chance they met a man who recommended the palace of Roy Chowdhurys in Nimtita, known as the Nimtita Rajbari and Ray decided to scout the location. To his surprise the palace was not only perfect for the film but just so happened to have once belonged to Upendra Narayan, whom Bandopadhyay had based his main character on when first writing the short story. Ray worked closely with composer Ustad Vilayat Khan on the film, although he was initially uncertain about the composer's musical choices and had to convince Khan to make more sombre music pieces for the film. According to Ray, "The Nimtita palace was perfect, except that the music room–it did have one, for Ganendra Narayan's uncle Upendra Narayan Choudhury had been a patron of music much like the nobleman in our story–was not impressive enough to serve as the setting for the sumptuous soirées that I had planned." Therefore, the film's famed jalsaghar scenes were made inside the Aurora Film Corporation studio In Maniktala, Kolkata. The studio has now been demolished. Reception Although the film received mostly poor reviews in India, it received the Presidential Award in New Delhi for best film. When the film was gradually released in Europe and the US in the early 1960s it became a critical and financial hit and helped establish Ray's international reputation, although Ray said that in 1958 he did not think that the film would be successful in foreign markets. New Statesman film critic John Coleman compared Ray to Jean Renoir and Marie Seton said that the film "challenged the whole convention of songs and dances in India cinema. Audiences...conditioned to the introduction of songs and dances as entertainment interludes and [as] dramatic and romantic stresses, had never before been confronted with...classical singing and dancing as integral focal points of realistic sequences." John Russell Taylor said that the film was "one of Ray's most masterly films, exquisitely photographed and directed with a complete, unquestioning mastery of mood ... For those willing to place themselves under its hypnotic spell it offers pleasures of unique delicacy." Roger Ebert hailed it as "[Ray's] most evocative film, and he fills it with observant details." In 1963 Bosley Crowther praised the "delicacy of direction ... [and] eloquence of Indian music and the aurora of mise en scène." However, that same year Stanley Kauffmann criticised the film, calling it "a deeply felt, extremely tedious film...the