Bombay talkie

An early production from the Merchant/Ivory team, set, as most of their early films were, in India. Starring Jennifer Kendal, Shashi Kapoor and Zia Mohyeddin it tells the story of a bored English woman novelist who destroys the lives of a young Indian film star and a scriptwriter. The intended irony of the melodrama doesn’t quite come off but the story is full of fine marginal details, such as the guru showing his followers colour slides of his conquest of Los Angeles, the plump-bottomed Indian girls performing a dance routine on giant typewriter keys for a Bombay musical and the society life of the Bombay film set.

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Collection

In ACMI's collection

Credits

director

James Ivory

producer

Ismail Merchant

production company

Merchant Ivory Productions

Duration

01:45:00:00

Production places

United Kingdom

Production dates

1970

Collection metadata

ACMI Identifier

304279

Language

English

Audience classification

MA

Subject categories

Feature films

Feature films → Feature films - Great Britain

Sound/audio

Sound

Holdings

VHS; Access Print (Section 1)

Please note: this archive is an ongoing body of work. Sometimes the credit information (director, year etc) isn’t available so these fields may be left blank; we are progressively filling these in with further research.

Cite this work on Wikipedia

If you would like to cite this item, please use the following template: {{cite web |url=https://acmi.net.au/works/83089--bombay-talkie/ |title=Bombay talkie |author=Australian Centre for the Moving Image |access-date=2 June 2023 |publisher=Australian Centre for the Moving Image}}

United Kingdom, 1970

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