Sarvottam Badami

Sarvottam Badami Biography

Sarvottam Badami (1910-2005) was an Indian film Director known for the movies Dr. Madhurika (1935), Grihalaxmi (1934) and Ver Nu Vasulat (1935). One of the film makers of early talkies, he directed movies belonging to Hindi, Tamil and Telugu films. He started his film journey with the historic movie – Alam Ara, the first Indian talkie, where he played the role of a sound recordist. He attributed a lot for starting Film Division which made documentaries and news-reel. He is known for his association with Sagar Movietone, Film Company started by Ardeshir Irani.

Badami was born in 1910 in Channapatna, Bangalore. After school education, he worked as a garage mechanic. He later worked as a projectionist in Select Picture House, Bangalore, both under Ambalal Patel who started a film company with Ardeshir Irani and Chimanlal Desai - Sagar Movietone in 1930 in Mumbai. Badami too reached Mumbai to study automobile engineering. Thus he got an opportunity as a sound recordist for Ardeshir Irani's Alam Ara (1931). Around that time, he got an opportunity to complete an incomplete movie, Harishchandra. The movie became successful and thus he signed a contract with Sagar Movietone for three movies - Galava Rishi (Tamil), Rama Paduka Pattabhishekam and Shakuntala in Telugu. The movies became successful and established him as a director.

At first he was not familiar with Hindi and worked on south Indian languages. But during the period 1932-1947, he worked for Sagar Movietone and directed nearly 30 films in Hindi. Chandrahasa (1933) starring Noor Mohammed Charlie was his first Hindi movie. He has worked with leading actors of his time – Ashok Kumar, Pahari Sanyal, Nargis etc. He gave the first big break to Mehboob Khan. He has also done several movies based on novels. After the establishment of Films Division in 1948, he became the chief producer in the newsreel department and made several documentaries.

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Updated: November 17, 2015