In a decade spanning 60 films in which he played dashing leading men, charming supporting characters, and menacing villains, actor Motilal left a stamp on Indian cinema that many feel is being erased. Among the stars he influenced are Naseeruddin Shah, Amitabh Bachchan and Dilip Kumar. He remains best known for playing Chunilal in the 1955 adaptation, which featured Dilip Kumar and Vyjayanthimala in the lead roles. But despite his popularity, Motilal reportedly died penniless and under-appreciated. “There should be a retrospective of his best work. Motilal should be studied in acting schools because he’s an all-time great,” filmmaker Sudhir Mishra told The Times of India in a 2015 interview.

Motilal was born in Shimla in the year 1910. He got his first break as a lead with the film Shaher Ka Jadoo (1934), but his first hit was Mehboob Khan’s Jagirdar (1938). He won a Filmfare Award for his performance in Devdas, but is also well regarded for the work he did in movies such as Sampat (1952), Anadi (1959), and Paigham (1959). “Not much has been written in praise of a great and very natural actor. Motilal was ahead of his times. Were he alive today, his sheer versatility would have ensured a place for him even now. In fact, he would be doing much better than any of us,” Bachchan wrote about him in the foreword to the book The Hundred Luminaries of Indian Cinema. In a 2023 interview with Film Companion, Naseeruddin Shah said about younger generation of actors, “It’s great that they’re standing on the shoulders of Om Puri, myself, Shabana Azmi, Smita PaTIL, Farooque Sheikh, just as we were standing on the shoulders of Balraj Sahni and Motilal.”