I do love a good buddy film. Redford and Newman in The Sting and Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, and James Caan and Billy Dee Williams in Brian’s Song (the most surefire way to get an American man to cry) illuminate those films with friendships that remain vivid long after the lights come back on.
So here are my favorite Hindi movie buddy roles—and brothers are not allowed. So…no Shashitabh here, sorry (Shashitabh probably deserve a post of their own some day).
In the almost 10 months I have been writing this blog, the most often read (and commented upon) post—by a huge margin—is the one about my love for Shammi Kapoor. It is also—again by a large margin—the top search that directs traffic here.
There’s a lot of love for this man out there! And that’s as it should be.
Quite a few people have asked lately for more Shammi movies to be posted here. So here’s another!
I needed a respite from a spate of bad/mediocre Hindi movies, so I dragged out some favorites to watch again. Jugnu is one of them. Dharmendra and Hema Malini are dreamy together, and Pran takes a break from villainy. It contains 100% of the Recommended Daily Masala Allowance: it’s almost three hours long and jam-packed with excitement and entertainment. It’s also one of my sister’s favorite films, and there’s no higher recommendation than that!
These screenshots show an actress and an actor who play husband and wife in this film. Who are they, and what is the name of the film (hint: the actor plays the title character)?
Our winner is Shweta, with a big assist from v9y and Carla. I thought this was a difficult one, but guess I will need to try harder!
The movie is Halaku (1956). Pran plays Halaku, a Mongol conqueror of Iran, who falls in love with Meena Kumari. This doesn’t go down well with his wife (Veena) or Meena’s beloved (Ajit, in one of his early hero roles, before he became a stock villain). The music by Shankar Jaikishan is beautiful, and Helen and Minoo Mumtaz have a dance together too!
This has been a week of real milestones in the Hindi movie world…
Pran celebrated his 88th birthday in style; Sanjay Dutt got married (also in style); Rajendranath passed away; and yesterday actress Manorama passed away also.
She was in a LOT of movies in her lifetime, the last being Deepa Mehta’s Water (she played Madhumati, the “head” of the widow’s ashram). Probably her best known role was as the wicked aunt in Seeta Aur Geeta.
May she also rest in peace.
After Ansoo Ban Gaye Phool, I set out to find more Deb Mukherjee films to see whether he could hold up under further scrutiny. I found this one:
Hooray! It’s 154 minutes of Trauma-Drama-O-Rama in Eastman Kodak Color. The main ingredients in this potboiler are:
and some very tight pants and loudly patterned shirts. If you don’t care for soap operas then you needn’t read further. You won’t like Adhikar. If you do sneak peeks at soaps on sick days and holidays…read on! But be warned: I can’t do this justice without a verrrrry long narrative and many many screen shots.
Despite the DVD cover showing Deb Mukherjee and Alka looking young and beautiful, their romance is only half of the plot. The other half revolves around Ashok Kumar’s character, the principal of a college named Vidyanand. This is not a bad thing! it’s a nice drama about keeping one’s integrity and lofty ideals intact even in the face of injustice. There’s also a rich-vs-poor subtext which starts out strong but doesn’t really go anywhere. The very very best things about the film are the marvelous songs by Laxmikant-Pyarelal, including two Helen numbers, and—Deb Mukherjee! I did not see that coming, I confess.
I had three “new” Shammi Kapoor movies to watch this week.
Happy happy joy joy!
This film was made as he was reaching the height of his fame, and it is a delicious Shammi-fest indeed. Beyond his numerous charms, the movie is also blessed with a good story (although there is an inexplicable plot development involving a second Mehmood towards the end which I mostly fast-forwarded through), wonderful songs by Shankar-Jaikishan, fantastic(al) sets and solid performances from all involved.
This film’s positives are the great songs by Shankar-Jaikishan, the choreography, the filmi noir set decoration, and the Helen-Pran chemistry. Gumnaam is familiar to western audiences because the film Ghost World used its first song (“Jaan Pehchaan Ho”) in a scene. This song kicks off the journey into a crazy world where bouffant hair meets men in dresses; giant Easter Island statues with glowing red eyes compete with Helen for your attention; and a killer on the loose stalks his terrified victims. The drawbacks include a patchy and nonsensical plot, and Nanda and Manoj Kumar as the lead pair (Shammi and Asha Parekh would have been so much better!), but this is nitpicking when compared to the pluses.
Karz was a smash hit in India when it was released. It has those ever-popular elements of reincarnation, deep spiritual connection to one’s mother, revenge and bad disco music. It also has a grandiose plot very characteristic of its director, Subhash Ghai. You might think from these comments that I did not care for the film, but I found it strangely enthralling. It veers crazily from one genre to another — is it a disco movie? a romance? a murder mystery? a supernatural thriller? — the answer of course is yes, all that and more besides!
The story begins with a courtroom judgment being delivered in favor of Ravi Verma (Raj Kiran) and against a mute sinister figure (Premnath), whose name is referred to variously throughout as
and 
MemsaabStory 
