This week's release Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi is about a simple-looking man who transforms himself for the sake of love into a trendy dude. One of the early ugly duckling-to-swan films, was the romantic musical Love in Simla (1960).
It was RK Nayyar's first movie, after he had worked with the RK banner for a couple of films, and it introduced a new pair Joy Mukherjee (the producer S. Mukherjee's son) and Sadhana. She played the orphaned Sonia, who lives with her uncle (Kishore Sahu), aunt (Shobhana Samarth) and cousin Sheela (Azra). Sonia is the plain, tomboyish one with thick spectacles, Sheela is the pretty, vain sister, and she gets preferential treatment all the time. Sheela's boyfriend is Dev (Joy Mukherjee), whom she intends to marry.
One day, hurt and fed up of the cousin's cruel taunts, Sonia challenges Sheela that she will make Dev fall in love with her. It seems impossible, but in true Cinderella style, her grandmother (Durga Khote) decides to help change her into a glamorous doll. The makeover is classic—out go the glasses, the hair is trimmed (with the famous, trend-setting Sadhana fringe), she is made to drape a sari, walk gracefully and dance beautifully. She is now worthy of being in the race for snaring the eligible man.
The plot (Agha Jani Kashmiri) is sexist to the core, but garbed in humour, pleasant songs and the freshness of the actors. Then there's the dance competition (like in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi), Sheela drops Dev as a partner because he is not such a good dancer. He takes Sonia on to the floor and they win the contest. Sonia also wins a beauty contest, much to her cousin's chagrin. Sonia goes on to beat Sheetal at her game at every step, but finds that she and Dev have fallen in love with each other and revenge is now complicated… but not too much. There is no space for melodrama in a romantic comedy, so the love birds are united in the end.
Iqbal Qureshi's score had some hummable numbers like Dil tham ke chal, Love ka matlab pyar hai, Ae baby idhar aa, Gaal gulabi kiske hain… but he did not become a major name in the film music biz.
Sadhana and director Nayyar fell in love with each other during the making of this film. After a bit of struggle with disapproving parents they got married (in 1966) and were, till his death in 1995, one of the happiest couples in Bollywood.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Meerabai/Guddi
Guddi
This week's release Meerabai Not Out, about a young woman's obsession for cricket and cricketer Anil Kumble, is reminiscent of Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Guddi (1971), about a girl, who is crazy about films and star Dharmendra.
The delightful film with a screenplay by Gulzar had Jaya Bhaduri (now Bachchan) in her first Hindi film (Hrishida had spotted her at the Film Institute, Pune; she had earlier done Satyajit Ray's Mahanagar in Bengali) as Kusum, nicknamed Guddi, a school girl who loves movies and idolizes Dharmendra. To her simple and innocent mind, films are real, she imagines herself in love with Dharmendra, so much so that she refuses to marry anyone else, and turns down Navin (Samit Bhanja) who lover her and proposes to her. Her family is fed-up of the situation, till Kusum's uncle Professor Gupta (Utpal Dutt) offers to tackle the problem.
Taking Dharmendra's (playing himself) help, he decides to show her the fakeness of the film world, as opposed to reality. He takes a thrilled Guddi to Bombay to see a shootings and meet her idol. She sees that behind the scenes, films and stars are not all that fascinating, stunts are done by doubles, screen villains are nice people in real life, and that Navin is a real hero, not the screen star Dharmendra—of course the star sportingly goes along with the plan to open Guddi's eyes by agreeing to get bashed up by Navin.
A sweet coming of age film, with Gulzar's gentle wit and Hrishida's affectionate handling, the film was about Kusum's coming to grips with reality, or maybe a sad end to illusion, treated with warmth, humour and realism. Thanks to Hrishda's standing in the industry, many stars like Dilip Kumar, Vinod Khanna, Amitabh Bachchan, Navin Nischol, Mala Sinha and others, appeared as themselves, and the film could never have been as effective, if Dharmendra, dripping charm, had not played himself.
Under all the fun, games and romance, was Hrishida and Gulzar's poignant message about the grime behind the glamour, the struggles to achieve (through the character of a failed actor played by Asrani) and how ephemeral fame can be.
The film had a fine score by Vasant Desai, with the hymn Hum ko man ki shakti dena topping the charts, along with Bol re papeehara, that introduced a new singer Vani Jairam to films, who, unfortunately did not last as long as the film's lead actress Jaya Bhaduri.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Oye Lucky/ Kismet
Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! Is about a good-hearted thief. One of the earliest --and best-- Hindi films with a thief as the protagonist was Gyan Mukherjee's 1943 film Kismet, still listed among the biggest hits of all time, and the longest running (three years in a Kolkata theatre) till Sholay broke its record.
Ashok Kumar played Shekhar pickpocket and conman, on the run from the cops, he slips into the home of the famous stage dancer Rani (Mumtaz Shanti), who is now crippled and dependent on crutches. Shekhar falls in love with Rani and helps her get out of the clutches of the theatre's current owner, the villanous Indrajit (Shah Nawaz), by paying off her debts. He tries to reform, but gets into trouble by gifting her a stolen necklace. Then he steals once more from Indrajit, so that he can pay for an operation that will help Rani walk again. Shekhar is arrested, Rani gets into trouble as well, and matters are sorted out happily when it is discovered that Shekhar is actually the long-lost son of a rich man (Mubarak) and all's well that ends well.
The lost and found crime drama, written by Niranjan Pal was the biggest grosser of its time, the record set by it broken by Awara in the next decade. It was India's first blockbuster and the first with a chain-smoking anti-hero. It faced some censor problems and public outrage because of that, the cheeky anti-British song Door hato, however, surprisingly got past the pre-Independence strict censorship. Kismet was also markedly different in style from the films being made then, it was more naturalistic with realistic, low-key acting.
Ashok Kumar said in interviews that during a discussion they came up with the notion that our films were not as gripping as those from Hollywood, because the scripts were not as good. They sent for a book called Screenplay Writing by Francis Marian, which described how scenes were to be constructed and characters developed. Which probably explains why Kismet was not as stagey as other early films.
The music of the film by Anil Biswas, was a huge hit, with songs like, Door hato o duniyawalon Hindustan hamara hai, Ghar ghar mein diwali hai mere ghar mein andhera, Dheere dheere aa re badal, Ab tere siva haun mera Krishna Kanhiaya and Papiya re mere piya se keh do.
There was some behind the scenes squabbling going on between Devika Rani and Sashadhar Mukherjee at Bombay Talkies while this film was being made, and after this, Mukherjee and his brother-in-law Ashok Kumar broke away to establish their own Filmistan Studio.
Ashok Kumar played Shekhar pickpocket and conman, on the run from the cops, he slips into the home of the famous stage dancer Rani (Mumtaz Shanti), who is now crippled and dependent on crutches. Shekhar falls in love with Rani and helps her get out of the clutches of the theatre's current owner, the villanous Indrajit (Shah Nawaz), by paying off her debts. He tries to reform, but gets into trouble by gifting her a stolen necklace. Then he steals once more from Indrajit, so that he can pay for an operation that will help Rani walk again. Shekhar is arrested, Rani gets into trouble as well, and matters are sorted out happily when it is discovered that Shekhar is actually the long-lost son of a rich man (Mubarak) and all's well that ends well.
The lost and found crime drama, written by Niranjan Pal was the biggest grosser of its time, the record set by it broken by Awara in the next decade. It was India's first blockbuster and the first with a chain-smoking anti-hero. It faced some censor problems and public outrage because of that, the cheeky anti-British song Door hato, however, surprisingly got past the pre-Independence strict censorship. Kismet was also markedly different in style from the films being made then, it was more naturalistic with realistic, low-key acting.
Ashok Kumar said in interviews that during a discussion they came up with the notion that our films were not as gripping as those from Hollywood, because the scripts were not as good. They sent for a book called Screenplay Writing by Francis Marian, which described how scenes were to be constructed and characters developed. Which probably explains why Kismet was not as stagey as other early films.
The music of the film by Anil Biswas, was a huge hit, with songs like, Door hato o duniyawalon Hindustan hamara hai, Ghar ghar mein diwali hai mere ghar mein andhera, Dheere dheere aa re badal, Ab tere siva haun mera Krishna Kanhiaya and Papiya re mere piya se keh do.
There was some behind the scenes squabbling going on between Devika Rani and Sashadhar Mukherjee at Bombay Talkies while this film was being made, and after this, Mukherjee and his brother-in-law Ashok Kumar broke away to establish their own Filmistan Studio.
Yuvvraaj/Raja
Yuvvraaj, is heavily inspired by Barry Levinson's Dustin Hoffman-Tom Cruise starrer, Rain Man (1988), which had, in 1995, been Indianised into Raja by Indra Kumar. The story, is, simply, about the relationship between two brothers, one of whom is mentally challenged.
In Raja, the Brijnath or Birju (Paresh Rawal) is already disturbed by the refusal of his friend Rana Mahendra Pratap Garewal (Mukesh Khanna) to accept his brother Raja's marriage proposal for his (Rana's) younger sister Madhu. The two has been promised to each other as children, but Rana's refuses to consider it, since Birju's status does not match his own. Later, an accident causes Birju to become mentally handicapped and Raja has to look after him.
Raja (Sanjay Kapoor) and Madhu (Madhuri Dixit) meet each other again as grown-ups and fall in love. Rana and his wicked brother Vishwa (Dalip Tahil) want to keep the two apart. But when Raja suffers all kinds of humiliation and torture but does not waver in his love for Madhu, Rana pretends to give in and accept Raja as Madhu's suitor. While Raja is away, Rana invites Birju to stay with them. When he is there, they have one of their henchmen dress like Birju and attempt to rape Madhu. Rana and Vishwa forcibly send Birju to a mental hospital.
Now Raja has to choose between his brother and Madhu. She genuinely believes it was Birju who attacked her. But Raja believes his brother, who says he is innocent, and sets out to reveal Rana's evil plot. Even Madhu has to concede, finally, that she was mistaken, and her brothers had set her up. To the story of two brothers, Indra Kumar had added the romantic track and all the melodramatic masalato appeal to Indian audiences and the film did click at the box-office, helped in no small measure by Madhuri Dixit's superstar status then, and Nadeem-Shravan's hit score. The Nazrein mili.. love you Raja (with Madhuri dressed in just a kurta) was a chart-buster, along with Kisi din banoongi main Raja ki Rani.
Madhuri Dixit and Paresh Rawal were nominated for awards for their performances, and both won the Screen Awards that year. Rajawas a hit, but can't say that it was a memorable film, and it certainly didn't do anything for Sanjay Kapoor's career.
In Raja, the Brijnath or Birju (Paresh Rawal) is already disturbed by the refusal of his friend Rana Mahendra Pratap Garewal (Mukesh Khanna) to accept his brother Raja's marriage proposal for his (Rana's) younger sister Madhu. The two has been promised to each other as children, but Rana's refuses to consider it, since Birju's status does not match his own. Later, an accident causes Birju to become mentally handicapped and Raja has to look after him.
Raja (Sanjay Kapoor) and Madhu (Madhuri Dixit) meet each other again as grown-ups and fall in love. Rana and his wicked brother Vishwa (Dalip Tahil) want to keep the two apart. But when Raja suffers all kinds of humiliation and torture but does not waver in his love for Madhu, Rana pretends to give in and accept Raja as Madhu's suitor. While Raja is away, Rana invites Birju to stay with them. When he is there, they have one of their henchmen dress like Birju and attempt to rape Madhu. Rana and Vishwa forcibly send Birju to a mental hospital.
Now Raja has to choose between his brother and Madhu. She genuinely believes it was Birju who attacked her. But Raja believes his brother, who says he is innocent, and sets out to reveal Rana's evil plot. Even Madhu has to concede, finally, that she was mistaken, and her brothers had set her up. To the story of two brothers, Indra Kumar had added the romantic track and all the melodramatic masalato appeal to Indian audiences and the film did click at the box-office, helped in no small measure by Madhuri Dixit's superstar status then, and Nadeem-Shravan's hit score. The Nazrein mili.. love you Raja (with Madhuri dressed in just a kurta) was a chart-buster, along with Kisi din banoongi main Raja ki Rani.
Madhuri Dixit and Paresh Rawal were nominated for awards for their performances, and both won the Screen Awards that year. Rajawas a hit, but can't say that it was a memorable film, and it certainly didn't do anything for Sanjay Kapoor's career.
Dostana/Biwi Aur Makaan
Tarun Mansukhani's Dostana is about two guys who pretend to be gay in order to rent an apartment in Miami. Way back in 1966, when the word 'gay' (to mean homosexual) probably wasn't coined, and in any case, gays preferred to remain in the closet, what did men do when they couldn't get an apartment to rent because they were single? One of them got into drag and they pretended to be a couple. In that sense, Hrishikesh Mukerjee's Biwi Aur Makaan, made 42 years ago, was a precursor to Dostana, which, made in today's relatively liberal times does not just use the word 'gay' so casually, but also joke about Sholay's Gabbar and Munna-Circuit being gay.
Back then, getting into female garb was daring enough and nobody cast aspersions on actor Biswajeet's sexuality. Though it must be said, he made a rather beautiful woman. In Biwi Aur Makaan, four young men who move to Mumbai, cannot get accommodation because most landlords prefer to rent to married couples and not to bachelors. In desperation two of them disguise as women and pose as wives to the other two and get room with the Mishra family, which did not want single men, because there were two young girls in the house.
As can be expected two of them (Biswajeet-Mehmood) fall in love with the girls (Kalpana-Shabnam) and the whole charade eventually gets out of hand.The film was reportedly a remake of Bengali film Jaya Che Kali Boardingand was later made into a Marathi film called Ashi Hi Banwa Banwi by Sachin. It was a hit in both versions, but the Hindi remake, admittedly not one of Hrishida's best, did not do too well.
The film was produced by singer-composer Hemant Kumar, and the music was far more memorable than the film, and Gulzar, in the early days of his career wrote the lyrics. The hit numbers were Jaane Kahaan dekha hai, Aise danton mein uangali dabaao nahin, Saawan mein barkha and Dabe labhon se kabhi jo koi salaam le le, but songs like Rehne ko ghar do chhat pe ho farsh ho and Jab dosti hoti hai, were written keeping the situations in the film in mind.
Back then, getting into female garb was daring enough and nobody cast aspersions on actor Biswajeet's sexuality. Though it must be said, he made a rather beautiful woman. In Biwi Aur Makaan, four young men who move to Mumbai, cannot get accommodation because most landlords prefer to rent to married couples and not to bachelors. In desperation two of them disguise as women and pose as wives to the other two and get room with the Mishra family, which did not want single men, because there were two young girls in the house.
As can be expected two of them (Biswajeet-Mehmood) fall in love with the girls (Kalpana-Shabnam) and the whole charade eventually gets out of hand.The film was reportedly a remake of Bengali film Jaya Che Kali Boardingand was later made into a Marathi film called Ashi Hi Banwa Banwi by Sachin. It was a hit in both versions, but the Hindi remake, admittedly not one of Hrishida's best, did not do too well.
The film was produced by singer-composer Hemant Kumar, and the music was far more memorable than the film, and Gulzar, in the early days of his career wrote the lyrics. The hit numbers were Jaane Kahaan dekha hai, Aise danton mein uangali dabaao nahin, Saawan mein barkha and Dabe labhon se kabhi jo koi salaam le le, but songs like Rehne ko ghar do chhat pe ho farsh ho and Jab dosti hoti hai, were written keeping the situations in the film in mind.
Ek Vivaah.../Tapasya
Those were the days when a woman-centric family weepie like Tapasya could turn out to be a hit. The Rajshri's new release this week, Ek Vivaah Aisa Bhi, takes its plot from their own 1976 production, directed by Anil Ganguly.
Indu (Raakhree) is the eldest daughter of Prof. Chandranath, she is studying and waiting to marry a doctor Sagar (Parikshit Sahani), whom she loves. Her life changes drastically when her mother dies, and her father falls ill. The responsibility of looking after her father (AK Hangal) and her younger brother and two sisters falls on her. Then the father passes away too and becomes the family's only support. Her fiancé offers to marry her and share some of the burden, but Indu thinks about it and refuses. She believes it is her duty to look after family and she must do it by herself, not push it on to her husband and in-laws.
She abandons her studies and to earn a living, starts a kindergarten in her house. She puts her own future on hold, till her siblings can stand on their feet. She asks Sagar to marry someone else and not wait for her. But he understands her dilemma and promises to wait for as long as it takes. Even his mother cannot not force him to marry anyone else. His love and admiration for Indu remains unshaken over the years. The siblings, for whom she sacrificed her happiness, prove to be selfish and ungrateful. She thinks when her brother gets a job, her problems will be solved, but he decides to marry his boss' daughter and become a ghar jamai.
It looks like Indu's tapasya will never end. It becomes a test of Sagar's love and patience. The film expectedly fetched Rakhee the Filmfare Best Actress Award. It had appropriate—though not hugely successful music—by Ravindra Jain teaming up with MG Hashmat for the heavy duty, emotion-laden lyrics like: Do panchhi do tinke kab leke chale hain kahaan yeh banaayenge ek aashiyaan and Jo raah tune chuni us raah pe raahi chalte jaana.
Tapasya was a good example of what is known as the 'woman's picture' in the trade, the kind of film that made women flock to it in droves, just to be able to cry and purge their own sorrows. Whether a film like that will work 32 years later, is the question that will be answered by the box-office fate of Ek Vivaah Aisa Bhi.
Indu (Raakhree) is the eldest daughter of Prof. Chandranath, she is studying and waiting to marry a doctor Sagar (Parikshit Sahani), whom she loves. Her life changes drastically when her mother dies, and her father falls ill. The responsibility of looking after her father (AK Hangal) and her younger brother and two sisters falls on her. Then the father passes away too and becomes the family's only support. Her fiancé offers to marry her and share some of the burden, but Indu thinks about it and refuses. She believes it is her duty to look after family and she must do it by herself, not push it on to her husband and in-laws.
She abandons her studies and to earn a living, starts a kindergarten in her house. She puts her own future on hold, till her siblings can stand on their feet. She asks Sagar to marry someone else and not wait for her. But he understands her dilemma and promises to wait for as long as it takes. Even his mother cannot not force him to marry anyone else. His love and admiration for Indu remains unshaken over the years. The siblings, for whom she sacrificed her happiness, prove to be selfish and ungrateful. She thinks when her brother gets a job, her problems will be solved, but he decides to marry his boss' daughter and become a ghar jamai.
It looks like Indu's tapasya will never end. It becomes a test of Sagar's love and patience. The film expectedly fetched Rakhee the Filmfare Best Actress Award. It had appropriate—though not hugely successful music—by Ravindra Jain teaming up with MG Hashmat for the heavy duty, emotion-laden lyrics like: Do panchhi do tinke kab leke chale hain kahaan yeh banaayenge ek aashiyaan and Jo raah tune chuni us raah pe raahi chalte jaana.
Tapasya was a good example of what is known as the 'woman's picture' in the trade, the kind of film that made women flock to it in droves, just to be able to cry and purge their own sorrows. Whether a film like that will work 32 years later, is the question that will be answered by the box-office fate of Ek Vivaah Aisa Bhi.
Golmaal Returns/Aaj Ki...
Golmaal Returns (by Rohit Shetty), picks its plot from Rajendra Bhatia's 1973 film Aaj Ki Taaza Khabar, one of those underrated comedies, which may have slipped through the cracks of moviegoers's memory, but the name of a character in it-- Champak Boomia, is unforgettable.
The original, written by S Khalil from Mulraj Rajda's story, sounds suspiciously like a Hollywood screwball comedy. And this one did not need gay gags and crude butt jokes to raise laughter, like Golmaal Returns does. The film had a fresh cast—mostly graduates from the Film and Television Institute (Pune)—maybe if it had big stars then, it might have done much better than it did. In one those bizarre things that happen only in films, Sunil Mehta (Kiran Kumar), is stuck all night in a giant wheel with a young woman (Arpana Choudhary).
When he gets home the next day and is confronted with a very suspicious wife Geeta (Radha Saluja), he looks at the paper, and comes up with Champak Boomia as the name of the friend he was with all night. The wife is not convinced, she writes a letter to Champak at the fake address Sunil gives her, to come and meet her. In a panic Sunil asks his friend Amit (Asrani) to pose as Champak and meet his wife. Matters would have been resolved, had there not been a real Champak Boomia (Paintal), who gets the letter and comes to meet Geeta in a flirtatious mood, thus setting off a spate of confusion and also bringing is own doubting wife (Padma Khanna) into the picture. Asrani's real life wife Manju played his wife in the film. Aaj Ki Taaza Khabar had comic actors like Mehmood and IS Johar in the cast, but Asrani and Paintal, both young and energetic then, created a laugh riot in the film—probably contributing to their future careers as comedians. Asrani won the Filmfare Award for Best Comedian for his role in this film.
The film was also was also nominated for Best Director, Best Film and Best Story, but didn't stand a chance with Zanjeer, Bobby, Koshish, Anurag in the running, it didn't stand a chance. Shankar-Jaikishen's music had the big Kishore Kumar hit, Mujhe meri biwi se bachao, along with Khitla hua shabab hai, Yeh mard bade bedardi hain, and Raat hai baat hai.
The original, written by S Khalil from Mulraj Rajda's story, sounds suspiciously like a Hollywood screwball comedy. And this one did not need gay gags and crude butt jokes to raise laughter, like Golmaal Returns does. The film had a fresh cast—mostly graduates from the Film and Television Institute (Pune)—maybe if it had big stars then, it might have done much better than it did. In one those bizarre things that happen only in films, Sunil Mehta (Kiran Kumar), is stuck all night in a giant wheel with a young woman (Arpana Choudhary).
When he gets home the next day and is confronted with a very suspicious wife Geeta (Radha Saluja), he looks at the paper, and comes up with Champak Boomia as the name of the friend he was with all night. The wife is not convinced, she writes a letter to Champak at the fake address Sunil gives her, to come and meet her. In a panic Sunil asks his friend Amit (Asrani) to pose as Champak and meet his wife. Matters would have been resolved, had there not been a real Champak Boomia (Paintal), who gets the letter and comes to meet Geeta in a flirtatious mood, thus setting off a spate of confusion and also bringing is own doubting wife (Padma Khanna) into the picture. Asrani's real life wife Manju played his wife in the film. Aaj Ki Taaza Khabar had comic actors like Mehmood and IS Johar in the cast, but Asrani and Paintal, both young and energetic then, created a laugh riot in the film—probably contributing to their future careers as comedians. Asrani won the Filmfare Award for Best Comedian for his role in this film.
The film was also was also nominated for Best Director, Best Film and Best Story, but didn't stand a chance with Zanjeer, Bobby, Koshish, Anurag in the running, it didn't stand a chance. Shankar-Jaikishen's music had the big Kishore Kumar hit, Mujhe meri biwi se bachao, along with Khitla hua shabab hai, Yeh mard bade bedardi hain, and Raat hai baat hai.
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