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Elan (1947)

Mehboob Khan

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  • Release Date1947
  • GenreHindi
  • FormatB-W
  • LanguageHindi
  • Run Time125 min
  • Length3579.87 meters
  • Number of Reels18
  • Gauge35 mm
  • Censor RatingU
  • Censor Certificate Number217
  • Shooting LocationCentral Studios
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‘ELAN’ is a bold declaration on the necessity of educating our young ones whose care God has bestowed upon us.

For this purpose the lives of two sisters from one of the old cities of India have been portrayed. The elder one is a poor widow symbolizing the best in womanhood, whilst the younger sister is married to a titled rich man, and her wealth has made her proud and haughty. Each has a son. Javed, the son of the poor mother, goes to school, then to college and passes his graduation.

Sajjad, the son of the younger sister brought up in all luxury, hardly goes to school, and his fond mother unknowingly encourages in him all sorts of costly habits. She thinks it the born privilege of those born with a silver spoon. He grows up full of vices, spends lavishly, and moves about in the most undesirable society. He squanders the family wealth and also borrows money from Sheikh Saheb who is the shylock of the town. Khan Bahadur who is a weak father and husband finds it too late to control him, and dies of shock. Sajjad is now the complete master of his family fortune, and goes deeper into the abyss of vice.

Naz Parwar, the lovely daughter of a rich widower who really loves the poor Javed is forced into a marriage with Sajjad under the traditional notions of getting the daughter married in an ancestrally rich house irrespective of other considerations.

Javed who thus loses his love does not feel defeated and by his scholastic virtues enables himself to go to England, and qualify for the Bar and returns to get himself comfortably settled with increasing prosperity. Sajjad pursue his reckless career and his married life brings all sorts of calamity on his now widowed mother and wife.

Time comes when he does not even hesitate to strike his mother on her inability to provide further funds.

Then he wants Naz Parwar, whose only happiness is her young son, to approach her father repeatedly for financial help. The unhappy father after having known the doings of his son-in-law transfers all his property in the name of his grandson, and when the poor wife finally brings this message, Sajjad is enraged, and feels that his son stands as an obstacle between him and his father-in-law’s wealth.

In his rage he tries to kill the poor child. His wife and his mother both rush to protect the innocent boy, and one of them strikes him so severely with an iron rod that he dies.

Who do you think should kill this man who was a menace not only to society, but to his own kith and kin?

 

(From the official press booklet)

 

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