A Throw of Dice (1929), an epic vision of life in India, was long forgotten until the British Film Institute decided to restore it in 2006. It turned out to be a revelation, a bonafide classic that had been lost to audiences for years, representing the pioneering vision of a director who previously had barely rated a footnote in most film history books. It derived from one of India's most famous literary masterpieces, the Sanskrit poem The Mahabharata. Based on the epic's gambling episode, it tells the tale of rival cousins (Charu Roy, Himansu Rai) in love with the same woman (Seeta Devi), a forest girl who nurses the king back to health after a hunting accident. The king's passion for gambling eventually overcomes his love when he allows his cousin to lure him into a game of dice with his kingdom and his wife at stake.

German director Franz Osten first met Bengali lawyer Rai while the latter was visiting Germany. At Rai's invitation, the director traveled to India to team with him for three silent films, Prem Sanyas (1925), which dramatized the life of the Buddha, 1928's Shiraz, about the construction of the Taj Mahal, and this 1929 feature. All three combine classic Indian narratives with documentary filming techniques that provide a unique vision of Indian life for the period, lacking most of the colonial prejudices of Western films about the country. Rai and Devi starred in all three, while Roy joined the team with the second feature.

Shot in Rajasthan, A Throw of Dice showcased the region's dense jungles and breathtaking mountain vistas, and featured 10,000 extras, 1,000 horses and 50 elephants, the latter from the royal houses of Jaipur, Undaipur and Mysore. It was shot on 35 mm stock with surprising clarity (Rai had bought equipment in Germany and also hired technicians from there) and managed to wrap up the action in a tidy 74 minutes.

A Throw of Dice was a big hit in Europe and Asia, partly because it was one of the first Indian-set films to star Indian actors instead of Europeans in dark makeup. Actually, leading lady Seeta Devi was Anglo-Indian, born Renee Smith. The film appeared only briefly in the U.S., reviewed in the New York Times in 1930. Its impact on Indian cinema was tremendous. The incident-heavy plot and stunning location work would anticipate the types of films made by Bollywood as the nation's cinema grew through the decades. But global politics would eventually upstage the film in Europe.

Osten's Indian films made him a pioneer in location shooting in an era when most films were shot on studio sets. He returned to India in 1935 to finish his career with another 15 films shot at Rai's studio, Bombay Talkies Workers Industrial Co-Operative Society. But his conversion to the Nazi party ended his career, though his very human treatment of his film's Indian characters would raise questions about his commitment to Aryan supremacy. In 1939, the British colonial government in India arrested him and held him until the end of World War II.

All three stars became legends in Indian cinema. Devi made only a few more films, then focused on theatrical work, while Roy switched to directing, turning out ten films during the '30s. In later years, Devi was the subject of speculation as to whether she was the only actress appearing under that name. Rumors suggested her sister sometimes worked under the same stage name. Rai focused primarily on producing, founding Bombay Talkies in 1934. The strain of maintaining his studio through the troubled times of World War II, however, led to Rai's death in 1940 at the relatively young age of 48.

For years, A Throw of Dice remained largely unknown in the West, where the most celebrated adaptation of The Mahabharata was Peter Brook's three part stage version, premiered in 1985 and videotaped in 1989. That production was both widely acclaimed for its epic scope and its attempt to create a stage style using actors from a variety of national dramatic traditions and criticized for its Western approach to the material. Some critics accused him of turning the Sanskrit epic into soap opera.

The BFI had added a print of Osten's film in its collection in 1945. In celebration of the 60th anniversary of Indian independence, they started work on a restoration in 2006 complete with a new score combining Indian and Western musical styles by Nitin Sawhney. The new version premiered in April 2007 at the Barbican in London with live accompaniment by the London Symphony. A free screening in Trafalgar Square during the India Now festival drew a crowd of 10,000. When the restoration played the Grant Park Music Festival with a live orchestra playing Sawhney's score Chicago audiences greeted it with cheers. With critics and audiences hailing this forgotten classic, Osten has been accorded a place as one of the greatest directors in film history.

Producer: Himansu Rai
Director: Franz Osten
Screenplay: W.A. Burton
Based on a story by Niranjan Pal
Cinematography: Emil Schunemann
Art Director: Promode Nath
Music: Willy Schmidt-Gentner
Cast: Seeta Davi (Sunita), Himansu Rai (King Sohat), Charu Roy (King Ranjit), Modhu Bose (Kirkbar), Sarada Gupta (Kanwa), Tincory Chakrabarty (Kanzler Raghunath).
BW-74m.

by Frank Miller