Raja Harishchandra: notice for the first public run

A typeset bill for the Coronation Cinematograph and Variety Hall on Sandhurst Road, Girgaum, Bombay. Top billing goes to Raja Harishchandra, described as “First film of Indian manufacture”. Then Miss Irene Delmar, duets and dance; the McClements, a comic sketch; Alexandroff, the wonderful foot-juggler; and Tip-Top Comics. Four shows a night, starting at 6.

Dadasaheb Phalke made the film after seeing a film of the life of Christ in Bombay in 1911. He went to London to learn the trade, imported the equipment, and cast men in the women’s parts after failing to find an actress. It premiered at the Olympia Theatre on 21 April 1913 and opened to the public at the Coronation on 3 May.

The last line of the notice says admission is at double rates. The run sold out for a week and was extended. Only the first and last reels survive, at the National Film Archive of India, and some historians think they come from Phalke’s 1917 remake.