today, i went exploring the side roads of balestier road with a very interesting young man who shows a lot of concern for the environment. i have got to know him through my blogging. tony had commented on my postings on my old kampong and on balestier road. he had memories of trudging along some narrow lane that led to his uncle's house in the kampong.
i was supposed to show him around. instead, it was he who pointed out a lot of interesting finds to me. besides looking up a number of chinese temples and a burmese one, we also looked for the shaw malay studio at jalan ampas. we found the place but could not see much as the gate was locked. i managed to take the two pictures of the buildings through a gap in the gate.
after the war, the shaw brothers spent about a million dollars to rebuild the studio facilities at jalan ampas. it set up the malay film productions (mfp) in 1947 to produce films in malay.
the studio produced over 160 movies, making it the most prolific in the history of singapore's cinema.
the first film produced by the studio was 'singapura di waktu malam'. it was a comedy drama directed by b s rajhans and it starred siput sarawak.
no account of mfp is complete without the mention of p ramlee. he was spotted by rajhans during a performance in penang. p ramlee acted in 42 films and directed 16 films at the jalan ampas studio. the last film he made in singapore was 'tiger abdul'.
the last film produced at 8 jalan ampas was 'raja bersiong'. it was directed by jamil sulong.
the people who made the movies used to live in some company quarters located in the next street, at boon teck road.
