Even though there were lots of film magazines and articles in the national newspapers, the academic world did not take films seriously. Mahatma Gandhi was against fims and famously K A Abbas wrote an article to convince him! I can't remember any academic paper published in any academic journal before 1950. Then comes this Gujarati Miss from the Department of Sociology, University of Bombay, she decides to do a doctoral thesis on Indian films. I believe this is the first one of its kind in India. There were no Departments of Film Studies in those days. People from the Departments of English Literature, Sociology and what not, slowly started writing. I cannot remember what the first article about films was in an academic journal, some of my learned friends may know. The thesis was published as a book in 1950.

Now You Know!