Osian's Auction Catalogue Celebrating Cinematic Heritage | June 2018

Focus on Classics 10 Mother India.1957 Mehboob Prod. / Mehboob Six-sheet First Release Poster (POS) 58.7 x 118.9 in (149.0 x 302.0 cm) INR 200,000 – 300,000 USD 2,963 – 4,444 Full image on pp.30-31 Mother India became the first Indian movie to be nominated in the foreign film category at the Academy Awards. Mehboob submitted a special two-hour long version, which excluded his production company logo of a hammer and sickle. He did not want the Leftist overtones of the logo to jeopardise the film’s chances in the US during the Cold War. Bollywood-The Films! The Songs! The Stars!, Dorling Kindersley Ltd.,London, 2017 One of the most important items of Indian film publicity - the original six-sheeter poster of the landmark and epic film - Mother India - and the iconic Nargis “ Mother India was a watershed in the annals of our film history. It came at a time when India was taking fledgling steps forward towards unity, development and carving out its own identity in the comity of nations… Like Naya Daur in its own manner, Mother India that released in the same year, showed the shades of a changing nation. The film was able to blend shades of patriotism with romance, good old valour with the problems of development in an emerging nation. Of course, there was the evil moneylender too as the symbol of all that is wrong with rural India.There was a clear message of socialism: the State provided development with a water canal, private enterprise hoarded goods, reduced the poor to being at the mercy of unscrupulous moneylenders... The film was nominated for the Academy Award as the Best Film in Foreign Language besides winning five Filmfare awards.” Ziya Us Salam, reprinted in Ziya Us Salam (Editor).’Housefull: The Golden Age of Hindi Cinema’. New Delhi: Om Books International 2012 ; p.55.