bogie! (Casablanca)

Today (today...today...) I consider myself (myself...myself...) to be the luckiest man (man...man...) on the face of the earth.

--Lou Gehrig's famous speech echoes throughout the ballpark, as spoken by Gary Cooper (The Pride Of The Yankees)

A toast....to my big brother George, the richest man in town.

--Harry Bailey's eloquent toast (It's A Wonderful Life)

Let's put on a show!

--Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland & friends

Western films of 1939

Western films playing in Calcutta’s English language cinema’s are:

Gone with the Wind with Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, Wuthering Heights with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon, Goodbye Mr Chips with Robert Donat and Greer Garson, Pygmalion with Wendy Hiller and Leslie Howard, Pinocchio by Walt Disney, Stage Coach with John Wayne and Claire Trevor, Babes in Arms with Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, Roaring Twenties with James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart and Priscilla Lane, The Wizard Of Oz, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, Ninotchka, Gunga Din, The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, Dark Victory, The Little Princess, Idiot's Delight, Of Mice & Men, Destry Rides Again, Dodge City, You Can't Cheat an Honest Man, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, The Rules of the Game, Only Angels Have Wings, Bachelor Mother.

Western films of 1940

Western films playing in Calcutta’s English language cinema’s are:

The Philadelphia Story with James Stewart and Katherine Hepburn, The Grapes of Wrath with Henry Fonda and Jane Darwell, Road to Singapore with Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour, Fantasia by Walt Disney, Strike up the Band with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, Kitty Foyle with Ginger Rogers and Dennis Morgan, The Westerner with Gary Cooper and Doris Davenport, Rebecca with Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine and George Sanders, His Girl Friday, The Great Dictator, The Mark of Zorro, Waterloo Bridge, The Bank Dick, The Long Voyage Home, The Mummy's Hand, Abe Lincoln in Illinois, Torrid Zone, Foreign Correspondent, When the Daltons Rode, The Thief of Bagdad, Northwest Passage.

Western films of 1941

Western films playing in Calcutta’s English language cinema’s are:

Sergeant York with Gary Cooper and Joan Leslie, Major Barbara with Wendy Hiller, Rex Harrison and Deborah Kerr, How Green was my Valley with Walter Pidgeon and Maureen O'Hara, The Maltese Falcon with Humphrey Bogart, Greenstreet and Lorre, The Big Store with The Marx Brothers, Suspicion with Joan Fontaine and Cary Grant, Road to Zanzibar with Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour, The Great Lie with Bette Davis, Mary Astor and George Brent, Babes on Broadway with Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, Citizen Kane, The Maltese Falcon, Dumbo, Meet John Doe, Buck Privates, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, The Little Foxes, Suspicion, Never Give a Sucker an Even Break, Back Street, Penny Serenade, The Flame of New Orleans.

Western films of 1942

Western films playing in Calcutta’s English language cinema’s are:

In Which We Serve with Noel Coward and Celia Johnson, Mrs Miniver with Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon, Yankee Doodle Dandy with James Cagney and Joan Leslie, Road to Morocco with Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour, Casablanca with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, Bambi, The Magnificent Ambersons, The Pride Of The Yankees, Holiday Inn, Sullivan's Travels, Woman Of The Year, To Be or Not to Be, The Man Who Came to Dinner, Cat People, Now, Voyager, The Palm Beach Story, The Talk of the Town, Saboteur, The Glass Key, The Black Swan.

Western films of 1943

Western films playing in Calcutta’s English language cinema’s are:

Song of Bernardette with Jennifer Jones and Charles Bickford, For Whom the Bell Tolls with Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman, Stormy Weather with Lena Horne, Fats Waller and Bill Robinson, Outlaw with Jane Russell, Thomas Mitchell and Walter Huston, Stage Door Canteen with Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Gracie Fields, Ethel Waters, Guy Lombardo and Yehudi Menuhin, DuBarry was a Lady with Gene Kelly and Lucille Ball, Watch on the Rhine with Paul Lukas and Bette Davis, Phantom Of The Opera, Lassie Come Home, Cabin In The Sky, Girl Crazy, My Friend Flicka, The Ox-Bow Incident, I Walked with a Zombie, Shadow of a Doubt, Lady of Burlesque.

Western films of 1944

Western films playing in Calcutta’s English language cinema’s are:

Going My Way with Bing Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald, Gaslight with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer, Arsenic and Old Lace with Josephine Hull and Jean Adair, Since You Went Away with Claudette Colbert, and Joseph Cotton, This Happy Breed with John Mills, Stanley Holloway, Robert Newton, Celia Johnson and Kay Walsh, None But the Lonely Heart with Cary Grant, Ethel Barrymore and Jane Wyatt, Double Indemnity, Laura, To Have & Have Not, Meet Me In St. Louis, Jane Eyre, The Miracle Of Morgan's Creek, National Velvet, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Ministry of Fear, The Lodger, The Fighting Seabees, The Woman in the Window, Henry V, Lifeboat, Can't Help Singing.

Western films of 1945

Western films playing in Calcutta’s English language cinema’s are:

Brief Encounter with Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn with Lloyd Nolan and Joan Blondell, The Lost Weekend with Ray Milland and Jane Wyman, Mildred Pierce with Joan Crawford and Jack Carson, The Bells of St Marys with Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman, State Fair with Jeanne Crain and Dana Andrews, Spellbound, Anchors Aweigh, God Is My Co-Pilot, Children of Paradise, The House on 92nd Street, Ivan the Terrible, Part One, Scarlet Street, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Love Letters, Hangover Square, The Stork Club, The Corn Is Green, The Clock.

Western films of 1946

Western films playing in Calcutta’s English language cinema’s are:

It's A Wonderful Life, The Big Sleep, The Best Years Of Our Lives, Song Of The South, Great Expectations, Ziegfeld Follies, The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Harvey Girls, Road To Utopia, Angel on My Shoulder, Notorious, The Stranger, My Darling Clementine, Brief Encounter, The Spiral Staircase, Anna and the King of Siam, O.S.S., The Killers, Duel in the Sun, The Kid from Brooklyn.

Western films of 1947

Western films playing in Calcutta’s English language cinema’s are:

Miracle On 34th Street, Dark Passage, The Ghost & Mrs. Muir, The Bachelor & The Bobby-Soxer, The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty, Road To Rio, Life With Father, The Farmer's Daughter, Gentleman's Agreement, Odd Man Out, Angel and the Badman, Ride the Pink Horse, Welcome Stranger, Monsieur Verdoux, Body and Soul, The Bishop's Wife, The Egg and I, Out of the Past, A Double Life.

Western films of 1948

Western films playing in Calcutta’s English language cinema’s are:

The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre, Rope, Key Largo, Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, The Red Shoes, Hamlet, A Date With Judy, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, Easter Parade, Red River, Portrait of Jennie, The Bicycle Thief, The Accused, 3 Godfathers, A Foreign Affair, To the Ends of the Earth, Force of Evil, Unfaithfully Yours, The Search, Rachel and the Stranger.

Western films of 1949

Western films playing in Calcutta’s English language cinema’s are:

The Third Man, Adam's Rib, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, On The Town, The Fountainhead, The Heiress, I Was A Male War Bride, Little Women, The Inspector General, Samson & Delilah, Twelve O'Clock High, White Heat, Champion, Take Me Out to the Ball Game, The Barkleys of Broadway, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Neptune's Daughter, The Stratton Story.

Western films of 1950

Western films playing in Calcutta’s English language cinema’s are:

Annie Get Your Gun, Summer Stock, Sunset Boulevard, All About Eve, Harvey, The Asphalt Jungle, Father Of The Bride, Winchester '73, The Gunfighter, Cyrano de Bergerac, Cinderella, Rashomon, Rio Grande, In a Lonely Place, Born Yesterday.

Henry V. at the Lighthouse

August 20, 1945

Dearest:

I have just come from the Lighthouse movie theater, where I saw a movie in an air-conditioned modern building. Its theme was an English play, produced and directed by Lawrence Olivier and starring L. Olivier in "Henry V." The first half hour showed us the play as done in Shakespeare's time (1600), then our imaginations were invoked and the scenes thenceforth until the conclusion were played straight. The Technicolor was magnificent. At times, when.. models were used, the distant castle and rolling meadows were lovely, unearthly. The campfire scenes, the dreams of the famous charge of the French knights at Agincourt in which they were cut to ribbons by English bowmen will not soon fade.

Against the film was the difficult English dialect, the use of much of Shakespeare's original dialogue, which is hard to follow if the lines aren't well known.

Despite this, if it comes to America, you must see it by all means.

I began a class of group psychotherapy this morning in which 17 men are enrolled. I'm not too serious about the business, however; I expect to try to maintain a level of interest only. Since no constructive benefits ever came out of these classes that could be evaluated, why not try this approach?

Clare Spranger told me today that she thought one of my former patients was going to strike her for a moment. It seems that he refused K.P. duty. He's a shell-shock case from Burma. Touchy business, much of this. Lou Battista returned my breast obsession case - and so I'm stuck with him again. The only breast obsession I ever had was with yours, pet, and I've still got it! Hmmmm. How I want to take advantage of your offer to share your side of the bed.

Threatening rains circled us today, with some falling here. But tonight the moon is shining. We came back in an open taxi - swell -- if you had just been beside me, Reva.

That's all, honey. I start each day with the thought of you, and end it so.

Ever in love,

Dick

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta, August 20, 1945

(Source: page 186 of Elaine Pinkerton (ed.): “From Calcutta With Love: The World War II Letters of Richard and Reva Beard” Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2002 / Reproduced by courtesy of Texas Tech University Press)

Tickets to the Lighthouse Theater

The day has been routine for the most part. Just after Gus left me a note that he had gotten tickets to the Lighthouse Theater for Friday night, I learned that I was to have AOD (Acting Officer on Duty) Friday. By scurrying around, I got that changed to Saturday...which I won't like particularly. Gus was gone for the noon and evening meals, taking pictures of patients coming in by plane from China.

Tonight I went alone to see Danny Kaye in "Wonder Man" done in Technicolor. It was very good, I think, but our equipment couldn't reproduce the sound loudly enough so we had to enjoy the comedy in almost complete silence. After picking up our jungle ration, Lord Calvert's, I walked slowly home in the moonlight, thinking of you.

[…]

Tonight was a big night. Gus and I took our time. Bathed, relaxed, then drove to Karnani for dinner. We had a whiskey and soda or two at the bar, wine with the meal of chicken-fried steak. Then we proceeded on up town to the Lighthouse to see Deanna Durbin in "Can't Help Singing." I liked the fountain in the closing scene! Deanna's singing and a lot of Technicolor were wasted on one of the worst films I've ever seen.

Clouds partially obscured a brilliant full moon. We stopped at the club for coffee, drove past the lovely lake, whose border of trees was mirrored in its bosom. Placid, calm, restful. Calcutta going to sleep.

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta, August 23&24,1945

(Source: page 187&188 of Elaine Pinkerton (ed.): “From Calcutta With Love: The World War II Letters of Richard and Reva Beard” Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2002 / Reproduced by courtesy of Texas Tech University Press)

Cinema: Gunga Din (RKO Radio)

Gunga Din (RKO Radio), most expensive picture in the history of RKO, which was last week on the point of emerging from a six-year bankruptcy, unfolds a jolly story about high jinks on India's frontier. Poor old Gunga Din (Sam Jaffe) has small part in the proceedings. In the first part of the picture he wobbles about carrying a goatskin water bag. In the last part, he inspires a scared-looking Rudyard Kipling to produce a commemorative poem. The rest of the time Gunga Din's doings are eclipsed by those of three agile young sergeants—Gary Grant, Victor McLaglen and Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

The story of Gunga Din, written by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur and made into a screen play by Joel Sayre and Fred Guiol, appears to be a sort of Anglo-Indian Three Musketeers. What plot there is concerns the efforts of two sergeants to persuade the third to re-enlist when his period of service expires. This entails much hand-to-hand fighting against a band of Thugs, a few barrack-room practical jokes and frequent athletic tricks of the sort popularized by Master Fairbanks' father. Funny, spectacular, and exciting, Gunga Din reaches its climax when the liveliest sergeant (Grant) gets trapped by Thug Guru (Eduardo Ciannelli) and is almost thrown into a pit full of hungry cobras. Typical sequence: battle between a regiment of Scots Highlanders and Thug cavalry, filmed on the slopes of Mt. Whitney last summer, with a cast of 900 extras.

As an individual product of the cinema industry, there is practically nothing to be said against Gunga Din. First-class entertainment, it will neither corrupt the morals of minors nor affront the intelligence of their seniors. But unfortunately, Gunga Din is not an isolated example of the cinema industry's majestic mass product. It is a symbol of Hollywood's current trend. As such it is as deplorable as it is enlightening.

Up to 1938, the cinema industry was occupied with an erratic progression from its beginning in nickelodeons to its last phenomenon, screwball comedies. In 1938 the industry stopped going forward, began going backward. The retrogression took three forms: 1) a series of revivals of old pictures, from The Sheik to Dracula; 2) a series of remakes, from If I Were King to The Adventures of Robin Hood; 3) a series of disguised remakes and delayed sequels like Going Places, The Chaser, Tarzan's Revenge.

In 1938, a producer in England persuaded Bernard Shaw to sell picture rights to his plays. French producers have lately turned out genuinely original products like Le Roman d'un Tricheur and Grand Illusion. Hollywood, however, even when it was not deliberately repeating itself, repeated itself unconsciously. Gunga Din is an example of this unconscious repetition. Whatever there is to be said about the minor matter of barrack-room life in India has been more than sufficiently said by the cinema many times, most recently in Lives of a Bengal Lancer, Charge of the Light Brigade and Drums.

Moving pictures are a vigorous entertainment medium. There has probably never been a moment in the world's history when more exciting things were going on than in 1939. That Hollywood can supply no better salute to 1939 than a $2,000,000 rehash, however expert, of Rudyard Kipling and brown Indians in bed sheets, is a sad reflection on its state of mind.

(source: TIME Magazine, New York, Feb. 6, 1939)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Time Magazine)

Cinema: G With the W

Last week the cinema event for which the U. S. has palpitated for three years took place

in Atlanta, Ga.—the premiere of Gone With the Wind.

Governor Eurith D. Rivers proclaimed a Statewide holiday, prepared to call out the National Guard. Atlanta's Mayor William B. Hartsfield proclaimed a three-day festival. To Georgia it was like winning the battle of Atlanta 75 years late, with Yankee good will thrown in and the direct assistance of Selznick International (which made the picture).

Mayor Hartsfield urged every Atlanta woman and maid to put on hoop skirts and pantalets, appealed to every Atlanta male to don tight trousers and a beaver, sprout a goatee, sideburns and Kentucky colonel whiskers. He also requested citizens not to tear off the clothes of visiting movie stars, as happened in Kansas at the premiere of Dodge City.

While the Stars and Bars flapped from every building, some 300,000 Atlantans and visitors lined up for seven miles to watch the procession of limousines bring British Vivien Leigh (in tears as thousands welcomed her "back home"), Clark Gable, his wife Carole Lombard, Producer David O. Selznick, Laurence Olivier and others from the airport. Crowds larger than the combined armies that fought at Atlanta in July 1864 waved Confederate flags, tossed confetti till it seemed to be snowing, gave three different versions of the Rebel yell, whistled, cheered, goggled.

Highest point in the high jinks was a Gone With the Wind costume ball night before the premiere, attended by 6,000 celebrants, movie stars and executives galore, Governors of five former Confederate States.

Belle of the ball was Vivien Leigh, who nearly everybody agreed looked right like Scarlett O'Hara. Darkly grinning Clark

Gable's head was in a whirl. Hundreds of the prettiest little girls he had ever seen had surrounded him earlier. One looked at him a little too long, gasped: "Lord, I can't stand this any longer," fainted. An eleven-year-old girl, given a choice of getting a Christmas present or meeting Clark Gable, chose Gable. When Gable kissed her, she asked, "Now am I a woman?"

Conspicuously absent from the ball was fun-loving, publicity-shy Novelist Margaret Mitchell, who stayed home with her husband, Adman John R. Marsh. Said friends: "Her dad's ailin'."

Next night through the false front of tall white columns erected to make Atlanta's Grand Theatre look like Tara (the O'Hara plantation in Gone With the Wind) streamed a privileged 2,031 who were going to see the picture whose title Hollywood had been abbreviating for three years as G With the W. They were conscious of participating in a national event, of seeing a picture it had taken three yea~s to make from a novel it had taken seven years to write. They knew it had taken two years and something akin to genius to find a girl to play Scarlett O'Hara. They knew it had cost more ($3,850,000) to produce the picture than any other in cinema history except Ben Hur ($4,500,000) and Hell's Angels ($4,000,000). They knew it was one of the longest pictures ever filmed (three hours and three quarters of Technicolored action). Above all, most of them knew by heart the love story of Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara, and they were there to protest if it had undergone a single serious film change. Putting it on fPm had been a job as fantastic as the ballyhoo.

Selzniclc's Headache. Seventy-five years after the defeated Confederates trudged out of Atlanta singing Maryland, My Maryland, Producer David 0. Selznick received one of the most ecstatic business telegrams ever sent. It was sent by Kay (for Katherine) Brown, Eastern Story Editor of Selznick International Pictures. She said: "We have just airmailed detailed synopsis of Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, also copy of book. ... I beg, urge, coax and plead with you to read this at once. I know that after you read the book you will drop everything and buy it."

Selznick read the synopsis. With the sad fate of So Red the Rose in mind, he was in no hurry to pay $50,000 for another Civil War book, and a first novel to boot. But when Selznick International's Board Chairman John Jay ("Jock") Whitney offered to buy the novel on his own, Selznick, saying, "I'll be damned if you do," closed the deal. Then he took the book on an ocean voyage to Honolulu to see what he had bought.

He finished it a week later. That was Producer Selznick's first inkling that Gone With the Wind held almost as many headaches for him as it had pages. First thing he saw as clear as the Hawaiian sunshine was the hopelessness of trying to make a film of conventional length.

Script-Tease. First trouble was to reduce the 1,037-page novel to a workable Hollywood script.

The late leggy, lantern-jawed Sidney Howard was one of the ablest, most dependable scripters who ever turned his successful plays into equally successful movies (The Silver Cord, Yellow Jack, Dodsworth). Selznick considered Playwright Howard "a great constructionist" and turned to him in his hour of need. After a brief total immersion in Gone With the Wind, Sidney Howard arrived in Hollywood in the spring of 1937. With Selznick's famed marked copy of Gone With the Wind as a starter, Selznick, Howard and George Cukor (to supply the director's angle) spent twelve hours of a series of hot summer days, hammering out G With the W Script No. i. When finished, it contained 30,000 words, would have required five and a half hours to run if it ever had been shot. It never was. They made another. Then Selznick made another. In the next year Jo Swerling, Oliver H. P. Garrett, Ben Hecht, John Van Druten, Michael Foster, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Winston Miller, John Balderston, Edwin Justus Mayer all had at least a little finger in the scenario. But next to Sidney Howard's work, the bulk of the scripting, as David Selznick admits, was done by David Selznick. He is still very touchy because a shooting script was not ready even by the time that the final scenes were filmed. When the filming was practically complete the last day's call sheet read: Script to come.

Scarlett. Midway in producing G With the W, Producer Selznick decided he was in no hurry to get going. The novel was too fresh in people's minds, which meant that they would be critical of any picturization no matter how good. Selznick still had nobody to play Scarlett O'Hara, and for more than two years he maintained himself in this useful and exciting dilemma with tenacity and an astute sense of showmanship. Polls were taken, scouts were despatched, a play about the search was written, had been running two months—and still no Scarlett.

Racked though they were with Scarlett fever, the U. S. cinemillions on one point were constant—the people's choice to play Rhett Butler was Clark Gable.

.Selznick therefore had to drive as shrewd a bargain as possible with Loew Inc., the parent organization of M.G.M., to whom Clark Gable was under contract. The terms were hard: 1) M.G.M. to have exclusive distribution rights for Gone With the Wind and a sizable interest in the profits; 2) M.G.M. to finance the picture to the tune of $1,250,000; 3) Gable to begin work for Selznick by Feb. 15, 1939. He was not to be kept beyond a reasonable time.

Clearly the time had come to find Scarlett O'Hara. The historic discovery happened (by great good luck) to coincide with the first takes of Gone With the Wind —the burning of Atlanta.

Forty Acres is the back lot of Selznick Studios in Culver City. Until the night of Dec. 11, 1938 it was cluttered with old sets accumulated during 20 years of movie making. These sets were laboriously filled with waste and other inflammable materials, well soaked with kerosene. As darkness fell, the $26,000 bonfire roared sky-high while seven Technicolor cameras ground away. The first scenes of Gone With the Wind had been shot. A flat representing the Atlanta warehouse district was constructed in front of the old sets. In the light of the dying flames Myron Selznick, Hollywood's No. 1 agent, stepped over to his brother. With him was his British client, wasp-waisted, tilt-browed, hazel-eyed Cinemactress Vivien Leigh (pronounced Lee), who had slipped into Hollywood allegedly to see Laurence Olivier. Said Myron Selznick to David Selznick: "Dave, I want you to meet Scarlett O'Hara."

So after two years, four months of nationwide search and tension, dashing Georgia Belle Scarlett O'Hara was a wispish little English girl with a neatly clipped British accent. Born in Darjeeling, India, in the Himalaya Mountains, Nov. 5, 1913, she spent the first five years of her life in Calcutta, about which she remembers nothing. Later she attended convent school near London with Cinemactress Maureen O'Sullivan. Still later Vivien Leigh studied dramatics. Married in 1932 to Barrister Leigh Holman (whose first name plus her own first name she uses for a stage name), she has a little girl. After The Mask of Virtue, in which, says Cinemactress Leigh, "I played a tart," she had small parts in Fire Over England,

Dark Journey, A Yank At Oxford. While playing in The First Time—The Last, she met Laurence Olivier, to whom, when both receive their divorces, she will be married.

"Their love," says a friend, "is the most beautiful thing I have ever known." Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier spend most of their time together, are seldom seen at Hollywood night clubs, both like reading (she prefers biographies, thought David Cecil': The Young Melbourne "wonderfully good"). Olivier sings a few songs that Vivien Leigh knows how to pick out c i the piano. In their repertory: The Melody in F, Banjo on My Knee, My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean.

Though professional Anglophobes squawked at the choice of an English girl to play Scarlett O'Hara and a chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy at Ocala, Fla. protested, most Southerners were relieved. Their real fear was that a damn yankee girl might be given the part.

The choice of Vivien Leigh was not altogether a surprise to Vivien Leigh. British Director Victor Saville, now in Hollywood, read one of the first copies of Gone With the Wind to reach England. As soon as he had finished it, he rushed to the telephone and mischievously called Vivien Leigh. Said he: "Vivien, I've just read a great story for the movies about the bitchiest of all bitches, and you're just the person to play the part."

The Women. On Jan. 26, 1939, Cukor began directing with a very incomplete script. Trouble started at once. Selznick was not satisfied with the results which Cukor, a specialist in intimate scenes, especially with women, was getting. Selznick felt that Cukor did not get the "big feel" of Gone With the Wind and worked too slowly.

When Cukor "resigned," Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland? charged into Selznick's office and in an emotional, sometimes tearful scene, pleaded with him to keep Cukor. Being smart women as well as capable actresses, they realized that the chances of getting another director with the same peculiar interest in women's roles were very slim. But they were fighting a lost cause.

Selznick called in Clark Gable, showed him a list of possible new directors. On Selznick's list were Robert Z. Leonard, Jack Conway, King Vidor, Victor Fleming. Asked to choose, Gable promptly named his great & good friend Victor Fleming, a big, grey, handsome, nervous, highly efficient Hollywood veteran, who has pulled through such problem pictures as The Crowd Roars, The Great Waltz, The Wizard of Oz, recently directed two of M.G.M.'s greatest moneymakers, Captains Courageous, Test Pilot. On Feb. 27, Fleming started the cameras rolling. Conscientious Craftsman Fleming drove his company hard.

Though Clark Gable taught Vivien Leigh to play backgammon, and never won a game from her, they were not the best of friends. Director Fleming and Cinemactress Leigh differed over the interpretation of Scarlett, to which Fleming wanted to restore the "guts" he thought George Cukor had taken out of it. Vivien

Leigh began a sparring game to preserve the Cukor conception.

On the set quarrels between Fleming and Leigh popped up over trifles, often ended with

Leigh in tears, Fleming in rage.

Meantime there was interminable dissatisfaction with the script. Hours were wasted while it was written on the set. Fleming confessed to a friend in the cast that at one point he thought of driving his car off a cliff he was passing, and finally went to bed for a week while M.G.M. Director Sam Wood (Good-Eye, Mr. Chips') carried on.

Last day of shooting was July i, 1939. With shooting completed, cutting began.

The 225,000 feet of film (printed from 475,000 feet of film exposed) had to be cut and spliced into a moving picture short enough to exhibit.

In more all-day all-night sessions, Fleming and Selznick worked with cutters, taking out, putting in, putting in, taking out, until they had a picture that ran just under four hours. They took this to Riverside, in the orange country, surprised fans there with a sneak preview. With them was Jock Whitney, who had not seen the film before. When the picture ended, tears were streaming down his face.

The Picture. No great shakes as literature, the novel had been dropped on the floor by most literary critics as soon as it dropped in their laps. They thought its love story a bore, its history sectional, its length pretentious, its writing as drab as a bolt of butternut shoddy. The destruction of the South's civilization in the War between the States, told as the case history of two plantation families, the red-blooded O'Haras and the blue-blooded Wilkeses, had been better told before. The overlapping loves of Scarlett O'Hara for Ashley Wilkes, Rhett Butler for Scarlett O'Hara, could be read in any confession magazine.

But Gone With the Wind was a U. S. Legend. In fact, it was two of them. Legend No. i was the only great U. S. war epic—the War between the States—told from the Southern side. Legend No. 2 was the heroic and unhappy love story of two people who were strong, brutal, brash, realistic, American enough to survive Legend No. i. Like all good legends, these were told without subtlety, subjective shadings, probings or questionings, its characters were instantly recognizable types. Scarlett's "I won't think of it now, I'll think of it tomorrow" was a catch line. Whatever it was not, Gone With the Wind was a first-rate piece of Americana, and Americans in the mass knew what they wanted before the critics had got through telling them they should not want it.

Better than almost anybody who worked with him, Producer David Selznick sensed that the first rule in retelling a legend is exactly the same as retelling a fairy tale to children—no essential part of the story must ever be changed. In the film, none is.

Next was a casting problem. The characters must appear in the movie exactly as they were in the book. They do.

The U. S. cinemillions had already unanimously voted that Clark Gable must play Rhett Butler. Selznick also bowed to them when he cast Olivia de Havilland as sweetish, big-eyed, thrushlike Melanie Hamilton, Leslie Howard as smooth, anemic, intellectual Ashley Wilkes, Laura Hope Crews as futile, flustered foolish Aunt Pittypat. Two of Selznick's minor castings were inspired: 1) Thomas Mitchell as old hard-riding Gerald O'Hara, who (after his mind is gone) by sheer power of pantomime dominates the scenes in which he has almost nothing to say or do; 2) colored Cinemactress Hattie McDaniel, who comes from Kansas, had to be taught to speak thick Georgian, turns in the most finished acting job of the picture as Mammy, the sly, leather-lunged, devoted Emily Post of the O'Haras. And Vivien Leigh had not petted and pouted on the screen for five minutes before the fussy Atlanta audience was ready to underwrite Selznick's choice of the little-known English actress to be the Southern belle. Whether she spoke letter-perfect middle high Georgian, few people outside middle

Georgia would ever know, and nobody watching her act really cared.

So long as they swore by the book, producers of Gone With the Wind were free to make as great a picture as they could, and the film has almost every thing the book has in the way of spectacle, drama, practically endless story and the means to make them bigger and better.

The burning of Atlanta, the great "boom" shots of the Confederate wounded lying in the streets and the hospital after the Battle of Atlanta are spectacle enough for any picture, and unequaled.

For almost four hours the drama keeps audiences on the edge of their seats with few letdowns. There are unforgettable climaxes: 1) Scarlett shooting the Yankee "deserter" ("deserter" is a concession to Northern protest: in the book he is one of Sherman's raiders) ; 2) the scene of mass desolation as the quietly weeping people of Atlanta read the casualty lists after Gettysburg. Audiences are jerked out of their seats when the mood of defeat is smashed triumphantly as a band bursts into Dixie. By great cinema craft, it is the first time the whole of Dixie is heard in the picture.

There are few comic concessions, but there is sly humor in Prissy 's (Butterfly McQueen) singing of Jes' a Few Mo' Days, Ter Tote de Weery Load. There is -sumptuous satire in the sets of the barbaric mansion, the realization of all Scarlett's ideals, in which Rhett and Scar lett enshrine their garish passion. In contrast, sudden lyrical shots lighten the cinemagnificence. Technicolor (using a new process) has never been used with more effective restraint than in Gone With the Wind. Exquisite shot: Gerald O'Hara silhouetted beside Scarlett against the eve ning sky at Tara while he propounds to her the meaning of the one thing she has left when everything else is wrecked — the red earth of Tara.

Though delighted Georgians clapped, cheered, whistled and wept at the historical sequences, Northerners might not. There had been protests from daughters of G. A. R. veterans. But David Selznick was not worried. The advantage of film ing two great legends in one picture was that he had two great pictures — a sure fire Rebel-rouser for the South, a sure fire love story for the rest of the country.

After the Hollywood press preview, Producer Selznick stood in the lobby, scanning the faces of the "toughest audience in the world" with as much eager ness as any tyro at his own first play.

Most of them were dabbing their eyes, and for those who were not the impact of the picture was too powerful to talk about.

Selznick got few comments. Perhaps he was unduly worried about the $5,000,000 the picture has to make before it begins to earn any profits at all. Perhaps he was worrying about something else. Night be fore, Producer Selznick made a confession that had the ring of truth. Said he of Gone With the Wind: "At noon I think it's divine, at midnight I think it's lousy.

Sometimes I think it's the greatest picture ever made. But if it's only a great picture, I'll still be satisfied."

(source: TIME Magazine, New York, Dec. 25, 1939)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Time Magazine)

Cinema: Rehearsal to Honeymoon

In 1932 Hungarian-born Cinema Producer Alexander Korda got his newly organized London Film Productions off to a so-so start with a film called Wedding Rehearsal. A tyro actress named Merle Oberon was in the cast. Next year Korda got enough money together to make the famed Private Life of Henry VIII, with Merle playing Anne Boleyn to Charles Laughton's Henry. Henry VIII not only put the British cinemindustry on the map, but brought fame & fortune to many, including Producer Korda, Cinemactress Oberon.

Before Korda spotted her in 1932, when she was doing bit parts for British studios, Estelle Merle O'Brien Thompson, a lithe, dark girl with magazine cover curves and beckoning Eurasian eyes, had been a hostess in a London café. She says she was born in Tasmania, lived in Bombay and Calcutta, was brought to England at 17 by an army officer uncle.

Since Henry VIII, Merle Oberon has appeared in a succession of important Hollywood cinemas, but once a year she returns to make a film for Korda. She has been romantically linked with several cinema swains, chiefly Brian Aherne (opposite her in Beloved Enemy) and David Niven (opposite her in Wuthering Heights). But last week it was clear that, no matter how many cinema hands she had held for the publicity department, her heart still belonged to Korda. At Antibes, France, after some delay because experienced (once-divorced) Bridegroom Korda mislaid a necessary paper, Korda and Oberon were married, went on a Riviera honeymoon.

(source: TIME Magazine, New York, Jun. 12, 1939)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Time Magazine)

Cinema: ‘Calcutta’ No3 in Late Spring Box Office

Business at cinemansion box offices was still far below the wartime boom. Variety blamed it on rain, premature summer and lightweight products.

Exhibitors said that all they really need is better pictures to draw crowds; they particularly want big new marquee names. At present the only sure-fire stars—regardless of the picture—are Ingrid Bergman and Bing Crosby.

Hollywood, anticipating a recession in the not-too-distant future, was planning more costly and colossal productions on the theory that any old picture will make money in good times, but in tough times, the public gets choosy.

Top money-makers over the past few weeks:

1) Duel in the Sun (S.R.O.) and The Egg and I (Universal)

2) The Farmer's Daughter (RKO Radio)

3) The Best Years of Our Lives (RKO Radio) and Calcutta (Paramount)

4) The Macomber Affair (United Artists)

5) The Two Mrs. Carrolls (Warner) and Odd Man Out (Rank; Universal-International).

(source: TIME Magazine, New York, Jun. 9, 1947)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Time Magazine)

Cinema The New Pictures: Calcutta (Paramount)

Calcutta (Paramount) is a conventional, well-made melodrama about two U.S. airmen (Alan Ladd, William Eendix) who undertake to find out who killed their best friend, and why. In the course of finding out, Ladd and the dead man's sweetheart (Gail Russell) make uneasy but interested eyes at each other. There is some effective singing in a nightclub (by June Duprez), such side dishes of menace as a suspect gentleman in a turban, and some reasonably exciting mayhem in a pitch dark hangar. Gradually the investigators realize that they have unwittingly been flying the Hump for a gang of jewel thieves who will stop at nothing—not even the picture's denouement.

Alan Ladd handles both girls and perils with his customary cold, efficient grace; Gail Russell is very easy to look at; and William Bendix, as usual, is a benefit to the show—though he is given nothing much to set his teeth in. Well-mounted, well-played, well-tailored in every way, the picture even suggests that it might be taking place in some such city as Calcutta. Yet it will be impossible for a melodramaddict to feel that he hasn't already been there a hundred times.

(source: TIME Magazine, New York, Apr. 28, 1947)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Time Magazine)

_____Memories of 1940s Calcutta_______________________

"Do they think that is what America is really like?"

And that reminds me of another embarrssing situation.

When attending a movie in a Calcutta theater and an American film was showing, sometimes absolutely silly scenes would be on the screen. Those scenes might have made an American laugh at home, but there in India, again, I would have liked to crawl under a seat. I wanted to stand up and loudly announce, "Hey, fine folks, that's not really the way it is back home where I'm from. We don't really act that way."

Situations that would have been absurdly funny to an American at home evoked not even a smile from Indians watching the show. I wondered, "Do they think that is what America is really like?"

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley)

“No admission to Indians”

There was a small board in front of Metro Cinema, saying: “No admission to Indians”.

(N.S. Mani, newly employed office worker from Kerala, Calcutta, February 1945

(source: Telegraph Thursday, October 27, 2005)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with N.S. Mani )

'Aag’ et al. at the bioscope

After an excellent lunch of, usually, grilled Betki and mashed aloo, we would go to the 'bioscope' -the flicks at the Lighthouse cinema : l have, of course seen a number of Indian films including- 'Aag’ starring Raj Kapoor with plenty of noise and action ' After the 'flicks' we would return to Megna, passing through numerous bazzars from which floated many exotic smells and loud music - ' Duniya mai kon ke humera ?' - and such like songs ; all of which lent an air of mystery and excitement to those long past journeys.

Kenneth Miln, son of a ‘jute wallah’. Jagatdal/Calcutta, 1945-49

(source: Letter sent to us by Mr Kenneth Miln himself, July 2006/ Reproduced by courtesy of Kenneth Miln)

Q. Did Aurora has any permanent cinema hall?

A. Yes. Till 1947, in undivided Bengal, Aurora had several cinema halls. I saw one hall at 'Pabna' and one at 'Faridpur' which we had to leave after independence. At that time we also had to leave few other halls as those were remained under the territory of East Pakisthan. In West Bengal, we had two cinema halls, one at Kharagpur and one at Midnapur. Both were named 'Aurora Talkies' and still exist. Once Aurora took lease one cinema hall at Howrah for few days.

(Biswanath Mitra, Film editor at Aurora Film, Calcutta, 1930-today )

(source: Interview By Sougata Bhattacharya (sougata_28@rediffmail.com) with Mr. Biswanath Mitra (Editor) at Aurora Film, Calcutta, 1930-today, seen at http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/2003-March/002556.html, Thu Mar 27 21:04:56 CET 2003)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Sougata Bhattacharya)

Seating in the Chowringee Road cinema

She wants to know about seating in the Chowringee Road cinema (I don't rememer which one it was) where I frequently watched movies. Yes, everyone was sitting together any time I ever attended. A person just went in, looked for an empty seat and sat down.

Military, civilian, Indian, anybody seemed to sit where they pleased.

I think I may have commented before, but when I attended movies, and with a mixed audience of Indians and the rest of us, many times I wished I could hide under a seat. Circumstances on the screen that would have evoked laughter from an Amercan audience produced strange silence from my Indian seatmates. I would think to myself,"I know these peole think they are seeing the truth about American daily life, but it's just a movie. Life at home is NOT like what you are seeing at all."

I wish I could remember the name of that cinema, but I can't. All I know is it was one on Chowringee and across from the Maidan, not far from the Esplanade. I know there were several that might fit that description, but that's the bet I can do.

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley)

'Wherefore art thou, Romeo?'

and we were able to carry on and go to the pictures, which were really nice out there, because they were all air-conditioned and it was so hot in Calcutta. I always remember that on one occasion we went to see 'Romeo and Juliet'. Obviously it wasn't our taste of a picture and we made ourselves a bit of a nuisance what with, 'Wherefore art thou, Romeo?' and all the rest of it. 'Ssh, ssh', people went, so we got up and walked out.

Kenneth Shaw Prout, Army, Calcutta, 1944

(source: A5526489 Memories of a Bombardier 1940 - 1946 (Part 4) at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

First out in Calcutta

I spent the summer of 1949 in Calcutta and saw many movies. At that time, they were released in Calcutta as soon as they were released in the US – almost immediately. A few months later, I left for the US to live in Poughkeepsie, NY which is a small town 75 miles north of New York City. The movies I had seen in Calcutta only came to Poughkeepsie several months later. My friends were very surprised that I had already seen them in Calcutta. I don't remember the names of the Movie theatres in Calcutta but they were very elegant with luxurious seats.

Moira Breen

(Source: unknown, probably internet discussion board Feb 2003)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Moira Breen)

Being bugged at the Cinema

In the cinema […] you always sat on your coat because of the bugs.

Joyce Taylor, nurse with Air Force Nursing Service Reserve. Calcutta, 1944.

(source Pat Barr: The Dust in the Balance. British Women n India 1905-1945. London: Hamish Hamilton 1989)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Pat Barr)

To the Plaza for a rare cinema trip

[I remember] The race down the terraced tea estate to get to the Plaza for a rare cinema trip. The noise of some two hundred boys breaking open the husks of monkey nuts in the cinema, while the prefects on the balcony shouted "Stop eating cheenas!"

John Gardiner, boarding school pupil at Victoria School. Kurseong 1939-1946

(source: John Gardiner: Memories of VSK (1939 – 1946) on website of Victoria & Dow hill Schools Kurseong at http://www.orbonline.net/~auballan/J_Gardners_VSK.htm)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Gardiner)

The selected storytellers

[I remember] Lying in bed at night as the monsoon rain hammered on the corrugated tin roof. Each dormitory had selected storytellers, and the subject matter came from the films seen in the last holidays.

John Gardiner, boarding school pupil at Victoria School. Kurseong 1939-1946

(source: John Gardiner: Memories of VSK (1939 – 1946) on website of Victoria & Dow hill Schools Kurseong at http://www.orbonline.net/~auballan/J_Gardners_VSK.htm)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Gardiner)

To the air raid shelter

One of my last memories of that time is going to the pictures with my eldest sister Marie, who used to look after all her younger brothers and sisters and in fact continued to be a benefactress to all of us as long as she was able. The film was "Caught in the Draft". On the way to the cinema there was an air raid signal and we all trooped into a nearby shop where there was an air raid shelter. I should think this must have been around 1942 when the Japs were bombing Calcutta. Although this is my only conscious memory of an air raid, the sound of a siren like an air raid siren still has the effect of throwing me into a panic.

Elizabeth James (nee Shah), AngloIndian schoolgirl. Calcutta 1942

(source: page 14 Elizabeth James: An Anglo Indian Tale: The Betrayal of Innocence. Delhi: Originals, 2004 / Reproduced by courtesy of Elizabeth James (nee Shah))

Cinema for the troops

After doing a spell of menial tasks around the transit camp, I saw a notice on the Order Board that personnel were required to train as 'Cinema Projectionist' for a new Corps being formed to take mobile units around Burma. So I volunteered.

After hearing nothing for three or four weeks, I was suddenly informed that I had been selected for training in this new unit. It was to be called the AKS (Army Kinema Section), later to become CKS (Combined Kinema Section).

I travelled to Bombay alone to join others at a tented camp outside the City centre. We were given an intensive course in handling cinema projection equipment, both 16mm and 35mm and in the theory of motion-picture technique, sound cine and electricity by experts from REME and Bombay Film Studios.

I found this most interesting and at the end of several weeks, I passed out as a qualified projectionist and was immediately promoted to the rank of Sergeant in Dec ‘44.

This was indeed a turn-up for the book; three stripes proudly sewn on the sleeve, use of any sergeant’s mess and best of all, up went the pay some threefold. The Rupee was of course the currency of the day. Just had to write the news home and Dad could not believe I had been made a Sergeant!

Not all of us made the grade but those who did collected a brand-new Canadian Bedford, 15cwt truck (I still have photographs of this) with a 240v generator bolted to the floor and two 16mm Victor projectors and speakers, in padded boxes along the sides.

Added to these, a large screen that fitted into a ‘take-apart’ tubular frame, enough spares for any mishaps - and some films.

We were also assigned an Indian soldier known as an IOR (Indian Other Rank) as an assistant who was picked from the Indian Army, usually having, like us, seen some action or been downgraded medically. They were trained to be assistant projectionist and relief driver.

As with so many in India, one could end up with a Sikh, Hindu, Tamil etc. I had a Pathan, a hillman from the North West Frontier, who had I believe been a havildar (sergeant) in the Indian army but was reduced to the ranks through some misdemeanour. He was now a Naik (lance corporal). He was a huge bearded fellow who frightened the life out of me, the first time I saw him, by his size but he was a marvellous companion. One never felt nervous travelling all those thousands of miles, as we did, through Burma with him around. He also acted as batman - such luxury!

The first thing he did on arriving at the location of a show was to make up the Sahib's bed, whether it was in the truck or a sergeant’s mess and arrange hot water for washing etc. We conversed in a mixture of Urdu (to speak this was a part of getting my third stripe), English and sign language.

Thus equipped and with our new Bedfords, we were all loaded on to long railway 'flats', three trucks to a flat and huffed and puffed our way right across India from Bombay to Calcutta. That would make a story in itself, sleeping, cooking, eating on the 'flat', getting water from the engine for washing and making char. Sleeping on that rocking platform, under the stars.

Calcutta was a much more squalid city than Bombay with many beggars and people dying on the streets during the night to be picked up by the 'death cart' in the morning. The streets teemed with troops of all nationalities: Yanks, Chinese, Malays, Africans you name them they were there.

After a few days at Calcutta, we were despatched on our separate ways with a list of places to visit. I was assigned a route that was to take me back into Burma more peacefully this time. Food and petrol etc was collected where you could at various units on route and likewise pay.

On arrival at a unit, you would contact the adjutant or like and be shown a place or just space where you were to put on a show. The screen would be erected and held upright with guy ropes, the projectors were placed on their transit boxes and connected to the speakers. The 15cwt was parked at a distance with its generator connected to the projectors with a heavy cable. The film was threaded up and you were ready to start the show.

When dusk fell, there was no twilight, the troops starting arriving, sitting on the ground or on boxes, tree trunks etc in front of (and often behind) the screen and the show would begin.

With the help of the IOR a slick change over from each machine could be obtained; sometimes not so slick and now and then the wrong reel put on by mistake, this would be greeted with boos and catcalls - just like the 'Regal' at home.

The films were quite up-to-date and included cartoons and newsreels flown in from England. The audiences were usually most appreciative and the cinema outfit was always welcome whether it was a proper camp or just a clearing in the jungle.

With this outfit we travelled hundreds of miles all over Burma, visiting all the famous places such as Mandalay, Meiktila, Shewbo, Pegu etc not forgetting Kohima where there is now famous memorial to the 14th Army with this inscription:

'When you go home, tell them of us and say

For your tomorrow we gave our today.’

Some of the locations were near to the front line, in fact sometimes within earshot of heavy guns. Some of the places I had been to as a fighting soldier. ENSA shows toured Burma and India. I saw Vera Lynn performing on a makeshift stage in a jungle clearing, very near the front line with full supporting cast. Likewise Tommy Trinder for whom I helped to generate the juice for the stage lights with the cinema generator He wasn’t too pleased when they all went out in the middle of his act because someone or an animal had charged through the supply cable.

And so the shows went on wherever possible and, like the fighting did not stop for the monsoon season which lasts some three months. We pressed on despite the rain, which in turn brought the mud. It just added to life's difficulties; something else to be overcome.

After a long spell with the 15cwt, I was given a 30cwt truck with a single Kaylee 35mm projector, with RCA sound, mounted to project over the cab through an aperture. There was an additional 15cwt truck and driver for the power supply. These were proper cinema arc projectors and the 35mm film was highly inflammable, unlike the 'Safety 16mm'. With the single projector one had to change reels, usually eight to a film; this swift but unavoidable interval was always greeted with catcalls.

When showing Indian films to the coloured troops, there were usually twelve reels or more. Very tedious! To shorten the show, I tried cheating by missing out some reels at random but was caught out one night by an Indian officer who knew the film story - rapped knuckles for that one!

Those Indian films with their strange music always seemed to attract snakes; maybe it was just coincidence but so often after such a show there was a snake scare. One night during a show, I went back to the 15cwt to fetch something and there found a long snake inside the cab near the engine. Being a 'clever dick', I pulled out the Service revolver we carried (a Colt .38) and fired at it. Oh yes! I hit it after a couple of shots but in doing so smashed the carburettor and had to spend the night on location. Needless to say, I slept the night in the Unit's Sergeants Mess, not in the truck.

Kenneth Rawlinson, Sergeant 'Cinema Projectionist' AKS (Army Kinema Section), later to become CKS (Combined Kinema Section), Bombay, Calcutta & Burma, 1945

(source: A7659723 A Willing Volunteer Part 3 at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

The Snakes of Bollywood

With the single projector one had to change reels, usually eight to a film; this swift but unavoidable interval was always greeted with catcalls.

When showing Indian films to the coloured troops, there were usually twelve reels or more. Very tedious! To shorten the show, I tried cheating by missing out some reels at random but was caught out one night by an Indian officer who knew the film story - rapped knuckles for that one!

Those Indian films with their strange music always seemed to attract snakes; maybe it was just coincidence but so often after such a show there was a snake scare. One night during a show, I went back to the 15cwt to fetch something and there found a long snake inside the cab near the engine. Being a 'clever dick', I pulled out the Service revolver we carried (a Colt .38) and fired at it. Oh yes! I hit it after a couple of shots but in doing so smashed the carburettor and had to spend the night on location. Needless to say, I slept the night in the Unit's Sergeants Mess, not in the truck.

Kenneth Rawlinson, Sergeant 'Cinema Projectionist' AKS (Army Kinema Section), later to become CKS (Combined Kinema Section), Bombay, Calcutta & Burma, 1945

(source: A7659723 A Willing Volunteer Part 3 at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

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Theatres

_____Pictures of 1940s Calcutta________________________

Professor Sher Mohammed

Believe it or not, this man has just bitten the head from a live Krait snake. He is professor Sher Mohammed and his feats include drinking acid, eating glass, fire-walking. He is a legitimate performer and has spent the war years touring for the entertainment of Indian troops rather than poach on sidewalk tourists.

Clyde Waddell, US military man, personal press photographer of Lord Louis Mountbatten, and news photographer on Phoenix magazine. Calcutta, mid 1940s

(source: webpage http://oldsite.library.upenn.edu/etext/sasia/calcutta1947/? Monday, 16-Jun-2003 / Reproduced by courtesy of David N. Nelson, South Asia Bibliographer, Van Pelt Library, University of Pennsylvania)

_____Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta___

Addresses of Theatres in 1940

Alfred Theatre (Natya Bharati)—91A Harrison Road. Phone, B.B. 1544.

Calcuttan Theatre—85 Upper Chitpore Road.

Corinthian Theatre—5 Dharamsala Street.

Minerva Theatre—6 Beadon Street. Phone, B.B- 5289.

Natya Niketan—2A Raja Raj Kissen Street.

Rungmahal Theatre—76/1 Cornwallis Street.

Star Theatre—79 Cornwallis Street. Phone, B.B. 1139.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 243 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

The Aurora Touring Party

In Bengal, during those days, theatre was more popular than cinema. Moreover, 'Aurora Touring Party' had its own theatre team for itinerant shows. Itinerant shows means a combination of film shows, magic shows and theatre shows.

Q. Did you see Aurora's itinerant exhibition?

A. Not those film shows. But I saw the activities of touring party at our house. Just after the Durgapuja festival, Those teams used to get out and traveled throughout the Bengal, Bihar, Assam for entire winter season. I saw three similar teams. Among the three managers, one was my maternal uncle, Sati Bhusan Ghosh. The other two was Ashu Gupta and

..(sorry! I can't recall it).

Q. How long this business run?

A. Up to the mid 1930s until Aurora had its own studio and fully shifted in distribution and production business.

Q. But as far I read, tent shows lost its popularity from early 1920s

A. That was happened in cities and developing villages, not in the entire Bengal. Moreover we had some invitations from different landlords at their palaces.

(Biswanath Mitra, Film editor at Aurora Film, Calcutta, 1930-today )

(source: Interview By Sougata Bhattacharya (sougata_28@rediffmail.com) with Mr. Biswanath Mitra (Editor) at Aurora Film, Calcutta, 1930-today, seen at http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/2003-March/002556.html, Thu Mar 27 21:04:56 CET 2003)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Sougata Bhattacharya)

Silly burlesques in Tagore’s Palace

Calcutta, 1944. Me (extreme right) on the steps of one of the the palatial homes [at Bally] of the poet Rabindranath Tagore - opened to the RAF for the duration of the war. Here, I and my friends do a silly burlesque on the steps of the grand entrance.

Paul Wigmore, Royal Air Force , Calcutta,1944

(source: A2849484 Another Innocent Abroad Edited at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Shakespeareana at The Garrison Theatre

By October, it seemed safe to go to Calcutta, where we stayed until January 1948, playing at the old Garrison Theatre in Park Street. We were based at the Fairlawn Hotel, an old-fashioned family-run place, which had become our home whenever we were in Calcutta. The Bengalis have always been interested in theatre, and their drama has a strong intellectual element. Two promising young actors, Utpal Dutt and Pratap Roy, joined us for a while. The Calcutta audiences and critics were enthusiastic. The Statesman critic wrote of Othello:

‘Nobody appreciative of good acting and fluent stage manage ment should miss this performance ... we came away from the Garrison Theatre with a feeling of integration, which no other available form of amusement is able to provide for the residents of this city, and having once enjoyed it, we cannot but wish that the English Repertory Company would prolong their stay here indefinitely. Their presence in Calcutta has raised the cultural level of the city, and could they be persuaded to make it their home, at least during every winter, Calcutta would be less cut off from the rest of the world.'

Geoffrey Kendal, actor manager of the Shakespeareana traveling theatre group. Calcutta1947/48

(source: Geoffrey Kendal: The Shakespeare Wallah. London: Sidgick & Jackson, 1986 )

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Geoffrey Kendal)

School Entertainments

There were occasional school concerts. Under the leadership of Mrs. Clarke, our entire class had to draw, paint and then cut out cardboard masks, representing different animals. I must have drawn the short straw, as mine was the elephant. I have no memory of the song, and this was years before the “Doctor Doolittle” movie came along. On another occasion I played Henry the Eighth, and my pal Basset had the part of one of his many queens. The scene was set at breakfast, and for as few happy hours we were under the impression that we would get to eat something pleasant on stage. The producer supplied already emptied eggshells, which when turned upside down in the eggcups looked normal. My allusions of the theatre were shattered at an early age. Some of the senior classes were given a fascinating lecture by an American Air Force officer on “Skip Bombing”, where light bombers dropped their weapons just feet above the surface of the sea, so that the bomb bounced several times before slamming into the side of the target ship. There was a visit from a magician in the Assembly Hall. The cleverness with playing cards was too far away from those at the back of the hall, but his finale involved a saucer that was handed to a victim. Then on stage, the man lit a candle and waved his hands over the flame. There was a yelp from the saucer-holder, as the object in his hands became too hot to handle. This impressed us immensely, until some know-all in a senior class explained that the saucer was covered in something that stung… the distant candle was merely a stage prop. The school was often visited by Father Prior, an impressive old gentleman wearing white with a beard to match. One of his favourite stories was that the purpose of the steep roaring mountain streams was to move sand and rocks down towards the sea, thus making “King George’s empire ever bigger”. His other party trick was to tell us “The Monkey’s Paw”, and this always soon before bed-time. I don’t think we really understood the play, but most were scared witless.

John Gardiner, boarding school pupil at Victoria School. Kurseong 1939-1946

(source: John Gardiner: Memories of VSK (1939 – 1946) on website of Victoria & Dow hill Schools Kurseong at http://www.orbonline.net/~auballan/J_Gardners_VSK.htm)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Gardiner)

_____Memories of 1940s Calcutta_______________________

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The Radio

_____Pictures of 1940s Calcutta________________________

_____Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta___

ALL INDIA RADIO

The pioneer of wireless transmission was that gifted genius Signor Marconi. In May 1897 he made his first successful experiment across the length of a billiard table in a hotel in the Isle of Wight. This was followed by demonstrations in Italy two months later, when communication was established between an Italian cruiser and the shore.

The far-reaching possibilities of this invention, the greatest of the day, were quickly realized by the British Post Office, and before long the Admirality and large shipping concerns, showed their practical interest in this wonderful method of communication. In 1901, only a year after the formation of the Marconi International Marine Communication Company, the first British ship was fitted with wireless: today a world total of no less than 15,000 ships are so equipped, including 4,000 British vessels.

When the British India Steam Navigation Company decided to fit their fleet of ships on the Indian coast with wireless, the Marconi Marine Company in 1912 established an office in Hastings Street, Calcutta, for that purpose;

by 1918, however, larger accommodation became necessary, and the Company moved to Temple Chambers. It will be of interest to note that the first broadcasting transmitter, known as 5 A.F., was installed here in 1923.

In 1927, the Indian Broadcasting Company was formed, and erected Broadcasting Stations at Bombay and Calcutta; this company was later taken over by the Government, who have re-organised the service and are responsible for the fine quality and variety of the programmes provided.

Today wireless plays a large part in the world's activities; it is used for entertainment, advertising and propaganda.

A few yards down Hare Street are the offices of the

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 74-75 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

LOST AND FOUND

Inquire At.  U.S. Military Hq. at 6 Lindsay Street

Calcutta Police Hq. at Lal Bazar

Advertise In.  The Daily Bulletin.

The Local Newspaper.

Broadcast.  If you have lost something extremely valuable, such as important documents, get in touch with the Station Director of the All-India Radio Station.

(source: “The Calcutta Key” Services of Supply Base Section Two Division, Information and education Branch, United States Army Forces in India - Burma, 1945: at: http://cbi-theater-12.home.comcast.net/~cbi-theater-12/calcuttakey/calcutta_key.html)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

RADIO for U.S. Servicemen

VU2ZU Calling.  VU2ZU calling at 1355 on the dial! You Yanks in Base Section No. 2 not only have a great newspaper of your own, but you also have a modern and complete radio station serving you and the Allied Forces in the I-B Theater. With two small, well-equipped studios and a large auditorium for producing live shows, and now operating on 1000 watts, VU2ZU is now Big Time. Sound-proofed walls, indirect lighting, heavily carpeted floors - it's worth anyone's visiting just to take a look.

Listening In.  Much of the broadcasting time is and will continue to be devoted to transcribed programs fresh from the States. But live shows featuring you and your buddy are one of the main factors in entertaining you. Daily summaries of the news will be augmented by important news flashes that will be broadcast throughout the day. Sports events, important ceremonies, etc., will continue to receive spot covering. Consult the Radio Station for weekly radio programs, keep tuned in for late happenings, or when in Command town visit the studios to look them over and, if you wish, to participate with the audience in live shows. For any program requests, write or telephone to the Station Director, Station VU2ZU, located in Rest Camp No. 1 of Base Section No. 2.

(source: “The Calcutta Key” Services of Supply Base Section Two Division, Information and education Branch, United States Army Forces in India - Burma, 1945: at: http://cbi-theater-12.home.comcast.net/~cbi-theater-12/calcuttakey/calcutta_key.html)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Radios & Radio Repairs:

C. C. Saha, Ltd., 170 Dharamtolla St., 1000-1400 Thurs., 1000-1900 weekdays and Sat. Will repair most makes of radios in 3-4 days.

Chicago Telephone & Radio Co., Ltd., 25 Chowringhee Rd., 0930-1830 weekdays, 0930-1500 Sat. Repair service by following day when possible. Recordings for sale.

Radio Supply Stores, Ltd., 3 Dalhousie Sq. East, 1030-1830 weekdays, 1030-1530 Sat. Repair all makes if parts available, 7-12 day service. Spare parts sold. Public Speaking equipment.

N. B. Sen, 11 Esplanade East, 1000-1900 weekdays, 1000-1400 Sat. 1 week for repair estimate, an additional several days for the work itself.

(source: “The Calcutta Key” Services of Supply Base Section Two Division, Information and education Branch, United States Army Forces in India - Burma, 1945: at: http://cbi-theater-12.home.comcast.net/~cbi-theater-12/calcuttakey/calcutta_key.html)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

_____Memories of 1940s Calcutta_______________________

a regular slot on the air

During his stay in Calcutta, the ‘All India Radio’ recognized his talent as an exceptional pianist and gave him a regular slot on the air. Working for the radio station he would accompany the Westminster Singers on the piano once a month and he would play the latest records which he would be given for free from H.M.V records Calcutta branch during his weekly slot. Just before leaving India, he and a group of three others in the depot formed the R.A.F Muir Club quartet, which was a group of musicians who performed for the rest of the R.A.F, stationed in Calcutta.

One of the final things he did before leaving India was to appear in a film called ‘India Calling Blighty’

Bertram Hughes, RAF radio mechanic &‘Educational and Vocational Training Sergeant,, Calcutta, 1944-47

(source: A2772236 My Grandpa's Life During World War 2 Edited at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

speaking on BBC radio from Calcutta

In July 1943 I heard that my boyfriend Charlie would be speaking on BBC radio from Calcutta. Although I was working in the depot, I was given permission to walk back to camp and listen on the radio there, it was lovely to hear him.

Doreen Myall W/242400 , ATS at RAOC (Royal Army Ordinance Corp), Greenford Middlesex UK, July 1943

(source: A3658944 My Time in the ATS at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

The radio worsened things

The radio worsened things. Being government-controlled, it gave censored news. Though even that was fearsome, few believed what they heard. They relied on even more fearsome rumours, especially since, in other respects, the information given over the radio did not fit what they themselves were seeing. These rumours further intimidated the residents of mixed localities, and minorities began to move out of them, ghettoising the city even more.

Ashis Nandy. Schoolboy, Calcutta, 1946

(source pages3 of Ashis Nandy: “Death of an Empire” in Persimmon. Asian Literature, Arts and Culture (Volume III, Number 1, New York, Spring 200r also www.sarai.net/journal/02PDF/03morphologies/ 04death_empire.pdf pp 14-20 Sarai Reader 2002: The Cities of Everyday Life.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Ashis Nandy)

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ENSA

_____Pictures of 1940s Calcutta________________________

ID Cards

Pansie Marjorie Muriel Hepworth Norris's and Max Norris's ENSA I. D. Cards

Pansie Marjorie Muriel Hepworth Norris, ENSA Entertainer, Calcutta, 1945

(source: A5253518 The ENSA Years of ‘The Norris Trio’ - Part 2 - My Burma Story at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

_____Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta___

_____Memories of 1940s Calcutta_______________________

‘The White Cliffs of Dover’

On one night I remember, about 5000 soldiers were marched into a great field, and there, picked out by a searchlight, in a shimmering silver dress, was Vera Lynn. And she sang ‘The White Cliffs of Dover

Maurice Gross, Army Pharmacist, Calcutta, 1945

(source: A5756187 One Man's War. at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Vera Lynn & Noel Coward

On only two occasions did we get visits from well-known stars back home. The first was Vera Lynn whose husband was in India and the second was Noel Coward. I will never forget the concert he gave at Barrackpore. Wonderful! He sang his own songs accompanying himself at the piano. The words were often not those normally sung to his tunes, but especial for the occasion and somewhat risqué. At half time he went off to change his shirt which was absolutely wet through in the heat - and then came back refreshed. A great entertainer and a great man.

Harry Tweedale, RAF Signals Section, Calcutta,Barrackpore, 1942-44

(source: A6665457 TWEEDALE's WAR Part 11 Pages 85-92 at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

We decided to get married in Calcutta

During a trip from Bombay to Calcutta, when we were nearing the station the Ballet-master told all the girls to lie down on the floor as there was a lot of rioting ahead.

Our ENSA residential trucks were burned out and so the company was stranded, but not for long. The Army made room for us overnight and then escorted us to our hotel the following day - we were so grateful to them.

We decided to get married in Calcutta. Tom arrived at the hotel on leave and we went to the church to arrange a time for the service that afternoon. We were asked if we could attend in three hours time. The ring was a problem as all the jewellery shops in Calcutta were closed because of the rioting.

BORROWED A RING

The lead dancer offered her own ring but we eventually found a hotel that sold jewellery. The Best Man shaved himself in toothpaste - I remember - and had the nerve to complain!

The company organised everything from a bouquet to a double room and the Ballet Master acted as Father to the bride. ALL THIS IN THREE HOURS.

I became Mrs Barbara Craig the very happy and honored wife of Lt Tom Craig of the Royal Engineers. I had always tried to help others in the company and now this was returned without measure.

Barbara Craig nee Lang, ENSA, Calcutta, 1945

(source: A3868941 Wartime Romance Memories of an ENSA Ballet Dancer at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

On tour with George Formby

At the beginning of March 1945, three of us, Jimmy Fortieth, Tommy Goldsmith and myself picked up George Formby and his wife Beryl, with a piano, his ukelele's, stage manager and comedian, and took in Akyab, Ramree Island, Sadaung, Shwebo,Alipore. We finished in Calcutta, where George introduced us to Wee Georgie Wood who was then going out to entertain the troops. The three of us ended up having a bath and then dinner at George and Beryl's suite in the Great eastern Hotel in Calcutta. I was a Flight Sgt. by this time and had completed 33 operational flights.

In March 1945 I was promoted to Warrant Officer and was posted as an Instructor to A.S.T.R. School Calcutta (Aircrew Signals training Refresher).In October 1945 I was posted to Chaklala-N India until my demobilisation in June 1946.

Rowland M. Hill, Royal Air Force, Calcutta, 1945

(source: A4144484 Five Years of a Government Financed World Tour at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

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Records & Popular Music

_____Pictures of 1940s Calcutta________________________

Phonographs offered for sale in Calcutta

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: Glenn S. Hensley: Phonograph for sale, B016, Phonographs offered for sale in Calcutta seen at University of Chicago Hensley Photo Library at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/hensley as well as a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)

_____Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta___

Music

Base Section No. 2 Military Band is decidedly worth listening to - Watch for its appearances.

(source: “The Calcutta Key” Services of Supply Base Section Two Division, Information and education Branch, United States Army Forces in India - Burma, 1945: at: http://cbi-theater-12.home.comcast.net/~cbi-theater-12/calcuttakey/calcutta_key.html)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Music & Musical Instruments:

T. E. Bevan & Co. Ltd., 21 Old Court House Street, 0900-1730 weekdays, 1000-1300 Saturdays. Excellent stock of recordings, limited supply of sheet music, some musical instruments & repair.

C. C. Saha, Ltd., 170 Dharamtolla St., 1000-1900 weekdays & Sat., 1000-1400 Thurs. Recordings. Repair.

(source: “The Calcutta Key” Services of Supply Base Section Two Division, Information and education Branch, United States Army Forces in India - Burma, 1945: at: http://cbi-theater-12.home.comcast.net/~cbi-theater-12/calcuttakey/calcutta_key.html)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Popular western songs of 1939

Popular western songs of the year are:

A Tisket, A Tasket (Ella Fitzgerald, 1938), An Apple For the Teacher, Beer Barrel Polka (by Andrews Sisters), Begin The Beguine (Artie Shaw, 1938), Blue Skies Around the Corner, Deep Purple, Flat-Foot Floogey With The Floy Floy (1938), God Bless America (Kate Smith, 1938), Hold Tight, Hold Tight, Jeepers Creepers, I Git Along Without You Very Well (1939), If I Didn't Care, It's in the Air, J'attendrai, Le Fiacre, Let's Dance (by Benny Goodman), Little Sir Echo, Moonlight Serenade (by Glenn Miller Orchestra), My Heart Belongs to Daddy, My Own, Over The Rainbow (by Judy Garland, from "The Wizard of Oz"), Run Rabbit Run, Says My Heart (Ozzie Nelson, 1938), Strange Fruit (Billie Holiday, 1939), Tears on my Pillow, There'll Always be an England, Three Little Fishies (by Kay Keyser), Two Sleepy People, The Umbrella Man, Undecided, We'll Meet Again, We're Going to Hang Out the Washing on the Siegfried Line, Wings Over the Navy, Wishing (Will Make It So) (Glenn Miller, 1939), Woodchopper's Ball, You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby.

Popular western songs of 1940

Popular western songs of the year are:

All The Things You Are (Tommy Dorsey), A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square, Beat Me Daddy, Eight To The Bar (by The Andrews Sisters), Blueberry Hill (Glenn Miller), Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B (by The Andrews Sisters), Careless, Flying Home (by Lionel Hampton), Fools Rush In Where Angels Fear To Tread (Glenn Miller), Frenesi (Artie Shaw), Goodnight Children Everywhere, If I Only Had Wings, I'll Never Smile Again (Tommy Dorsey), Indian Summer (Tommy Dorsey), In The Mood (Glenn Miller), It's a Hap-Hap-Happy Day, It's a Lovely Day Tomorrow, Let the People Sing, Moonlight Serenade (Glenn Miller), Oh Johnny Oh, Our Love Affair, Over the Rainbow Pennsylvania 6 5000 (by Glenn Miller), Scatterbrain, Somewhere in France With You, South Rampart Street Parade, Star Dust (by Glenn Miller), The Boys in the Back Room, There's a Boy Coming Home on Leave, Too Romantic, Tuxedo Junction (Glenn Miller), When You Wish Upon a Star, Where or When, Who's Taking You Home Tonight, You've Done Something to My Heart

Popular western songs of 1941

Popular western songs of the year are:

All the Things You Are, Amapola (Pretty Little Poppy) (Jimmy Dorsey w/Helen O'Connell), Bless 'em All, Blue Champagne (Jimmy Dorsey), Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy (The Andrews Sisters) , Chattanooga Choo Choo (Glenn Miller), Daddy (Sammy Kaye), Dolores, Down Forget-me-not Lane., Elmer's Tune (Glenn Miller), The Ferry Boat Serenade, Flamingo, God Bless the Child (by Billie Holiday), Green Eyes (Jimmy Dorsey w/Helen O'Connell), The Hut Sut Song, Just One of Those Things, The Last Time I Saw Paris, Let's Get Away From It All (Frank Sinatra, Dorothy Dandridge, The Modernaires, Tommy Dorsey), Maria Elena (Jimmy Dorsey), Maybe, My Sister & I (Jimmy Dorsey), Only Forever, Piano Concerto In B Flat (Freddy Martin), Take the "A" Train (by Duke Ellington), A String Of Pearls (by Glenn Miller), Song Of The Volga Boatmen (Glenn Miller), South American Way, When They Sound the Last All Clear, Whispering Grass, You Stepped Out of a Dream.

Popular western songs of 1942

Popular western songs of the year are:

A Couple of Song and Dance Men (by Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby), American Patrol (by Glenn Miller), At Last (by Glenn Miller Orchestra), Blues In The Night (Woody Herman), Chatanooga Choo-Choo, Deep in the Heart of Texas, Der Fuehrer's Face (by Spike Jones), Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree, Elmer's Tune, The Fleets In, Jingle Jangle Jingle (Kay Kyser), Juke Box Saturday Night (Marion Hutton, Tex Beneke, Modernaires, Nicholas Brothers, Glenn Miller), I Know Why, (I've Got A Gal In) Kalamazoo (Glenn Miller), The Lamplighter's Serenade, Ma I Miss Your Apple Pie, Moonlight Cocktail (Glenn Miller), Praise The Lord & Pass The Ammunition (Kay Kyser), Rose O'Day, Sleepy Lagoon (Harry James), A String Of Pearls (Glenn Miller), Tangerine (Jimmy Dorsey), Watch the Birdie, What More Can I Say, The White Cliffs of Dover, I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas (Bing Crosby), Who Wouldn't Love You (Kay Kyser), Why Don't You Do Right (Get Me Some Money Too) (by Peggy Lee, Benny Goodman), You are my Sunshine.

Popular western songs of 1943

Popular western songs of the year are:

All Or Nothing At All, American Patrol, As Time Goes By, Brazil, Can't Get Out Of This Mood, Comin' In On A Wing & A Prayer (The Song Spinners), Dearly Beloved, Der Fuehrer's Face, Don't Cry Baby, Don't Get Around Much Anymore, Every Night About This Time, For The First Time (I've Fallen In Love), Gobs Of Love, I Had The Craziest Dream (Harry James), I Heard You Cried Last Night, I Never Mention Your Name, I'm Getting Tired So I Can Sleep, I'm Gonna Get Lit Up, I've Heard That Song Before (Harry James), If You Please, I'll be Around, In My Arms, In The Blue Of The Evening (Tommy Dorsey), In The Mood, It Can't Be Wrong, It's Always You, Jukebox Saturday Night, Let's Get Lost, Little Did I Know, Manhatten Serenade, Mister Five By Five, Moonlight Becomes You, Moonlight Mood, My Devotion, My Heart and I, Nightingale, Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin', Oh the Pity of It All, Paper Doll (The Mills Brothers), The Old Music Master, People Will Say We're In Love, Perdido, Pistol Packin' Mama, Pistol Packin' Mama, Praise The Lord and Pass The Ammunition, Put Your Arms Around Me Honey, Rose Ann Of Charing Cross, Sunday, Monday, or Always, Sunday, Monday Or Always (Bing Crosby), Taking A Chance On Love (Benny Goodman), That Old Black Magic (Glenn Miller), There Are Such Things (Tommy Dorsey), There's A Harbor Of Dreamboats, There's A Star Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere, What's The Good Word, Mr. Bluebird?, When The Lights Go On Again (All Over The World), Why Don't You fall In Love With Me?, You Rhyme With Everything That's Beautiful, You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To, You'll Never Know (Dick Haymes).

Popular western songs of 1944

Popular western songs of the year are:

Amor, And Then You Kissed Me, Besame Mucho (Jimmy Dorsey), Dance With A Dolly (With A Hole In Her Stocking), Don't Fence Me In (Bing Crosby & the Andrews Sisters), Do Nothin' Till You Hear From Me, Don't Sweetheart Me, G.I. Jive, Going My Way, Goodnight Wherever You Are, His Rocking Horse Ran Away, (There'll Be A) Hot Time In The Town Of Berlin (Bing Crosby & the Andrews Sisters), How Blue The Night, How Many Hearts Have You Broken, How Sweet You Are, I Couldn't Sleep A Wink Last Night, I Don't Want To Love You (Like I Do), I Dream Of You, I Never Mention Your Name, I'll Be Seeing You, I'll Get By (Harry James), I'll Walk Alone, I'll Remember April, I Love You (Bing Crosby), I'm making Believe, Is You Is Or Is You Ain't (My Baby)?, It Could Happen To You, It Had To Be You, It's Love-Love-Love, Jingle, Jangle, Jingle, A Journey To a Star, Let Me Love You Tonight, Long Ago (And Far Away), A Lovely Way To Spend An Evening, Mairzy Doats and Dozey Doates, Milkman, Keep Those Bottles Quiet, The Music Stopped, My Heart Tells Me (Glen Gray), My Ideal, My Shining Hour, No Love, No Nothin', Oh, What A Beautiful Moring, Poinciana, Pretty Kitty Blue Eyes, Put Your Arms Around Me Honey, San Fernando Valley (Bing Crosby), Shoo-Shoo Baby (Andrews Sisters), Someday I'll Meet You Again, Speak Low (When You Speak Love), Star Eyes, Swinging On A Star (Bing Crosby), Take the 'A' Train, They're Either Too Young Or Too Old, Time Waits For No One, Together, Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, The Trolley Song, Victory Polka, When They Ask About You, You Always Hurt The One You Love (The Mills Brothers), You Belong to My Heart

Popular western songs of 1945

Popular western songs of the year are:

Accentuate The Positive, After Awhile, All Of My Life, A Little On The Lonely Side, Along The Navajo Trail, Always, And There You Are, Baia, Bell Bottom Trousers, Candy, Can't Help Singing, Can't You Read Between The Lines?, Chickery Chick (Sammy Kaye), Cocktails For Two, A Cottage For Sale, Don't Fence Me In, Don't You Know I Care?, Dream, Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye, Eveling, A Friend Of Yours, Gotta Be This Or That, He's Home For A Little While, Homesick, That's All, I Can't Begin To Tell You (Bing Crosby & Carmen Cavallaro), I Didn't Know About You, I Don't Care Who Knows It, I Dream Of You, I Should Care, I Wish I Knew, I'd Do It All Over Again, I'll Buy That Dream, I'm Always Chasing Rainbows, I'm Beginning To See The Light, I'm Gonna Love That Gal, I'm Gonna Love That Guy, If I Loved You, It Could Happen To You, It Might As Well Be Spring, It Had to be You, It's Been A Long, Long Time (Harry James), I'm Beginning To See The Light (Harry James), It's Only A Paper Moon, Jukebox Saturday Night, Just a Little Fond Affection, Just A Prayer Away, Laura, Let's Take The Long Way Home, A Little On The Lonely Side, Love Letters, The More I See You, More and More, My Dreams Are Getting Better All The Time (Les Brown), My Guy's Come Back, Nancy (With The Laughing Face), No Can Do, On The Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe (Johnny Mercer), Out Of This World, Put That Ring On My Finger, Remember When, Rum & Coca-Cola (Andrews Sisters), Saturday Night (Is The Loneliest Night Of The Week), Sentimental Journey (Les Brown featuring Doris Day), Sleigh Ride In July, Shoo Fly Pie and Apple Pan Dowdy (June Christy and the Stan Kenton Orchestra), Some Sunday Morning, Stella by Starlight Strange Music, Straighten Up and Fly Right, A Stranger In Town, Sweet Dreams Sweetheart, (Did You Ever Get) That Feeling In The Moonlight, Symphony That's For Me, There! I've Said It Again (Vaughn Monroe), There Must Be A Way, There's No You, There Goes That Song Again, Till The End Of Time (Perry Como), Till The End Of Time, The Trolley Song, Wait and see, Waitin' For The Train To Come In, Walkin' With My Honey (Soon, Soon, Soon), While You're Away, The Wish That I Wish Tonight, You Belong To My Heart

Popular western songs of 1946

Popular western songs of the year are:

All Through The Day (Frank Sinatra or Perry Como), Aren't You Glad Your You? (Bing Crosby), Atchison, Topeka and the Sante Fe (by Johnny Mercer (Judy Garland sang it too)), The Coffee Song (Frank Sinatra), Come Rain Or Come Shine (Margaret Whiting), Come To baby Do (Les Brown), Day By Day (Frank Sinatra or Jo Stafford), Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief (Betty Hutton), Doing What Comes Naturally (Freddy Martin), Five Minutes More (Frank Sinatra), Full Moon and Empty Arms (Frank Sinatra), A Gal In Calico (Johnny Mercer), The Gypsy (The Ink Spots or Dinah Shore), Hey! Ba-Be-Re-Bop (Tex Beneke & the Glenn Miller Orchestra), I Can't Begin To Tell You (Harry James and Betty Grable), I Don't Know Enough About You (Peggy Lee or the Mills Brothers), I Love You For Sentimental Reasons (Nat "King" Cole), I Got The Sun In The Morning (Les Brown), I'm A Big Girl Now (Sammy Kaye), I'm Always Chasing Rainbows (Harry James), In Love In Vain (Helen Forrest and Dick Haymes), It Might As Well Be Spring (Sammy Kaye), Laughing On The Outside (Crying On The Inside) (Sammy Kaye or Dinah Shore), Let It Snow, Let It Snow (Vaughn Monroe), Linger In My Arms A Little Longer Baby (Peggy Lee), Oh What It Seemed To Be (Frank Sinatra), Old Lamplighter (Sammy Kaye), Ole Buttermilk Sky (Kay Kyser), One-zy, Two-zy (I Love You-zy) (Phil Harris), Personality (Johnny Mercer), Prisoner Of Love (Perry Como), Rumors Are Flying (Les Paul (or Many Others)), Seems Like Old Times (Guy Lombardo or Vaughn Monroe), Shoo Fly Pie (Stan Kenton), Sioux City Sue (Bing Crosby), Somewhere In The Night (Frank Sinatra), Sooner or Later (Sammy Kaye), South America, Take It Away (Bing Crosby & The Andrews Sisters), Surrender (Perry Como), Symphony (Freddie Martin or Benny Goodman), The Things We Did Last Summer (Jo Stafford), This Is Always (Harry James), The Gypsy (Ink Spots), To Each His Own (Eddy Howard or the Ink Spots or Freddy Martin), They Says It's Wonderful (Ethel Merman & Bruce Yarnell, from Annie Get Your Gun), The Whole World Is Singing My Song (Les Brown), You Call It Madness (I Call It Love) (Nat King Cole), You Keep Coming Back Like A Song (Dinah Shore), You Won't Be Satisfied (Until You Break My Heart) (Les Brown or Perry Como)

Popular western songs of 1947

Popular western songs of the year are:

Across The Alley From The Alamo (The Mills Brothers), Almost Like Being In love (Frank Sinatra), An Apple Blossom Wedding (Eddy Howard or Sammy Kaye), Anniversary Song (Dinah Shore), As Long As I'm Dreaming (Tex Beneke), Ask Anyone Who Knows (the Ink Spots), Ballerina (Vaughn Monroe), Chi Baba (Perry Como), Civilization (I Don't Want To Leave The Congo) (Jack Smith or Ray McKinley), Feudin' and Fightin' (Bing Crosby or others), (I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons (Eddie Howard or Dinah Shore), For You, For Me, Forever More (Judy Garland & Dick Haymes), A Gal In Calico (Bing Crosby), Guilty (Margaret Whiting), Heartaches (Ted Weems), How Are Thing In Glocca Morra? (Buddy Clark or Martha Tilton), How Soon Will I Be Seeing You? (Jack Owens), Hugging & Chalking (Hoagy Carmichael), I Wish I Didn't Love You So (Dinah Shore or Vaughn Monroe), I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now? (Perry Como & Ted Weems), I Wonder, I Wonder, I Wonder (Eddie Howard or Guy Lombardo), I'll Close My Eyes (Andy Russell), It's A Good Day (Peggy Lee), It's The Same Old Dream (Tommy Dorsey), Ivy (Jo Stafford), The Lady From 29 Palms (Freddie Martin or The Andrews Sisters), Life Can Be Beautiful (Harry James), Linda (Ray Noble and Buddy Clark), Mam'selle (Frank Sinatra), Managua Nicaragua (Freddy Martin), Midnight Masquerade (Monica Lewis), My Adobe Hacienda (Eddie Howard), Near You (Francis Craig), Oh, But I Do! (Harry James), The Old Lamplighter (Kay Kyser), Open The Door, Richard (Count Basie or The Three Flames), Peg Of My Heart (The Harmonicats), Roses In The Rain (Frankie Carle), Serenade Of The Bells (Jo Stafford), Smoke Smoke Smoke That Cigarette (Tex Williams), So Far (Frank Sinatra), Temptation (Red Ingle), The Stars Will Remember (Vaughn Monroe), Tallahassee (Red Ingle), That's My Desire (Sammy Kaye or Frankie Lane or Martha Tilton) , Time After Time (Frank Sinatra), Too Fat Polka (Arthur Godfrey), You Can't See The Sun When You're Crying (the Ink Spots), You Do (Dinah Shore or Bing Crosby or Vic Damone or Vaughn Monroe), You'll Always Be The One I Love (Dinah Shore), Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah (Johnny Mercer).

Popular western songs of 1948

Popular western songs of the year are:

Baby Face (Art Mooney), Ballerina, Beg Your Pardon, Bluebird Of Happiness, But Beautiful, Buttons & Bows (Dinah Shore), Chi-Baba Chi-Baba, Civilization (Bongo, Bongo, Bongo), Cuanto La Gusta, The Dickey-Bird Song, Every Day I Love You, Fool That I Am, Golden Earrings (Peggy Lee), Hair Of Gold, Eyes Of Blue, Haunted Heart, How Soon (Will I Be Seeing You?), I'll Dance At Your Wedding (Ray Noble), I'm Looking Over A Four-Leaf Clover (Art Mooney), I'm My Own Granpa, It Only Happens When I Dance With You, It's Magic, Laroo Laroo Lilli Bolero, Little White Lies, Love Of My Life, Love Somebody (Doris Day), Manana (Is Soon Enough For Me) (Peggy Lee), Maybe You'll Be There (Gordon Jenkins), My Darling, My Darling, My happiness, Nature Boy (Nat "King" Cole), Now Is The Hour (Bing Crosby), On A Slow Boat To China, Sabre Dance (Woody Herman), Say Something Sweet To Your Sweetheart, Serenade Of The Bells, Toolie Oolie Doolie (The Yodel Polka), A Tree In The Meadow, Twelfth Street Rag (Pee Wee Hunt), Underneath The Arches, Until, Woody Woodpecker, You Call Everybody Darling, You Can't Be True. Dear, You Were Only Fooling (While I Was Falling In Love) (Ink Spots), You Gotta Start Off Each Day With A song (Jimmy Durante, from On An Island With You)

Popular western songs of 1949

Popular western songs of the year are:

A, You're Adorable (Perry Como), A Little Bird Told Me (Evelyn Knight), Again (Doris Day or Mel Torme), And It Still Goes (Vaughn Monroe), Baby It's Cold Outside (Margaret Whiting), Bali Hai (Perry Como), Careless Hands (Mel Torme), Cruising Down The River (Blue Barron), Dear Hearts and Gentle People (Gordon McRea), Don't Cry, Joe (Gordon Jenkins), Everywhere You Go (Guy Lombardo), Far Way Places (Bing Crosby), Fiddle-Dee-Dee (Johnny Desmond), Forever & Ever (Russ Morgan), The Four Winds and The Seven Seas (Sammy Kaye), Galway Bay (Bing Crosby), Here I'll Stay (Jo Stafford), Hop Scotch Polka (Guy Lombardo), How It Lies, How It Lies, How It Lies (Commie Haines), The Hucklebuck (Tommy Dorsey), I Can Dream, Can't I? (Andrews Sisters), I Don't See Me In Your Eyes Anymore (Gordon Jenkins), I'll Keep The Lovelight Burning (Patti Page), It's A Great Feeling (Doris Day), I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm (Les Brown), Jealous Heart (Al Morgan), Just One Way To Say I Love You (Jo Stafford), Kiss Me Sweet (Sammy Kaye), The Last Mile Home (Jo Stafford), Lavender Blue (Swing & Sway With Sammy Kaye), Let's Take An Old Fashioned Walk (Perry Como), A Little Bird Told Me (Evelyn Knight), Lover's Gold (Dinah Shore), Maybe It's Because (Dick Haymes), Mule Train (Frankie Laine), My Darling, My Darling (Jo Stafford), My One And Only Fling (Doris Day and Buddy Clark), Now That I Need You (Doris Day), On A Slow Boat To China (Benny Goodman), Powder Your Face With Sunshine (Evelyn Knight), Red Roses For A Blue Lady (Guy Lombardo), Riders In the Sky (Vaughn Monroe), Room Full Of Roses (Eddy Howard or Sammy Kaye), Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer (Gene Autry), Slipping Around (Margaret Whiting), So In Love (Patti Page), Some Enchanted Evening (Perry Como), Someday (Vaughn Monroe), Someone Like You (Doris Day), Sunflower (Russ Morgan), That Lucky Old Sun (Frankie Laine), There's Yes, Yes In Your Eyes (Eddy Howard), Twenty-Four Hours Of Sunshine (Art Mooney), White Christmas (Bing Crosby), A Wonderful Guy (Margaret Whiting), You Was (Doris Day), You're Breaking My Heart (Vic Damone or Buddy Clark or Ink Spots).

Popular western songs of 1950

Popular western songs of the year are:

All My Love (Patti Page), Bewitched (Doris Day), Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo (Perry Como & the Fontane Sisters), A Bushel and a Peck (Perry Como and Lauren Hutton), Chattanooga Shoe Shine Boy (Red Foley), Choo'n Gum (Teresa Brewer), The Cry Of The Wild Goose (Frankie Laine), Daddy's Little Girl (Mills Brothers), Goodnight Irene (The Weavers), Harbor Lights (Sammy Kaye & His Orchestra), Hoop-Dee-Doo (Perry Como & Fontane Sisters), I Can Dream, Can't I (The Andrews Sisters), I Cross My Fingers (Perry Como), If I Knew You Were Comin' I'd Have Baked A Cake (Eileen Barton), I Wanna Be Loved (Andrews Sisters), Mona Lisa (Nat "King" Cole), Music! Music! Music! (Teresa Brewer), No Other Love (Jo Stafford), The Old Master Painter (Richard Hayes), On The Outgoing Tide (Perry Como), Patricia (Perry Como), Peter Cottontail (Mervin Shiner), Rag Mop/Sentimental Me (The Ames Brothers), Sisters (Rosemary and Betty Clooney), Tennessee Waltz (Patti Page), The Thing (Phil Harris), Third Man Theme (Anton Karas), Third Man Theme (Guy Lombardo & The Royal Canadians), With My Eyes Wide Open I'm Dreaming (Patti Page), You're Just In Love (Perry Como).

Lily Marlene

On my way back, I had them drop me off at the ward to see if I had any mail. In addition to other things, your October 4 letter was waiting. While we were there, a patient brought Ruth a gift: an Indian recording, in English, of "Lily Marlene." Vince hunted up a phonograph that would work and we began playing it, continuing for some time. It had gotten dark and I didn't realize that a big rain storm was coming.

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta, October 13, 1945.

(Source: p.217 of Elaine Pinkerton (ed.): “From Calcutta With Love: The World War II Letters of Richard and Reva Beard” Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2002 / Reproduced by courtesy of Texas Tech University Press)

Gramophone Co., Ltd.

Gramophone Co., Ltd. Manufacturers of "His Master's Voice" Gramophones, Records and Radios—33 Jessore Road, Dum Dum. Phone, Regent 800.

(Source: Contributors)

_____Memories of 1940s Calcutta_______________________

Entertainment and food were our main interest I'm afraid

Sightseeing in Calcutta was endless, and even in two years there was much that I should have seen but didn't. Entertainment and food were our main interest I'm afraid. There were, of course, a fair number of cinemas showing films in English, such as The Tiger, Metro and Lighthouse. Even in the glossiest cinema, the bedbug was laying await handily in the chair arm and would nibble away your elbow. Touring companies and local talent gave concerts for the forces, but once again we were at the end of the line. On only two occasions did we get visits from well-known stars back home. The first was Vera Lynn whose husband was in India and the second was Noel Coward. I will never forget the concert he gave at Barrackpore. Wonderful! He sang his own songs accompanying himself at the piano. The words were often not those normally sung to his tunes, but especial for the occasion and somewhat risqué. At half time he went off to change his shirt which was absolutely wet through in the heat - and then came back refreshed. A great entertainer and a great man.

Harry Tweedale, RAF Signals Section, Calcutta,Barrackpore, 1942-44

(source: A6665457 TWEEDALE's WAR Part 11 Pages 85-92 at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

We had a wind up gramophone…

We had a wind up gramophone and Ida and Marie used to get records (celluloid) - we had all the Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Maxine Sullivan and Andrews Sisters. I often wonder what happened to them all - they would be worth a fortune now.

Elizabeth James (nee Shah), AngloIndian schoolgirl. Ranchi, mid 1940s

(source: page 18 Elizabeth James: An Anglo Indian Tale: The Betrayal of Innocence. Delhi: Originals, 2004/ Reproduced by courtesy of Elizabeth James (nee Shah))

We also used to have sing-songs …

We also used to have sing-songs around the piano in the evenings. Aunty Dolly played and we sang. All of us children were able to sing some of us quite exceptionally. Marie had the most beautiful singing voice and even now sings solos in the church. However, Aunty Dolly could never sing without going off key and oddly enough - my oldest daughter does the same thing.

Elizabeth James (nee Shah), AngloIndian schoolgirl. Ranchi, mid 1940s

(source: page 18-19 Elizabeth James: An Anglo Indian Tale: The Betrayal of Innocence. Delhi: Originals, 2004 / Reproduced by courtesy of Elizabeth James (nee Shah))

We fought back against lonlieness and homesickness by "singing".

It seems daft but whenever we left the train at the station at night and started to walk along the road or even if we just happened to be on the road from the station to the cantonment and village we would almost always burst into song.

We all had our favourites - almost a "signature tune", that the others would join in. Mostly well known - Dan Davies - 'I attempt from love's sickness to fly in vain '. Brian Wilson - 'Greensleeves'. Bob Stannard - 'My love is like a Red Red rose', my own contribution - -The Turtle Dove" and Bill Kirk's " Helen of Kirconnell?" This last was new to me until Bill Kirk came along and " The Turtle Dove" was new to the others.

As you can see from some of the words that I quote the overall theme was nostalgia for home and loved ones.

Our identification with these tunes had one curious happening sometime later when we had all left Barrackpore and were out of touch with each other. One night (or early am) I was on duty in Comilla. As often at night, conditions were hopeless by our normal radio links, the teleprinters were O-S and I had a fairly important message to get to 22nd Groups HQ at Chittagong. No other of the main signals stations I could contact could help and indeed, apart from a few small places nearby, we seemed to be in a world of our own. As a last resort I decided to try R-T (Radio Telephone) knowing it was usually the first link to go in bad conditions and we now had a tropical storm on our hands. To my amazement, through the splutters and interference there came a voice. At first we couldn't read each other but eventually we made it with difficulty. I had got to Cox's bazaar. They thought they could pass our message being only half the distance away. After the message had been passed the voice I had thought to be familiar started to hum "I wish I were where Helen lies” and together we gave it a loud and lusty rendering. I knew now that Bill Kirk was at Cox's bazaar and he knew I was in Comilla.

HELEN OF KIRCONELL (ANON)

I wish I were where Helen lies;

Night and day on me she cries;

O that I were where Helen lies;

On fair Kirconnell lea!

O MY LOVES LIKE A RED RED ROSE (BURNS)

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass.

So deep in love am I:

And I will love thee still, my dear,

Till a' the seas gang dry

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,

And the rocks melt wi' the sun;

I will love thee still my dear,

While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare thee well, my only love!

And fare thee well awhile;

And I will come again, my love,

Tho' it were ten thousand mile.

GREENSLEEVES (TRAD)

I have been ready to your hand

To grant whatever you did crave

I have waged both life and land

Your love and goodwill for to have.

Greensleeves was all my joy

Greensleeves was my delight

Well, I will pray to God on high

That thou my constancy mayst see

And that yet once before I die

Thou wilt vouchsafe to love me

Greensleeves was all my joy

Greensleeves was my delight

THE TURTLE DOVE (ANON)

Fare you well, my dear,

I must be gone.

And leave you for a while;

If I roam awhile

I'll come back again

Though I roam ten thousand miles.

So fair thou art,

my bonny lass,

So deep in love am I:

But I never will prove false

to the bonnie lass I love

Till the stars fall from the sky.

The sea will never run dry,

my dear,

Nor the rocks never melt with the sun

But I never will prove false

to the bonny lass I love

Till all these things be done.

FROM "THE INDIAN QUEEN" (DRYDEN-PURCELL)

I attempt from love's sickness to fly in vain,

Since I am myself my own fever and pain.

No more now, fond heart, with pride no more swell

Thou canst not raise forces enough to rebel.

I attempt from love's sickness to fly in vain,

Since I am myself my own fever and pain.

Harry Tweedale, RAF Signals Section, Barrackpore,May/June 1942

(source: A6665457 TWEEDALE's WAR Part 11 Pages 85-92 at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Duke Ellington at the Grand

Spent many an evening at the Grand - Scherazad's (spelling) and attended many of the balls held there, I was fortunate to get tickets to hear Duke Ellington when he appeared. The Duke was always a favourite of mine so it was a real treat.

Molly Hamilton, Calcutta. early 1950s

(Source: Several E-mail interviews with Molly Hamilton in 2003. / Reproduced by courtesy of Molly Hamilton)

Bengal was once the second New Orleans

[...] Bengal was once the second New Orleans. And I mean it. You must remember Calcutta was the headquarters of the Allied forces in the 40s and there was an American jazz pianist, Teddy Weatherford, performing at Grand’s Winter Garden nightclub, which later became Scherazade. He died of cholera in the late 40s, but was the mascot of the movement then. Besides, there were jazz musicians from Australia and the UK active in Calcutta then.

[…]

It [the music] was of a singularly high standard, with Beethoven, Bach and Tchaikovsky during lunchtime and straight-ahead, mainstream jazz in the evenings. All the musicians playing on the Park Street circuit had to be technically solid to swing between western classical and jazz. The discipline was rigid and you couldn’t afford to make mistakes.

Arthur Gracias, guitarist, Calcutta, 1940s

(source ‘Notes of nostalgia’ Arthur Gracias interview with Subhro Saha in Telegraph 22 December 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Arthur Gracias and Subhro Saha)

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Dancing

_____Pictures of 1940s Calcutta________________________

Dancing in aid of the war

Malcolm Moncrieff Stuart, I.C.S. (Indian Civil Service) District Magistrate Howrah, Howrah, 1940

(source: personal scrapbook kept by Malcolm Moncrieff Stuart O.B.E., I.C.S. seen on 20-Dec-2005 / Reproduced by courtesy of Mrs. Malcolm Moncrieff Stuart)

_____Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta___

Dancing

In Calcutta you will not find night clubs of the type you knew back home. In fact - no night clubs. However, there are a number of places where you can dance.

For E.M. there are regularly scheduled dances at the ARC Burra and Cosmos Clubs on Dalhousie Square, at the Continental Service Club at 12 Chowringhee Rd., at the Y.M.C.A. on Corporation St. Gals will be on deck. You can have fun. Check at any club for scheduled nights.

Other spots where a G.I. can go - but where he should bring his own partner - are the Winter Garden and the Princes Room in the Grand Hotel (some real jive music in the Winter Gardens), Firpo's in the block above the Grand, and the Great Eastern Hotel (Wed. & Sat. only).

For officers there are weekly or nightly dances scheduled in most of the private clubs. Members and their guests only.

Firpo's, the Winter Garden, and the Great Eastern Hotel are open to officers, too.

(source: “The Calcutta Key” Services of Supply Base Section Two Division, Information and education Branch, United States Army Forces in India - Burma, 1945: at: http://cbi-theater-12.home.comcast.net/~cbi-theater-12/calcuttakey/calcutta_key.html)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Clubbing and the Monsoon

At 6:20, one of those tropical cloudbursts smashed down on us, kept right on crashing until 8:30. About 7:45, Ruth and I decided that rain or no rain, we were going to get something to eat. So we started for our mess hall. The area at the back of the ward, though which we had to go, was completely covered in water. I know it fairly well, but Ruth doesn't, and despite my guidance, she fell in a ditch. But it wouldn't have made much difference, for we were completely wet through when we reached the Mess Hall. A group of officers were waiting, in raincoats, for the rain to let up, when we approached. Uninhibited Ruth yelled at them, "Sissies!" The Col. and Ann were inside and we dripped to their table, where the Col. blandly introduced me to one and all with, "All of you know drowned-rat Beard?"

One thing led to another, and it was spontaneously decided that we would make a party of four to go to the dance. I changed first, joined them at Ann's quarters, from which we got transportation to Ruth's, where she had been for us. Southern Avenue was flooded from curb to curb. After a crazy evening at the club, Ruth played drums in the orchestra and the Col. drank too much, and I presume that I did, and then the Col. decided that we should eat. We went back to the big general mess for coffee and sandwiches. I finally got back about 2:30, rather tired.

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta, October 13, 1945.

(Source: p.217 of Elaine Pinkerton (ed.): “From Calcutta With Love: The World War II Letters of Richard and Reva Beard” Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2002 / Reproduced by courtesy of Texas Tech University Press)

Nurses and officers danced under the moon

Gus and I fooled around the room when I finally got back in the afternoon, slept an hour or so. Then to Karnami for dinner. We got to the club rather late. Col. Pegg, head of dental service, and Col. McShane were also at Peterson's table. He had Lt. Fagler, who was on my ward for awhile, with him. The moonlight was pretty. They turned off the lights, and nurses and officers danced under the moon!

Tiring of watching, I returned to the area and joined Pilgram and Weiger till a late hour, in talk and a little whiskey.

I'd like my arms about you, my darling,

Dick

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta, September 22, 1945

(Source: page 210 of Elaine Pinkerton (ed.): “From Calcutta With Love: The World War II Letters of Richard and Reva Beard” Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2002 / Reproduced by courtesy of Texas Tech University Press)

_____Memories of 1940s Calcutta_______________________

Ticket dances

… there was dance halls of a sort—ticket dances, where you handed in rickets for a dance. You got a roll of rickets and it was Eurasian women, beautiful women, you danced with.

Eddie Mathieson, Marines’ commando soldier on the Burma Front. Calcutta, 1944/45

(source: page 239 of MacDougall, Ian: Voices from War and some Labour Struggles; Personal Recollections of War in our Century by Scottish Men and Women. Edinburgh: Mercat Press, 1995)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Ian MacDougall)

Women were at a premium

Women were at a premium at dances and the chaps were waiting like hawks at a fence. I was once approached for the same dance by an entire air-crew just back from Burma.

Joyce Taylor, nurse with Air Force Nursing Service Reserve. Calcutta, 1944.

(source Pat Barr: The Dust in the Balance. British Women n India 1905-1945. London: Hamish Hamilton 1989)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Pat Barr)

Auditioning for the ENSA Band

I went into the ENSA Hostel, a lovely house in Calcutta. Major Jack Bontemps was in charge along with Bob Ayling and a gentleman who is still around in the business today, Mr. Phillip Hindon. The Major told me that they were running a band, and that there were personnel from the air force and the army involved and would I like to come and sing with the band? “Oh that would be great, I’ve done that before.” I said

“You’ll have to do an audition” they said.

“ Ok, that’s fine” I said, so I went to the wonderful Garrison Theatre in Calcutta. The band were in the pit and I sang one of my favourite songs which I still sing to this day, Cole Porters Begin the Beguine. I asked the pianist if he knew it in my key, and he said yes they could do it, but the band were all rather grumpy - bands then and indeed now are not always too keen on singers!

Well I sang it and was told afterwards that yes, I could join the band. They were playing the RAF and Army bases in the surrounding areas, and I was pleased and thought it would be great. In fact it was to be one of the happiest periods in my life.

Cecilia Austin Caryl (nee Nicholson/ theatrical name: Celia Nicholls), ENSA, Calcutta, 1945

(source: A2905184 War time in India with ENSA at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

The ENSA Dance Orchestra

In Calcutta the department for entertainment for the servicemen was really quite good. We had various groups of musicians, including a string sections which could be added on to the dance band I was with, and we would call it the ENSA Dance Orchestra. We did some radio work on All India Radio, and I was thrilled to go into the recording studios and hear the Indian musicians playing there too.

Cecilia Austin Caryl (nee Nicholson/ theatrical name: Celia Nicholls), ENSA, Calcutta, 1945

(source: A2905184 War time in India with ENSA at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Wartime dance duty

“Cohorts and platoons of us went together, relying on the safety of numbers.

For us, dancing was usually more duty than pleasure because we were so outnumbered. Soldiers were issued at the door with a red or a blue ticket and every dance was one colour only so that only half the men at a time could invade the floor - but us ladies were expected to whirl through every dance until they were quite exhausted.”

M. Clough, wife of RAF officer, member of the WVS Calcutta early 1940s.

(source Pat Barr: The Dust in the Balance. British Women n India 1905-1945. London: Hamish Hamilton 1989)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Pat Barr)

… during the War the Jitter Bug was the thing.

My sister Ida was very fond of dancing and of course, during the War the Jitter Bug as it was called - later the Jive - was the thing and she did this as well as the older type dances like the Waltz, Fox trot and Quick-step. She won quite a few dance competitions. Barney too was dance crazy and used to try out every new step with me so that from a very young age we were partners and made up our own choreography to some of the tunes of the day.

Elizabeth James (nee Shah), AngloIndian schoolgirl. Ranchi, mid 1940s

(source: page 18 Elizabeth James: An Anglo Indian Tale: The Betrayal of Innocence. Delhi: Originals, 2004 / Reproduced by courtesy of Elizabeth James (nee Shah))

Meeting the Girls

Half a mile along the same ridge was Dow Hill, the sister school to Victoria. Every Sunday, the Anglican girls would walk to the Chapel at Victoria, where the left hand side was reserved for their use. Most of Victoria sat on the right; the exception to this rigid rule was the choir, positioned immediately behind the senior girls. This provided the means of passing letters, which in due course would be delivered to the embarrassed recipient. There were formal meetings between the two schools when “Socials” were arranged. Among the archives displayed on Aubrey Ballantine’s VADHA web site, there is a formal invitation, written by the Head Mistress of Dow Hill, asking the boys of Victoria to attend one of these gatherings. When Victoria boys were the hosts, a junior class would be given the task of scouring the forest for stag moss. This would be used to deck the door and window frames of the Assembly Hall. Music would be provided by the school’s wind-up gramophone and the very limited selection of 78-rpm records. I think that most of the boys of the more senior classes would have wanted to attend. To make up the numbers, entire classes of the middle school would be ordered to turn up. People who attended co-educational schools will be amused, but the ordeal of a Social was something that produced nightmares. The boys would be lined along one wall of the hall, the girls opposite. The more nervous ones would be massed in the corners, like rats at the arrival of the terrier. Sooner or later a teacher would grab one of the reluctant ones, frog-march him across No Mans Land and bark “You! Dance with Her!”. For the next three minutes, the couple would stumble around the room… convention demanded that traffic went anti-clockwise.

John Gardiner, boarding school pupil at Victoria School. Kurseong 1939-1946

(source: John Gardiner: Memories of VSK (1939 – 1946) on website of Victoria & Dow hill Schools Kurseong at http://www.orbonline.net/~auballan/J_Gardners_VSK.htm)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Gardiner)

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Games

_____Pictures of 1940s Calcutta________________________

_____Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta___

A night at poker

I fooled the fellows by playing volleyball tonight, and had a good time. The group is quite congenial, now that it is smaller, and everyone has a pretty good time. Then, the big poker game. I thought at long last that I had hit a hot streak, for I won 200 rupees in just a half hour, at he beginning, but I went into a decline, at nine o'clock, and at one, gave up. I knew that since I won last night, that I might have that luck, for one can't win all the time. Nonetheless, I did win: four rupees!

That incorrigible Rosenberg, who is a gambler par lux, took four hours out for a date, won before and I think after. I gave him my seat at one, I know, and the game went until 4:30 this morning.

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta, March 1, 1946.

(Source: pp. 296 ff. of Elaine Pinkerton (ed.): “From Calcutta With Love: The World War II Letters of Richard and Reva Beard” Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2002 / Reproduced by courtesy of Texas Tech University Press)

Boredom

November 9, 1945

Dearest Ritter:

I am none too happy over today, but it did bring me one ray of light. The October letter of both you and the folks arrived. My uniform money was in the folks' letter and you might telephone them that it came at an opportune time. I still had sufficient funds for my ordinary expenses but didn't have any extra in case of an emergency or in the event that Gus and I go see the Taj Mahal.

I haven't liked today because I seemed tired and out of sorts. Further, our boys haven't been behaving in the ward at night. I am beginning to get very, very tired of it. Someone will get drastically scorched if it doesn't change, of that you may be sure.

Otherwise, work moved pretty much as usual, with one conference or interview following another.

This evening Gus and I defeated Chan and Whittaker in horseshoes, though I failed to acquit myself with honor in the second game.

About 8:30, Gus and I wandered to the club where we joined the Colonel's gang in charades. The best of the lot was my guessing, within 20 seconds, of the Col's portrayal of "Goosey, Goosey Gander." I haven't the slightest idea of why that nonsense popped into my head, but it did. Gus doing "Lady Godiva" was funny, too. He got the darn thing across by giving them the time element and the idea it was a woman, then made the second syllable "dive," and damned if they didn't guess it.

It's late, so my blessings, sweet,

Dick

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta, November 9, 1945

(Source: page 228 ff of Elaine Pinkerton (ed.): “From Calcutta With Love: The World War II Letters of Richard and Reva Beard” Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2002 / Reproduced by courtesy of Texas Tech University Press)

_____Memories of 1940s Calcutta_______________________

‘housey-housey’ at Kharagpur

On one occasion on a rail journey to Calcutta we had a few hours stopover at the main railway depot and administration centre at Kharagpur and walking past the railway institute we heard the sound of voices and were surprised to find it full of ladies mainly British playing Bingo, or as it was then called ‘housey-housey’, they provided us with tea and biscuits and a reminder of home. The railways were operated mainly by the British, before Independence.

Arthur Thompson, Royal Air Force, Calcutta, 1946

(source: A1982711 Through Pilot Training to Action With 463 and 617 Squadrons at Waddington at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Twig races

[I remember] Twig races along the deep monsoon ditch in front of the main building, a raging torrent in the rainy season.

John Gardiner, boarding school pupil at Victoria School. Kurseong 1939-1946

(source: John Gardiner: Memories of VSK (1939 – 1946) on website of Victoria & Dow hill Schools Kurseong at http://www.orbonline.net/~auballan/J_Gardners_VSK.htm)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Gardiner)

Word Making and Word Taking"

The radio as very limited and reception not always very good so we had to make our own amusements. We used to play a game called "Word Making and Word Taking" a sort of fore-runner of scrabble.

Elizabeth James (nee Shah), AngloIndian schoolgirl. Ranchi, mid 1940s

(source: page 19 Elizabeth James: An Anglo Indian Tale: The Betrayal of Innocence. Delhi: Originals, 2004 / Reproduced by courtesy of Elizabeth James (nee Shah))

The Tea Auction

The other lad of the two I knew, both Scotsmen, told me to put my name in the barrel that was full of names to be drawn for a long weekend on a tea plantation. It was their way of saying thanks to the lads. Some one had done a miniature "Ernie", the saving bonds thing. I, at first, refused, as in my view having just had leave and going home soon, I thought it only fair to leave it to others. There were plenty in the same situation as me and their names had gone in, and don't be a twerp, I was told. Thus under terrific pressure (liar) I put my name in. Boy!, had my luck changed these last few weeks. A couple of twirls of the barrel and in his hand was one bearing the name of Crisp. I expect about twenty were drawn. There was only one thing that stopped my luck running the full course and that was, at the end every one, except my companion and I, got two boxes of tea, the boxes being about 6" all round. It happened thus.

Albert Augustus Crisp , Royal Air Force, Calcutta, 1945

(source: A6781584 Walthamstow Wanderer 5 at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

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Street Entertainment

_____Pictures of 1940s Calcutta________________________

Street children

Ragged urchins roam he streets begin GI audiences to let their mangy monkeys dance the 'American Jitterbug' dance. This unfortunate young showman has offended the long arm of the law and is prodded along. The monkey seems to realize the position.

Clyde Waddell, US military man, personal press photographer of Lord Louis Mountbatten, and news photographer on Phoenix magazine. Calcutta, mid 1940s

(source: webpage http://oldsite.library.upenn.edu/etext/sasia/calcutta1947/? Monday, 16-Jun-2003 / Reproduced by courtesy of David N. Nelson, South Asia Bibliographer, Van Pelt Library, University of Pennsylvania)

Snake charmer

This weird-looking snake charmer is doing his best to coax a balcony audience to toss down enough baksheesh to get his cobra and mongoose in the mood to stage a fight to the finish. Actually the combatants always seem a bit bored with the act and after a few fierce snorts and lunges, decide it is better to live.

Clyde Waddell, US military man, personal press photographer of Lord Louis Mountbatten, and news photographer on Phoenix magazine. Calcutta, mid 1940s

(source: webpage http://oldsite.library.upenn.edu/etext/sasia/calcutta1947/? Monday, 16-Jun-2003 / Reproduced by courtesy of David N. Nelson, South Asia Bibliographer, Van Pelt Library, University of Pennsylvania)

G.I.s and cobra

A group of GI's take a close look at the snake-wallah's hooded cobra. Both the snake and his master are good specimens. The fangs, of course, have been removed so the reptile can strike at will, scaring no one.15. A group of GI's take a close look at the snake-wallah's hooded cobra. Both the snake and his master are good specimens. The fangs, of course, have been removed so the reptile can strike at will, scaring no one.

Clyde Waddell, US military man, personal press photographer of Lord Louis Mountbatten, and news photographer on Phoenix magazine. Calcutta, mid 1940s

(source: webpage http://oldsite.library.upenn.edu/etext/sasia/calcutta1947/? Monday, 16-Jun-2003 / Reproduced by courtesy of David N. Nelson, South Asia Bibliographer, Van Pelt Library, University of Pennsylvania)

Sidewalk performer

Crowd gathers round a sidewalk performer at bus stop while GI's take temporary advantage of an overhead view from steps of a camp bus. This is a good post for hawkers, beggars, shoe shine boys, showmen to work on the bankroll of the 'rich American soldier'.

Clyde Waddell, US military man, personal press photographer of Lord Louis Mountbatten, and news photographer on Phoenix magazine. Calcutta, mid 1940s

(source: webpage http://oldsite.library.upenn.edu/etext/sasia/calcutta1947/? Monday, 16-Jun-2003 / Reproduced by courtesy of David N. Nelson, South Asia Bibliographer, Van Pelt Library, University of Pennsylvania)

 Snakecharmer

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta,

(Source: Elaine Pinkerton / Reproduced by courtesy of Elaine Pinkerton)

Familiar scene on some Calcutta street

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: Glenn S. Hensley: Familiar scene, I006, Familiar scene on some Calcutta street seen at University of Chicago Hensley Photo Library at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/hensley as well as a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)

Musician with instrument at a festival in the Maidan

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: Glenn S. Hensley: Musician, I007, "Musician with instrument at a festival in the Maidan, Calcutta" seen at University of Chicago Hensley Photo Library at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/hensley as well as a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)

_____Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta___

Indian street entertainers

P.S. I forgot to mention that we took our last trip today noon in Gus's command car, for tomorrow he turns it in. Jim, Dottie, Gus and I ate well at the Cathay, then while Jim and Dottie were in New Market, Gus and I watched an Indian magician do a levitation trick, in which a helper, covered by a dirty shirt, lay down on the ground, was apparently raised 4 feet by magic, and lowered. This trick was done three times. Of more interest to me was the balancing goat act, in which a large speckled goat stood on a 3-inch hour-glass block of wood, and, still balancing, got on a two-inch piece placed on the other, without falling during the operation.

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta, January 2, 1946.

(Source: pp. 257 ff. of Elaine Pinkerton (ed.): “From Calcutta With Love: The World War II Letters of Richard and Reva Beard” Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2002 / Reproduced by courtesy of Texas Tech University Press)

_____Memories of 1940s Calcutta_______________________

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The Calcutta Season

_____Pictures of 1940s Calcutta________________________

_____Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta___

_____Memories of 1940s Calcutta_______________________

The last season

That season was as gay and busy as any I can remember. Perhaps we were all aware in some unexpressed way that, as the war intensified, our own social life would be sharply curtailed and might never resume in just the way we knew it. Throughout my stay in Calcutta I was very uncertain about precisely what my position as Jai's wife required of me, about what I could do and what I shouldn't.

I was not in purdah, yet purdah was very much the custom, not only in Rajputana but in most of the Indian states, and even in the rest of Indian society very few girls ever went out unaccompanied by some relative or otherwise chaperoned. My marriage to Jai had been widely talked about, and I was very much in the public eye. I had the feeling that I was continually being watched by not entirely charitable eyes to find some telltale sign in my behaviour that might show that our obvious happiness was not quite all it seemed. But I managed to survive and, much encouraged by Jai's letters urging me to enjoy myself, didn't put a foot wrong.

Gayatri Devi, Maharani of Jaipur. Calcutta, 1942.

(source: pp. 186 -87 Gayatri Devi / Santha Rama Rau: “A Princess Remembers. The Memoirs of the Maharani of Jaipur”. Philadelphia & New York: J.B. Lippincott Company. 1976 / Reproduced by courtesy of Santha Rama Rau).

The Calcutta Season

Our stay in Bombay was short, and Ma soon swept us off to Calcutta where the season was just about to begin. I went quite happily because I knew that Jai would soon be coming. We settled into the familiar luxury of "Woodlands" and prepared for the season to go into full swing when Lord Linlithgow, who had just replaced Lord Willingdon as Viceroy, came with the viceregal family to spend their customary couple of weeks in Calcutta.

For me that winter was the most fabulous Calcutta season I remember. It was the first time at "Woodlands" that I was considered a grown-up, and although I wasn't allowed quite the freedom of other girls my age—which was especially irritating when I saw my brothers setting out for an evening on the town—there were plenty of parties to which I could go with Ma as a chaperon. As usual, the chief factor in my happiness was that Jai was staying with us, and I saw him constantly and for virtually every meal. Mostly we had to be in the company of others, but occasionally we managed to slip out alone and sometimes he would let me drive his car. Of course, early every morning we went riding together.

Jai, Bhaiya, and Indrajit were in great demand socially and went out together a great deal. They looked so wonderful, setting off in their silk jackets, their tight trousers, and their turbans. They were all tall, slim, and good-looking and were often mistaken for brothers.

Between them they made "Woodlands" livelier than ever that year. By now my brothers and sisters, as well as Ma, invited friends to stay. It was a centre for sportsmen. Bhaiya, who played in the East India tennis championships, invited his fellow competitors. He also organized cricket matches on the pitch in our garden, inviting the Viceroy's team and the Middlesex Cricket Club, among others, to come and play. Many of Bhaiya's and Indrajit's friends were cavalry officers from the Indian Army, and they came to Calcutta for the polo and lived in tents in our garden. One of them got the shock of his life when, returning to his tent after a late party, he came face to face with a huge tusker apparently ready to charge him in the dark. Next morning, he didn't know whether he had been hallucinating or whether he had really escaped a frightful danger. We never enlightened him, although we all knew the elephant. It had been brought down from Cooch Behar to be sent to my Baroda grandfather as a gift for his Diamond Jubilee. Its tusks had been studded with diamonds, and it had been renamed Hira Prashad ("Diamond Offering") and taken down to the docks to be loaded on a ship for Baroda. Alas, the crane that was hoisting him broke. He fell to the quay and broke a leg. After that it was impossible for him to travel to Baroda and we kept him on at "Woodlands" in special quarters, in great comfort, while his leg healed.

"Belvedere," the Viceroy's official residence, was just across the road from "Woodlands," and Bhaiya and I were often asked to play tennis with our neighbours. This brought its own ordeals, for no one had thought to warn me that the Viceroy never changed sides when his partner was serving. I remember standing hesitantly on the baseline wondering when he would move and if I had the courage to start serving. Finally he turned around and said, "Come on, Ayesha, what's the matter with you? Aren't you ever going to start?" Bhaiya, who knew about this habit of the Viceroy's, shook with suppressed laughter on the other side of the net.

On one occasion he and I were asked to an informal dinner at "Belvedere" by the Viceroy's daughter. Lady Joan. It was the first time that I had dined at Viceregal Lodge and was quite unprepared for the moment at the end of the dinner when the ladies withdrew. The Vicereine led the procession out of the dining-room, dropping a deep curtsy to her husband on the way. The other ladies followed in pairs, each sinking to the floor with perfect composure, while I wondered in panic what on earth to do. I had never curtsied before, and I was too frightened of making a fool of myself to begin on this occasion. In the end, when I reached the door I merely folded my hands in a namaskar and hoped that the Viceroy would consider this sufficiently respectful.

Parties, tennis, riding, watching the polo, exploring what it was like to be a grown-up—those were the things that made up my life in Calcutta, and I enjoyed every moment of it. All the same, when the time came to return to Cooch Behar, I think all of us shared that happy sense of homecoming that Cooch Behar always gave us. As a group, we brothers and sisters were very congenial. We found entertainments and interests wherever we happened to be, in Europe or India. But Cooch Behar was the place we all loved the most, and on that particular return I found it even more absorbing than usual.

Ma was no longer regent because Bhaiya was now of age, so she spent a good deal of time away from the state visiting Delhi, or especially Bombay, to be with my grandmother. In her absence I used to act as Bhaiya's hostess. It was enormous fun entertaining guests with him, planning things that we would do, discussing outings we might arrange. I used to listen to his conversations with officials and advisers, sometimes offering my own suggestions. He always heard me out, though he smiled and teased me about the wilder and more impractical ones.

In the evenings, after I had bathed and dressed, instead of going to Ma's room as I did when I was a child, I went to Bhaiya's, even when Ma was in residence. I waited until he was ready and then went with him to the drawing-room, walking just behind him. In fact I went everywhere I could with Bhaiya, to such a marked degree that Ila nicknamed me "Shadow." I found that, exhilarating as the season in Calcutta had been, I really much preferred the relaxed, informal, outdoor country life of Cooch Behar to the social round of the big cities.

Gayatri Devi, princess of Cooch Behar. Calcutta, 1930s.

(source: pp. 124-126 Gayatri Devi / Santha Rama Rau: “A Princess Remembers. The Memoirs of the Maharani of Jaipur”. Philadelphia & New York: J.B. Lippincott Company. 1976 / Reproduced by courtesy of Santha Rama Rau).

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