professor toofaanii publishers, East Lansing, MI USA is happy to announce their 155th book,

Version Records in Hindi Films - A Catalog

Balaji Murthy

"Version records" refers to a practice of cover versions on rival labels of the original 78 rpm records. They generally feature different singers and in-house orchestras of these rival labels. In Hindi films, the version records on 78 rpm records appeared quite early, starting in the early 1940s and lasted all the way to about 1960, though a few of them were also issued on the 45 rpm EPs on Vinyl.

This book is an effort to catalog all the known versions on 78 rpm records. Detailed listings include the film names and the song titles along with the record number and the labels issuing the version records. Many record images are included to illustrate the practice.

Hope this compilation will find a place in the bookshelves of students and enthusiasts of Hindi film music.

Paperback US Letter, Black and White, 96 pages, color cover.

Now You Know!

First few pages may be read here

 

professor toofaanii publishers, East Lansing, MI USA is happy to announce their 154th book,

Films and Shows in Bombay - 1934

Ajit Sidhu
and
Professor Surjit Singh

 

What is the year of the film? This question is often asked but it may surprise you to know that it has many answers. The most definite answer is the year mentioned on the censor certificate. This used to be hard to find. However, now the year and the whole censor information of Hindi films from 1931 to 2010 is available on the website

http://hamraaz.org/hfgk

There is no official publication for the release information. Also, this information changes from city to city as films having limited number of prints, cannot be released everywhere at once. Finding this information requires much more work. One can find it in the magazine reviews, magazine and newspaper ads, and, sometimes in the trade publications. All these sources are hard to come by.
Recently, SS and two of his co-workers published a book on the films running in the Madras theatres based on the Indian Express Newspaper (Madras Edition),

Films Showing in Madras Theatres (1941-1947), by MV Surender, N Ramaswamy and Prof Surjit Singh (2021)

 

In the book at hand, we present information about the stage shows, silents and talkies running in Bombay in 1934. We plan to cover the years 1931-1950 at least, another volunteer is working on 1941-1950. This information is based on the Bombay Chronicle newspaper available on the Internet Archive website.
It is fascinating to follow the life of many films, some run for a long time, some only a few weeks, some move to other theatres. We found this information to be enjoyable to work with and fascinating.
We hope that our readers will also enjoy this nostalgia-inspiring work.

 

Paperback 6 by 9, Black and White, 344 pages, color cover.

Now You Know!

First few pages may be read here

 

In November 2022, I was surprised by an email from Kharag Singh from Ghatsila, Jharkhand informing me that he had captured thousands of pictures of Junior Artists and Background Dancers from hundreds of movies. 

 

Since then he has been capturing photos of the main actors, character artists and junior artists, from the films starting from 1971.

 

He has already published books on his work on 1971, 1972 and 1973

 

This book is for movies of 1974 with the letters A to F.

 

Paperback, 6 by 9, 226 pages, BW interior, Color Cover.

 

Now You Know!

 

As usual, the first few pages may be read here