MARIANI WALKED PASS BY ME AND SAID, ‘SORRY… TERLAMBAT!’ AS SHE WALKED TO THE SET IN ‘DARAH MUDA’ TO SING A SONG…AND BRITISH PROPAGANDA!

By Mansor Puteh

Much has been said and written and mostly assumed that the films produced by the old Malayan film industry then based in Singapore had so much to offer to the viewers then as they still do now.

Yes, some of that is true; but most of it is not so and the others, simply false.

Old Malay films produced by the two studios – Shaw Brothers’ Malay Film Productions Studios in Jalan Ampas and Cathay-Keris Studios at East Coast Road were indeed more like British propaganda films all meant to distance the viewers from the realities faced by them, being under British colonial rule and not yet taken by the calls for Merdeka that was being considered by a small group of politically inclined Malayans centered in Kuala Lumpur.

With the many old Malay films produced and distributed throughout the country it was easy for the British to continue their campaign to further their interests in the country which then included Singapore.

Unfortunately, not many film buffs and scholars realized that the films, although entertaining but they distracted the masses from the angst they were supposed to experience; that there is yet another level in film that not many can talk about or deal in since it requires a lot of understanding on what the art of the cinema and the films produced and shown, not by chance but by a certain need and to get the necessary objective, unknown and unseen but felt, which is propaganda and espionage – cultural and so on.

No wonder the only rule that was imposed by the British then which was abided by the studios, was that there should not be any English character in the films they produce.

And as anyone can see, there is hardly any major or interesting English character in any film produced by the Old Malayan Cinema.

There are just a few of them, but they are actors sitting the living room of a large house where a party is being held in a cabaret in ‘Darah Muda’ which was directed by Jamil Sulong, with Jins Shamsuddin and Sharimah and the other top actors of the studio with Mariani who sang the theme song called, ‘Darah Muda’ – which fortunately happened when I happened to be there in the studios.

It took me a long while to take my memories back to the time when this scene was being film, and even when the film was shown in the cinemas in 1963 and later on television I did not get the connection to what happened to me in my earlier life.

Yes, the scene looked familiar; and Mariani singing the song was intriguing. It took many more years before I realized how I was actually at the set in the Shaw Brothers Studios at 8 Jalan Ampas in Singapore when it was being filmed.

And suddenly, I remembered Mariani saying to her colleagues, ‘Sorry…terlambat’, as she walked from the makeup room to the set where everybody was ready for the shoot but who did not show any disdain for some delay in the filming because the star of the film was slightly late. 

(I checked with Mariani years later who confirmed it was her who sang the song, ‘Darah Muda’ in the film with the same name, when I bumped into her in a shopping complex when she was with her daughter, Actress Malissa Saila.

I was quite confused because all the time I thought it was her elder sister, Saloma who had walked pass by me in the studios then.)

I also didn’t realize then that Jins Shamsuddin, Sharimah and Kuswadinata and the others and Jamil Sulong were there; I had not seen too many old Malay films then, so I could not remember any of them or who they were including Mariani herself, other than she was acting in the film.

It was also the first time I watched television in the house of my relatives in Geylang, a short clip from ‘Sea Hunt’ with Jeff Bridges in the starring role, al on my first trip to Singapore from Melaka where I was born and grew up in which was a few months after television was introduced in Singapore on 15 February, 1963..

It would be a long while later in December,  2011 when I managed to return to the Shaw Brothers’ Studios at 8 Jalan Ampas only to see parts of it with the studios torn down and left to decay with no one knowing what the owners of the old studios wanted to do with the lot. It is too small to be turned into a tourist attraction for visitors especially those from Malaysia to visit.

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There is a plaque in front of the lot that describes to visitors about the studios when they were active and a photo showing a film director who had come from India, L. Krishnan directing a film. .

The Cathay-Keris Studios which were on East Cost Road and Jalan Buloh Perindu all have been demolished to make way for development.

It was all well and good for the two major studios in Singapore which were very active during the British colonization of Malaya to have lost their luster and the history they left behind had never been told and studied seriously other than the superficial entertainment values they offered to the masses then.

There is no one who had gone beyond this to suggest and even charge how the British had carefully manipulated the sentiments of the Malays and of the other races in the country to allow the two studios to lull them from their immediate concerns which was to get rid of the British from Malaya whose duty was undertaken by a small group of people who were more inclined in politics and national struggles centered in Kuala Lumpur who finally managed to wrest the country from the 176 years of British colonization of Malaya for it to finally independence from 31 August, 1957.