Legal battle cleared, war drama film releases on Friday

MUMBAI: In a big relief to filmmaker Vishal Bhardwaj, the Bombay high court allowed his love story based in a World War II setting, Rangoon, to hit the screens on Friday as scheduled. The high court allowed the release with the condition that Bhardwaj first furnishes a bank guarantee of Rs 2 crore to avoid a stay desired by a production house, Wadia Movietone.
Wadias had accused the director of violating a confidentiality agreement and the copyrights it held on ‘Fearless Nadia’ a stuntstar of the 1930s and 40s.The HC, in interim orders, directed the Rangoon makers to deposit Rs 2 crore with the court administration.
The legal team of former advocate general Ravi Kadam, Amit Naik, Virendra Tulzapurkar and Ashish Kamath for Bhardwaj, Viacom 18, Nadiadwala Grandson, and others who were dragged to court days before the scheduled screening walked out triumphant on Thursday after the court order was passed by Justice K R Sriram. Roy Wadia grandson of the late wellknown film producer JBH Wadia had sought Rs 20 crore in damages from the Rangoon team.
The court heard arguments at length, first made by senior counsel Navroze Seervai for Wadia about how confidentiality promised in 2004-05 was breached as was the intellectual property rights over the swashbuckling stunt woman characters played by Nadia in a series of films decades ago and then senior counsel Kadam, who argued all day Wednesday and early Thursday, before a rejoinder again by Seervai. Justice Sriram said his detailed order with reasons will be available later but felt a release conditional on a bank guarantee of Rs 2crore till the final disposal of the Wadia plea would suffice the cause of justice at this stage. Both sides may have been prompted to utter a “signature phrase” used by Nadia but with diametrically opposite emotions, one of triumph and one of defeat.
The film starring Kangana Ranaut-Saif Ali Khan-Shahid Kapoor has a Ranaut playing the character of Miss Julia, based on real-life Australian stunt actor Mary Evans, better known globally as Fearless Nadia, said Wadia. Wadia Movietone said it holds rights to all scripts, publicity material and posters for the Fearless Nadia films which it had produced. The suit alleged that the makers of Rangoon infringed on the copyrighted Fearless Nadia's characters, costumes, persona and even her signature phrase.
But seeking dismissal of the suit as being baseless, the co-producer and distributer Viacom’s lead counsel Kadam argued that the film's leading lady was not a copy of Nadia nor did her role breach any purported copyrights as there is no such right in historical characters. He had argued that “it is well known that in that era there were a large number of stunt women who would perform their own stunts”. More importantly, he had said that Fearless Nadia was the name of the actress and not a character in any of their films. The Wadia films “reflect the genre of the 1940s and not any individual,’’ he said.
US-based award winning 73-year-old scriptwriter Mathew Robbins, co-scriptwriter of Rangoon, denied all allegations. His reply said that the character of Julia is “based on independent research…where we discovered that in the year 1930s-40s numerous films were made by various production houses where female protagonist was a stunt woman, who would wear western clothes, would carry a weapon like a sword, pistol or whip and that ‘Nadia’ was just one of those several stunt actresses which featured in multiple films projecting empowered and strong women.’’ His affidavit also said that the get up of stunt heroine Nadia herself in her films of yore were an “exact replica of the internationally well-known film character “Zorro’’ with the eye-mask, whip and hat.
“The claim set up in favour of the late JBH Wadia is not only erroneous but incorrectly claims ‘proprietary rights’ over several ‘features’ which were not only common but which due to their use as part of the trend virtually are stock features used commonly by all film producers during the period of the 1930s to the late 40s,’’ said the reply.
The defendants case is also that the late JBH Wadia did nothing to seek to assert such rights by suits during the period against other film makers when the “Fearless Nadia’ films, as per claims of Wadia were at the very height of their popularity. “Wadia did nothing because he was aware that the film industry followed trends and that at the time swashbuckling, stunt woman characters…’’