Madhulika Liddle

This is a list of the last few reviews on my blog on classic cinema, called ‘Dusted Off’. Read more on the blog itself.

• Lifeboat (1944) - The other day, just for kicks, I was trying to make a mental list of all the directors, 30’s-60’s, whose work I admire. Guru Dutt. Akira Kurosawa. Hrishikesh Mukherjee. Bimal Roy. Raj Khosla (usually). And, of course, the inimitable Alfred Hitchcock. That led to another realisation: I haven’t seen, or reviewed, a Hitchcock film in [...]
• Waaris (1969) - Today’s Holi and much of Delhi has been busy slathering everybody else with colour. Out in the street (and in the neighbours’ yard) I saw people drenched in purple, green, yellow and red. My husband and I don’t celebrate Holi—we’re both too fastidious and have better things to do in life than wasting hours getting colour [...]
• Ladri di Biciclette (1948) - The first time I heard about this film, it was in connection with the Hindi film Do Bigha Zameen (1953), the story of a poor family that tries desperately to cling on to the one thing that stands between it and utter destitution—a tiny plot of land. I’d heard that Do Bigha Zameen was based [...]
• Ten of my favourite Talat Mahmood songs - It just so happened that the last film I reviewed on this blog was Sone ki Chidiya, which starred Talat Mahmood—better known as a singer, a man with one of those heartrendingly beautiful voices that can turn even a so-so tune into something sublime. Today is the birth anniversary of Talat Mahmood: he was born on [...]

Read more reviews, leave comments at Dusted Off