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.