Tumse Achha Kaun Hai (1969)

At a run time of almost three hours, this film is about two hours too long. This can be blamed on two things: Mehmood, and the fact that it’s crammed with every melodramatic cliche in Hindi film history. In point of fact, Mehmood should be credited as the main star of the film, with Shammi as his co-star and sidekick. Not only is entirely too much time spent on the irritating—and predictable—CSP (Shubha Khote as Mehmood’s love interest, with of course Dhumal as her father and the rather startling spectacle of Leela Mishra in a brown wig as her mother), but he figures in the main plot far more than Shammi does too. His character reminds me of the animals in Manmohan Desai films; he is smarter than all the humans combined, and loyal and true to a fault—and he is everywhere. Additionally, we are treated to all these various plot points: communal harmony, the bhai-bahen rishtaa, the rape-suicide trope, blindness, bad western-influenced girls turned into good sari-clad ones, bromantic pyare-dost, the saving of an atheist’s soul, and much, much more!

Why would anyone sit through this even once, you ask—let alone several times? Shammi, my friends, Shammi. Plus the initial sparkle of a rifle-wielding and stylish Babita, the joy of Lalita Pawar as identical twins, and Shankar-Jaikishan’s songs, which are lots of fun.

More Baburao

I don’t feel much like writing these days so will share more of Filmindia magazine (the September 1958 issue) and Baburao’s particular brand of wit.

I absolutely love the covers on these magazines.

Color!

I think this blog needs some color! And I know I do.

Baburao’s caption reads:

What an upholstery! After this how dare we call ourselves a starving people? And why do we at all need the American loan for our Five-Year Plan when the design is already so perfect and so complete? What we seem to need is a Ramzan every alternate month. Mala Sinha brings new tension to the screen in “Phir Subha Hogi”, a sensational theme produced and directed by Ramesh Saigal.

Yummy!

Long before Paul Newman appeared on bottles and jars of “Newman’s Own” salad dressings and spaghetti sauce, Dilip Kumar’s image was decorating jars of “Table Tasties” chili pickles. Hot indeed!

Solva Saal (1958)

Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night has inspired more than a few Hindi remakes, three of which I’ve seen: Raj Kapoor’s Chori Chori, Shammi’s Basant, Aamir Khan’s Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin. This one is now my favorite by far. The camera work and lighting is as lushly beautiful as Guru Dutt’s pictures always were; there’s no need for any color here! Add the sheer gorgeousness of (and chemistry between! and performances by!) Waheeda Rehman and Dev Anand, SD Burman’s sublime songs, and Raj Khosla’s brisk direction and it’s a classic (I like it even better than Capra’s original, and that is saying something).

Hotel (1981)

This Ramsay Brothers effort—billed in lurid lettering as “A Suspense Thriller”—is neither suspenseful nor a thriller.

Here, in a nutshell and without screen caps because Ultra DVDs don’t play on my computer, is why:

The Comic Side Plot: While an aging Mehmood romancing an aging Rajendranath under the spell of a love potion could possibly stand on its own as a horror film, that isn’t the intent here, and so it merely interrupts (for long stretches of time) what should be the building suspense as hotel guests are killed off one by one.

Keemat (1973)

How could something that begins with this screen possibly be bad? Dharmendra as James Bond Agent 116! A great many more title screens follow, with more good news: Padma Khanna, a very young Rekha, Prem Chopra in a blond wig and pink rimless glasses—ooh! my man Ranjeet!—Jayshree T, Rajendranath, Agha, KN Singh…the list goes on. I settle happily in my chair, looking forward to some stylish and loony shenanigans. But I’m in for a little surprise.

Chirag (1969)

Sometimes even a viewer with no clue about filmmaking (that would be me) can sense when the director (in this case, Raj Khosla) is a good one. Such is the case with this film, which has a fairly unremarkable story (until the end, when it plunges into irritatingly stupid) and pleasant but dull music (Madan Mohan). But the romantic chemistry between the lead pair alongside the interesting camera work and the brisk pace keeps everything going, which kept me going too. The sometimes hilarious subtitles helped, although I doubt that Raj Khosla had anything to do with those. I should also say that Asha Parekh looked absolutely gorgeous in this film, and I think our director thought so too, because there are a lot of lingering closeups of our heroine!

Sometimes I love that I don’t speak Hindi

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (2008)

Sweet geeky Punjabis meet Barbara Cartland! How can that not be delightful? As usual I am late to this party, which normally would stop me from writing about it but since in this case I found the film so much more wonderful than most of my friends and blogging compadres did, I feel the need to bloble (blog+burble) away. Incidentally, I watched RNBDJ with my sister, who also loved it, and it helped to have each other’s company and input on the rare occasions (almost entirely at the end) where the hackles did rise.

I am not a fan of Adi Chopra’s; I know I’ve mentioned elsewhere here that I did not like DDLJ much at all. But I didn’t feel this was permeated to nearly the same annoying degree of condescending-men-know-best that his other films have been, thanks in large part to Taani’s character (very nicely acted by Anushka Sharma); but also in large part thanks to the characters of Suri/Raj and Bobby Khosla (also well acted by Shah Rukh Khan and Vinay Pathak). All three are so patently ineffective at being that sort of paternalistic man that it is a joy to watch Suri’s bumbling but well-intentioned efforts to win Taani’s heart succeed—and succeed precisely because he is inept at “macho.”