Colorful Bombay (1937) Poster

(1937)

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6/10
Mixture of old and new in India...
Doylenf19 March 2009
"Colorful Bombay" offers an intriguing glimpse of the old and new traditions, side by side in India, opening with a shot of the impressive Taj Mahal Hotel, a sprawling complex in the midst of a bustling city.

At the lower end of the spectrum, we view the hard workers occupying the lowest end of the caste system, all laboring to build a house with men and women sharing heavy duties.

A simpler life style is shown in the fishing villages. Still another aspect of India is "the racetrack" where every color and creed mixes to enjoy the sight of horses racing along the track to the finish line.

The narration refers to Bombay as "the gateway to India" as we leave the city.
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7/10
this Fitz chapter takes us to Bombay
ksf-216 March 2016
An early but color shortie bit from James FitzPatrick. Still under British control, we take a quick tour around town in Bombay. Fitz DOES talk about the infamous caste system, but we don't spend much time on that; instead, we see the Taj Hotel, some time at the racetrack, some time in the food marketplace. Most folks are so well dressed! Even in the market, most folks are wearing neat, white, clean clothing. A discussion of Hinduism, and how they hold their funeral pyre. It's a whirlwind tour, so it's all over in a few minutes. Must have been quite a view on the outside world when people didn't travel very far. He started these in the 1920s and did them into the 1950s so this was plunk in the middle of his run. Shown in between films on Turner Classics.
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6/10
colonial India
SnoopyStyle18 June 2022
TravelTalks goes to Bombay (Today Mumbai). It talks about Hinduism and the Caste system. There are some interesting observations like shaking hands under a towel although who knows what it actually means. Some of this has to be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism. It's a white colonial guy talking about a native culture. It may be interesting but one must always keep the presenter in mind. At the end of the day, it is a surface look at a complex culture from an old white guy. The pictures are still interesting.
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TravelTalks
Michael_Elliott29 August 2009
Colorful Bombay (1937)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

James A. FitzPatrick's TravelTalks series travel to India where we get to see both the rich side of Bombay as well as the poor side. We learn that many ten-year-old girls are married off for religious reasons and that in the past many of them would jump into a fire after their husband's death as it was thought they couldn't live without the other. We also see some rather strange fish for sale, how a house is built and how the men and women must share all duties. This is yet another interesting entry in the long-running MGM series. If you've seen one then you should know what to expect. Once again the Technicolor really brings the locations to life and FitzPatrick offers up some nice narration for us.
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5/10
As Fitzpatrick Keeps Saying, The Gateway To India
boblipton18 June 2022
James A. Fitzpatrick sends the Technicolor cameras to Bombay -- nowadays people insist you say "Mumbai" -- to look at various sights and sniff at the caste system. There are relatively few statistics in this one, although he does trot out his thesaurus for his own amusement.

The copy of this short that plays occasionally on Turner Classic Movies looks a little grimy, and is not in great shape.
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