In which film does an obviously stuffed bird attack a scantily-clad Jeetendra, and why does it attack him?
Our winners are Nithin and Aspaan, who knew that it’s the film Nagin (1976) and Jeetendra is a snake (in man form) and the bird wants to eat him! A truly baaaaaad film as you might expect, but good fun nonetheless.
Let me begin by saying that I loved this film, although it did lose some momentum and direction towards the end. It is essentially a movie about faith (or the lack thereof: nastik = atheist), and unusually for a Hindi movie (at least in my limited experience), contains a fairly strong condemnation of the hypocrisy in organized religion. Comedian IS Johar both wrote and directed the film, and has a supporting role. A strikingly young and handsome Ajit stars alongside the beautiful Nalini Jaywant—who looks a lot like Nargis, and is absolutely wonderful as Rama, the moral center of the story. The real star of the show, though, is the sublime music by Chitalkar Ramchandra (a severely underrated music director in my opinion) with lyrics by the great lyricist and poet Kavi Pradeep.
When I see Nasir Husain’s name on a film, I am pretty sure I will be entertained. When I see Rishi Kapoor blowing on a trumpet on a DVD cover, I am pretty sure I will be entertained. When I see go-go boots that I covet within the first 5 minutes of a movie, I am pretty sure I will be entertained. And so it was that I was entertained by Hum Kisise Kum Naheen.
From the title, I suspected this might be a sad film. Then I discovered it was based on Thomas Hardy’s “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” and knew it would be. I haven’t read “Tess” since high school but I vividly remember that it doesn’t end happily. Unless you enjoy tragedy, which I don’t. But—I thought there might be some hope that a Hindi film would give it a less dark twist, being as that happy endings are more their hallmark, especially in the 1960’s. I also needed to get the Dharmendra-Nutan-Rehman bad taste from Dil Ne Phir Yaad Kiya out of my mouth!
MemsaabStory 