Cinema Ni Rani (1925)

Bhavnani's second film and one of Sulochana's first big films also inaugurated the very popular 'lives of the stars' genre. This film was about a poor painter named Chandrakant (Khalil) who is about to commit suicide when he meets the film star Manjiri (Sulochana). He is creatively rejuvenated by the fantasies she inspires. Manjiri's modelling sessions are used to narrate her biography: her mother was a prostitute with a heart of gold who made sure her daughter was well educated. Chandrakant and Manjiri fall in love, but he is already married and his vampish, ill-tempered wife will not set him free. Exploiting the autobiographical ambiguities generated by a star playing a star, the film shows how Sulochana's image was being moulded for exploitation at Kohinoor and later at the Imperial Studio.