Molina Devi

Molina Devi (1917 — 13 August 1977), also known as Molina Debi and Malina Debi,[1] was a Bengali Indian actress of Bengali and Hindi film and theatre. As an actress, she played a wide variety of parts, later frequently playing matronly parts, especially Rani Rashmoni, patroness of the 19th century Bengali mystic Sri Ramakrishna. She acted in several dozen films, mostly in Bengali and Hindi. With her second husband, actor Gurudas Banerjee, she also directed a Calcutta-based theatre troupe, M. G. Enterprises.[2]:688

Molina Devi
Born1917
Calcutta,British India
Died13 August,1977
Calcutta
OccupationActress (theatre and cinema); Head of theatrical company
Years active1920s–1970s
Spouse(s)Gurudas Banerjee

Early life

Molina Devi was born on 13th August,1917 at Calcutta.[3]:275[4][5]:13

Career

Molina Devi started her career as trainee under Aparesh Chandra Mukhopadhyay. She debuted in a silent film while at the age of 8.[3]:275[1] Thereafter worked as dancer in mythological and historical plays in the Bengali theatre in the 1920s, and later sometimes played roles as a young boy, such as the role of Dara in Jahangir (1929), and later played roles as a heroine.[3]:275 She also performed some memorable roles in Hindi films. She took various roles, even vamps in her early career such as in Pramathesh Barua's Rajat Jayanti in 1939.[6]

In 1954 she got a break through in Puran Bhagat[7] and in 1955, Molina played the title role in the film Rani Rasmani. She also directed a Kolkata based theatre troupe, M. G. Enterprises. Molina worked in Rangana theatre as chief artist. She performed as a singer on radio and contributed for formation of Mahila Silpi Mahal, a welfare association for female artists of Bengal. For her contribution in the field of drama she receives the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award.[4]

Actor Gurudas Banerjee was her husband,[8] and together they operated their own touring theatre, M. G. Enterprises,[2]:688 which "specialized in commercial productions of devotional drama" in which Banerjee played the role of Sri Ramakrishna and other holy men."[3]:275

Molina Devi died on 13 August 1977 in Kolkata.

Roles
Statue of Rani Rashmoni, builder of the Dakshineswar Kali Temple. Molina Devi often played Rani Rashmoni in films and plays.

Molina Devi acted in a variety of roles, many times as Rani Rashmoni, which she played on both stage and in film.

From the 1950s through the 1970s, Molina Devi commonly portrayed Rani Rashmoni in the Bengali Theatre and films.

Sushil Mukherjee explains that the drama Jugadevata, which debuted on the Calcutta stage on 19 November 1948,

was a devotional drama... on the life of the Saint of Dakshineswar [Ramakrishna] [that] became immensely popular and established two artistes who became wholly identified with the two characters they represented. These were Gurudas Banerjee who was seen as Sri Ramkrishna and Molina Debi who appeared as Rani Rasmoni, the founder of the famous Bhabatarini (Kali) temple at Dakshineswar. Since their appearance in Jugadevata at Kalika in 1948 Gurudas and Molina have appeared in the characters of these two persons in a number of other plays, both on the stage and on the screen....[2]:288

Films in which Molina Devi played the role of Rani Rashmoni included Rani Rashmoni (1955). Theatrical plays in which she played Rani Rashmoni included Jugadebata (1948) and Thakur Sri Ramakrishna (1955).

Reception

According to Sushil Mukherjee, in the many screen and stage appearances since 1948 in which Molina Devi and Gurudas Banerjee have played Rani Rashmoni and Rani Rashmoni together, they "have carried the audience with them in every performance."[2]:288

In 1966, The Illustrated Weekly of India mentioned Molina Devi's troupe's performance in a review of the 1965-66 theatre season in Delhi.[9] The Weekly stated that

Milan Samity of Delhi sponsored the M. G. Enterprise of Calcutta, who brought two plays, Thakur Shri Ramakrishna and Baskunther Will, and an able company of actors. The credit for composing Thakur Shri Ramakrishna, round the story of Rani Rashmoni, and for bringing this legendary figure to life on the stage, goes to Molina Devi and Gurudas, who headed the company.... It is not easy to put across a religious theme, but Molina and Gurudas did so convincingly, helped greatly by the telling effects of light and music.[9]

Theatre roles

The following table partially chronicles Molina Devi's stage career. It is not complete.

Opening dateTitleRoleLocation
Calcutta unless otherwise specified		PlaywrightDirectorNotes and other cast
19 Nov. 1948JugadebataRani RashmoniKalika TheatreTarak MukherjeeSource;[2]:688 Also Gurudas Banerjee (Sri Ramakrishna)
1955Thakur Sri RamakrishnaRani RashmoniMinerva TheatreSource;[2]:292 Also Gurudas Banerjee (Sri Ramakrishna). Part of a state Congress celebration

Film roles

Roles and details of selected films of Molina Devi appear in the table below.[10] Films known to be dubbed versions of other films have not been listed. Any films known to be multilinguals (separately filmed in multiple languages) are explicitly noted as multilinguals.[11][12]

Year Film Title Molina Role Film Director Notes & Sources
(DB=data base)
1950Vidyasagar?Kali Prasad GhoshBengali; Sources: DBs,[13][14] other[15] Gurudas Banerjee as Sri Ramakrishna
1952Vidyasagar?[16]Kali Prasad GhoshHindi; Sources: DBs[17]
1955Rani RashmoniRani RashmoniKali Prasad GhoshBengali; Sources: DBs[18] Gurudas Banerjee as Sri Ramakrishna
1958Sadhak Bamakhyapa?Banshi AshBengali; Sources: DBs[19] Gurudas Banerjee as Sadhak Bamakhyapa[20]
1956Mahakavi Girish Chandra?Madhu BoseBengali; Sources: DBs[21] Pahadi Sanyal as Girish Chandra Ghosh. The film won a 1956 Certificate of Merit.[22] Gurudas Banerjee as Sri Ramakrishna
1964Bireswar Vivekananda?Madhu BoseBengali; Sources: DBs[23][24] Amaresh Das as Vivekananda, Gurudas Banerjee as Sri Ramakrishna

Partial filmography
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References
  1. Ananda Lal The Oxford companion to Indian theatre 2004- Page 275 "Trained in acting by Aparesh Mukhopadhyay, she debuted in a silent movie as an 8- year-old. She began her stage career, like many of ... She teamed up with Gurudas Bandyopadhyay, her second husband, to form a troupe, M. G. Enterprise, which specialized in commercial productions of devotional drama where he enacted Ramakrishna and other holy men. She made quite a stir as the lead in the ..."
  2. Mukhopādhyāẏa, Suśīla Kumar (1982). The Story of the Calcutta Theatres, 1753-1980. Calcutta: K.P. Bagchi.
  3. Lal, Ananda (2004). The Oxford companion to Indian theatre. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195644468.
  4. "Molina Devi". sangeetnatak.gov.in. Retrieved 7 December 2018.
  5. Lal, Ananda (2009). Theatres of India: A Concise Companion. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-569917-3.
  6. Anonymous. "Rani Rashmoni (1955)". Indiancine.ma. Retrieved 29 December 2019.
  7. "Molina Devi". Retrieved 7 December 2018.
  8. "Mantra Shakti (Chitta Bose) 1954". Retrieved 7 December 2018.
  9. G. S. Khosla (1966). "Theatre in the Capital". The Illustrated Weekly of India. 87 (2): 59. ISSN 0019-2430. OCLC 6772824.
  10. Information in the table of selected films is derived, as noted in the final column, from film entries in YouTube, or from Molina Devi at IMDB or CITWF.
  11. Some Indian films are known as "multilinguals," having been filmed in similar but non-identical versions in different languages. According to Rajadhyaksha and Willemen in the Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema (1994), in its most precise form, a multilingual is "a bilingual or a trilingual [that] was the kind of film made in the 1930s in the studio era, when different but identical takes were made of every shot in different languages, often with different leading stars but identical technical crew and music." They wrote that in seeking to assemble the Encyclopedia, it they often found it "extremely difficult to distinguish multilinguals in this original sense from dubbed versions, remakes, reissues or, in some cases, the same film listed with different titles, presented as separate versions in different languages.... it will take years of scholarly work to establish definitive data in this respect." Source: Rajadhyaksha, Ashish; Paul Willemen (1994). Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema. New Delhi: Oxford University Press; British Film Institute (London). ISBN 019-563579-5.
  12. At present, no pairs of films listed in the table are known to be multilinguals; however, this category has been added for clarify, and to accommodate possible additional information (12 Feb 2013)
  13. CITWF Gomolo IMDB
  14. YOUTUBE (2:06:46)
  15. The actor appearing as Sri Ramakrishna in the last two minutes of Vidyasagar (1950) is readily identifiable as the same as the actor appearing in the role of Sri Ramakrishna in Mahakavi Girish Chandra (1956), as viewable in the State Awards for Mils Programme (1956) Archived 22 November 2017 at the Wayback Machine (page 9) (accessed 12 Feb 2013).
  16. Probable but unconfirmed - see Talk:Gurudas Banerjee
  17. CITWF Gomolo IMDB
  18. CITWF Gomolo IMDB
  19. CITWF Gomolo (unlisted in IMDB)
  20. YOUTUBE (Part 1) (Part 2) (Gurudas Banerjee is credited as portraying Sadhak Bamakhyapa at 1:06 in video)
  21. CITWF Gomolo IMDB
  22. State Awards for Mils Programme (1956) Archived 22 November 2017 at the Wayback Machine (page 8). (accessed 12 Feb 2013)
  23. CITWF Gomolo IMDB
  24. YOUTUBE (Part 1 (1:05:49), Part 2 (1:04:16) no subtitles)
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