Krishna Shah
Krishna Shah was an Indian-American/Gujarati film and theatre director, screenwriter, playwright, producer, and production/distribution executive.
Shah was considered the first Indian to create the crossover between Bollywood and Hollywood. He began his career with international stage plays and also screenplay work for US television, but is perhaps best known for directing the feature films Shalimar and The River Niger. In his middle years, Shah was involved with the low budget cult circuit, directing and distributing movies such as Hard Rock Zombies and Ted & Venus, the later of which he executive produced through his Double Helix Films banner.
Shah was a perennial of the international film distribution scene, where he spent decades in various sales, production, and leadership capacities.
In 1984, after years of creating nothing but financial and critical failures at both the US and Indian motion picture box office, Shah became famously "enraged" over the lack of interest in his film catalogue by distributors in his native India, saying, "the difference between filmmaking in Hollywood and India is like the difference between steak and curry."
In a 2010 interview, Shah said to Dinesh Raheja of Mid Day News, "I was the Night Shyamalan of my times."
Upon his death in 2013, iconic Bollywood actress Zeenat Aman described Shah as "a very warm and hospitable man".
Early years
Stage
Shah began his life in the entertainment business by writing and directing stage plays, internationally. As Artistic Director of the Indian National Theatre, he mounted Rabindranath Tagore's 1910 King of the Dark Chamber in New York City in 1961. Later that year, Shah and Dark Chamber were brought to the South African theatre scene by the black professional group Union Artists. In 1962, Dark Chamber opened in Durban before playing at the University of the Witwatersrand's Great Hall. Shah was then honored with a theatre company created in his name, while Professor Dennis Schauffer of the University of Durban-Westville would later write a scholarly paper titled "In the Shadow of the Shah" which explained in detail Shah's contribution to South Africa's cultural enlightenment.In 1963, Krishna Shah directed the three act Sponono, which he'd co-written with South African author and anti-apartheid activist Alan Paton. It was Shah's idea to convert three of Paton's preexisting short stories into a stage play. Shah and Paton worked together on the script, and Union Artists were tapped for actors and other contributions. Sponono debuted 12 December 1962 at ML Sultan Theatre, Durban, then travelled to Sea Point, Johannesburg, and on to Pietermaritzburg's Lotus Hall in March 1963. Cape Times critic Ivor Jones said the play was an "exciting dramatic contrivance drew a packed multi-racial audience to its opening night" while Tony Williams Short of The Argus noted the play's "universal theme" as being "a profound study of the subtleties and depths of forgiveness."
In 1964, Shah and Paton took Sponono to the Cort Theatre on Broadway, a well-considered venue renamed in 2022 to The James Earl Jones Theatre. At the Cort, US stage producer Mary Frank took control of Sponono. The play had many internal difficulties. Frank fired Shah shortly before opening night and proceeded to change pivotal aspects of the play. Shah vehemently protested these changes, stating that the play had seen success in South Africa and that the changes Frank was making would destroy the meaning and presentation. Shah was subsequently forbidden to be near the play's cast or production, with Frank citing Shah as being "ill" for a cover story.
The play closed prematurely. Quite unlike its South African run, Sponono on Broadway was indeed a critical and financial failure. As the play was dying, Frank ran a confrontational and confusing ad in the New York Times, lambasting the city's "Negroes and liberals" for not attending the show, while crediting the play completely to Shah and Paton as their work, alone. It was twenty years before Frank would produce her next and final play, while Krishna Shah would abandon the world of theatre to explore film and television. Paton himself expressed regret at the "tragic" occurrences due to Frank's interference, saying, "I now wish, of course, that we had not presented the play on Broadway."
UCLA film school
After the mid-1960s fiasco of Sponono on Broadway, Krishna Shah became a UCLA student, enrolling in the university's film program of the day. During May 1966 his student short film Our Gang debuted at UCLA's "Talking Pictures" semi-annual evening of films. Our Gang was praised as "the best and most truly imaginative movie of the batch". Shah would years later repeatedly claim that Our Gang had won second place at a UCLA school competition, while director George Lucas' THX 1138 student film had won first. However, Lucas was a USC School of Cinematic Arts student, and the original student version of Lucas' 1138 film was not screened in public until 1967.US television
In 1966, Krishna Shah's "The Abominable Snowman Affair" was purchased by MGM Television for season three of its hit series The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. The episode, number 13 for the season and number 72 overall, was broadcast 9 December 1966. Fans of the show would later consider the episode among the worst of the series.Shah would later share a 1968 Story by credit with John McGreevey and Albert Mannheimer on the ABC Television show The Flying Nun. The episode, titled "Tonio's Mother," was first season, number 19.
In 1973, Shah directed vignettes in two episodes of the Paramount Television series Love, American Style. Shah's Love and the Clinical Problem appeared season five, episode 33, and featured Dr. Joyce Brothers in a comedic take on sex clinics of the times. On 23 November 1973, Shah's Love and the Time Machine aired, with Cindy Williams as the subject of a temporal experiment.
Krishna Shah worked for Universal Television in 1974, directing a single episode of the Raymond Burr show Ironside. His episode, called "Once More for Joey," was part of Ironside's seventh season.
Shah's work in US television concluded with his single episode contribution to the series The Six Million Dollar Man, again for Universal. The episode aired 24 March 1974 with the title "Dr. Wells Is Missing". Shah shared a Written by credit with Elroy Schwartz, William J. Keenan, and Lionel E. Siegel. The episode established that character Steve Austin could push his bionic legs beyond.
Motion pictures (as director)
''Rivals''
In June 1969, The Hollywood Reporter announced that MGM and Warner Bros. had optioned The Wound, a Krishna Shah original screenplay. Monroe Sachson would direct the picture as his feature film debut, and the script's working title became Jaimie for a time. Two years later Variety reported that the rights for the screenplay had reverted to Shah, due to production delays. In 1972, Shah decided to produce and finance the movie himself, and also direct. With the help of Wall Street brother-in-law N. Norman Muller, Shah mounted the film---now called Rivals---via investments from members of the Muttontown and Hampshire country clubs of Long Island, a process undertaken by Muller who had membership at both venues.Shah was able to set a cast that included Joan Hackett, Robert Klein, and Scott Jacoby in the leading roles. The film was shot in and around New York City, and was distributed by Avco Embassy in 1972. Upon its release---and in all the years since---Rivals was widely savaged by critics large and small. Roger Greenspun of The New York Times called the film "terrible in such eccentric ways and with such a desire to instruct that I can't deny it certain values, though probably never the values it intended." The US Conference of Catholic Bishops deemed the movie "repugnant trash" and gave it their Morally Offensive mark.
In an attempt to rescue the movie from its box office failure, the film was re-released as Deadly Rivals. It was hoped the audience for thriller genre movies would respond to the new name, but they did not. In 1982 another attempt was made to switch the title when distributor Jack H. Harris reissued the film for theatres, branding it Sex and the Single Parent.
''The River Niger''
, Cicely Tyson, and Lou Gossett, Jr. would headline Krishna Shah's second feature film, The River Niger.In May 1973, the film rights to Joseph A. Walker's Tony and Pulitzer-winning Broadway play The River Niger were purchased from The Negro Ensemble Company at a price "well into six figures," by veteran producer Sidney Beckerman. After rejections by all the major studios and larger independent financiers, Beckerman contacted Isaac L. Jones for help. Jones successfully solicited a nationwide group of black businessmen affiliated with Minority Enterprise Small Business Investment Corporations, a program established under the Nixon administration to stimulate investments in minority owned and controlled businesses. Jones later stated that The River Niger was the first major film to be financed entirely with MESBIC capital. "I hope this film is successful for our backers," he said. "We all despise black exploitation films and want to create alternatives."
Krishna Shah was then selected to direct. In May 1975 it was reported that the filming of The River Niger---also known as Ghetto Warriors---was underway, with a budget of nearly US$800,000. On 26 December 1975, The Hollywood Reporter stated that principal photography had been concluded, and that Shah had finished the film under budget and in only 19 days.
The River Niger had its 2 April 1976 world premiere in Chicago, with a general Los Angeles opening 7 April 1976. Despite the award-winning source material and superb cast, box office was minimal and reviews were largely negative. Roger Ebert gave the film two stars, saying " has good intentions and several very well-acted scenes. But its direction is a mess". Chief film critic Vincent Canby of The New York Times called the movie "a screen disappointment" and "virtually an object lesson in how not to make a movie out of a theater piece," saying the overall narrative had "a total lack of cohesive style and cinematic intelligence". TV Guide would later say that the film "misses the mark due to Shah's uncertain direction," while giving the movie two stars. However, Leonard Maltin gave the film three stars, calling it an "intelligent, moving story" that was "touching and convincing."
For her work in the role of Mattie, Cicely Tyson would go on to win the 1976 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture.