Alam Ara, India's first talkie film, celebrates its 80th anniversary

On this day in 1931, Alam Ara debuted at the Majestic Cinema in Mumbai causing such frenzy among the audience that the police had to be called in.

Alam Ara also featured the first song of Indian cinema, De De Khuda Ke Naam Par, sung by actor Wazir Mohammed Khan. 

The film, directed by Ardeshir Irani, is a love story between a prince and a gypsy girl and was based on a Parsi play. 

The sad part, however, is that as a result of a fire at the National Film Archive of India at Pune in 2003, the last surviving print of Alam Ara was destroyed, and the film is no longer available in its original format.