Moore Avenue studio in Kolkata, where cameras rolled for Uttam Kumar, Prithviraj Kapoor caves in
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Kolkata: A portion of the wall of a two-storied dilapidated building at 46, Moore Avenue that once housed the East India Studio collapsed during rain on Thursday morning.
The studio, operational from 1932 to 1960, saw legends like Prithviraj Kapoor, Durga Khore, Debaki Kumar Bose, Uttam Kumar, and Biswajit Chatterjee acting.
Abandoned since the 1960s, it became a shelter for five or six homeless people.
None was injured in the collapse. The building's premises also have several garages.
The building was declared an unsafe structure some years ago, sources said. India's first international award-winning film, Debaki Kumar Bose's 'Seeta' was shot at East India Studio. The KMC buildings department will demolish insecure parts of the landmark studio building after a structural study, said Debabrata Majumdar, KMC MMiC.
It was the first studio in India to have installed an automatic film development machine, and Mitchell camera, and produced multilingual films.
It was set up with funding from Raibahadur Motilal Chamaria.
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The proprietor of the studio was B M Khemka. During the Second World War, the building was taken over by allied forces, and a garage came up there for the repair of army vehicles. Later, the responsibility of running the studio went to J C Bothra of Motilal Theatres. In 1951, a fire broke out in the building. Though the studio was renovated, it ceased to exist in 1960s. The balcony of another old building at Park Circus collapsed.
None was injured.
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