Shanti Das

Fourteen films as art director - Teesri Manzil, Aradhana, Amar Prem, Nikaah.

Fourteen films here, and he is the first art director in this catalogue to have a page at all.

Dil Deke Dekho in 1959, Teesri Manzil in 1966, Aradhana in 1969, Sharmilee, Amar Prem and Anuraag, Seeta Aur Geeta in 1972, Anamika in 1973, Balika Badhu in 1976, Anurodh in 1977, Khud-Daar and Nikaah in 1982, Jagir in 1984, Tawaif in 1985.

Art direction is the job nobody names and everybody sees. It is the reason a room reads as rich or shabby before a word is spoken, and in this period in particular it carried a great deal: Teesri Manzil is a hotel and a nightclub, Amar Prem is a courtesan's rooms, Nikaah is a Muslim household in Hyderabad, Seeta Aur Geeta is two homes that have to be told apart instantly because the plot depends on it.

The run from Aradhana through Amar Prem and Anuraag is Shakti Samanta's, and that stretch is the one most people picture when they picture the early seventies.

Dates and credits from Wikidata.