This book review appeared in The Week
Interest in Bollywood’s blond-haired and blue-eyed 1930s and 40s stuntwoman heroine Nadia, the ‘fighting, climbing, riding, courageous Lady Robin Hood’ of a whole genre of box-office stunt film hits, was revived with grand-nephew Riyad Wadia’s award-winning 1993 documentary, Fearless—the Hunterwali Story. Dorothee Wenner’s biography makes for fascinating reading, situating Nadia against the socio-historical and cinematic map of her day.
Stop me if you can: Fearless Nadia in Lutaru Lalna
The chronology of Nadia’s story is interspersed with a rich combination of analysis and anecdote, from stunt sequences to the ideological and creative impulses for various plot developments. Besides the daring and thrilling fighting scenes like those atop a train on Miss Frontier Mail (1936) or in a waterfall in Diamond Queen (1940), what made the Nadia films superhits were also their basic themes.
Wenner quotes film historian P.K. Nair: "The viewers always had the impression that the Nadia films dealt with precisely the conflicts which most affected them", going on to describe Nadia’s freedom dance in Bambaiwali (1941) and her fiery plea in Tigress (1947) against landholders. Yet ‘with raised eyebrows and slightly nauseated by the vulgar hurly-burly at Nadia’s showings—the secret of Nadia’s success was snobbishly put down as violence glorifying action entertainment’ and critics like Baburao of Film India repeatedly exhorted the Wadia Movietone Studios to move towards ‘social action’ themes.
This may have led to the split between the two Wadia Brothers. The elder J.B.H. wanted to move towards social drama like The Court Dancer, while the younger brother Homi, now married to Nadia, wanted to continue the stunt hits.
Wenner tells the Nadia story with all the delightful detail of an admiring insider, illustrating the radical social messages of the Nadia films, where the cult actress sidesteps the saint-immoral vamp polarity to emerge as a truly empowered individual.
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