Newspaper Boy (1955)

A highly acclaimed neo-realist experiment telling of Appu (Moni), the son of an industrial worker and a maid. When the father has an accident, is sacked and later dies of tuberculosis, Appu has to leave school and become the breadwinner, looking after his two even younger siblings when his mother dies as well. He works as a domestic servant in a rich household and eventually becomes a newspaper vendor. The film adapted the commercially successful ‘realist’ Bengali-Hindi tearjerker Babla (1951), esp. in modelling Master Moni’s tragic and incorruptible determination to succeed and vindicate his family’s good name in the style of Niren Bhattacharya. The director and production unit had no previous film-making experience.