Apradhi Kaun (1957)

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The world of Hindi cinema is peppered with names that anyone familiar with the industry (at least the industry of the 50s and 60s) can quickly slot into categories. Star. Villain. Comedian. Character actor. There are many, many names that automatically fall into (almost exclusively) one of these categories. Those that have shifted from one category to another—like Pran, for instance, once the quintessential villain but in later years the more interesting ‘good man’, or Ajit and Premnath, both initially hero and later villain—have again usually not done too many shifts.

Abhi Bhattacharya is one of those relatively rare individuals who seem to have appeared in a wide variety of roles, a wide variety of films. He was the idealistic school teacher of Jagriti, the ‘other man’ of Anuradha. The kind-hearted, principled example of the bhadralok in films like Amar Prem, and the straying older brother of Dev Anand in Love Marriage. He played Krishna and Arjun and Vishnu (the latter in a slew of mythologicals). He even played the villain, in the Vinod Khanna-Yogita Bali starrer, Memsaab.

This year marks the birth centenary of Abhi Bhattacharya (as far as I’ve been able to find out, he was born in 1921, though I’ve not been able to discover exactly when in 1921). To commemorate his career, I wanted to watch a Bhattacharya film, but a dilemma presented itself: which one? Hindi or Bengali? (since Bhattacharya had what seems to have been a very successful career in Bengali cinema as well). Eventually, I homed in on this film, a rare whodunit in Hindi cinema that’s pretty well made too.

Apradhi Kaun centres round a wealthy man named Srinath (Gajanan Jagirdar), who lives in a grand mansion in a place called Jeetpur. Also among the inhabitants of this home are a doctor (Tarun Bose, in his film debut) who is also a trustee of Srinath’s estate; a manager (?), a deaf-mute servant (Dhumal), and a pretty maid named Champa (Kammo), whom we never actually see doing much in the way of work.

The story begins with the arrival in this house of a man named Dinanath (also Gajanan Jagirdar). Dinanath is Srinath’s long-lost older brother, who had left home and gone away many years earlier and hasn’t been heard of ever since. He’s now partially paralyzed and obviously quite poor. All he wants, he tells Srinath, is to now spend the rest of his days in comfort back at home.

Srinath, however, is none too happy. He is quick to point out to Dinanath that their father had disinherited both Dinanath as well as their youngest brother Pitambar (Srinath is the middle one of the three brothers) and had willed all his substantial wealth to Srinath. Dinanath, he grudgingly admits, can stay here, but he makes it clear that this is Srinath’s magnanimity speaking, not Srinath’s admission that Dinanath has any claim to the place. Dinanath agrees; he seems too far gone, too exhausted and ill to care much.

The truth, though, is that Srinath is lying. Pitambar (who was disinherited because he married against his father’s wishes) had left home, never to be seen again, and Dinanath too had gone away, but in his later years, their father relented and made a fresh will, reinstating Dinanath and Pitambar as the heirs to his legacy.

A man named Rai Bahadur Jankinath (Murad) has got that second will (how and why it’s with him isn’t explained; perhaps he stole it?), and Srinath has paid him money to keep quiet about it. Now Srinath, worried that the will still exists, and that Dinanath might hear of it, goes to Jankinath to ask for it. Jankinath, as greedy and self-serving as Srinath himself, refuses; why should he let go of a cash cow such as this?

So Srinath, along with his girlfriend Lily (Lillian, in her debut role), decides to try and steal the will from Jankinath. Lily is given the task of getting Jankinath well and truly drunk. Once she’s achieved that, she steals the keys to Jankinath’s safe and hands them over to Srinath, so that he can burgle the safe while Jankinath is tottering about, all tipsy…

Unfortunately, this very tipsiness of Jankinath’s proves the undoing of Srinath’s plan. A befuddled Jankinath, searching desperately for more liquor, goes reeling through his home, and stumbles into the room where his safe is kept—just in time to catch Srinath red-handed. Jankinath may be drunk, but he’s not too inebriated to be fooled. There’s a fight, Srinath draws a pistol, and in the scuffle, the pistol goes off and Jankinath falls down dead.

Srinath makes his escape without being seen, but it seems Lily hasn’t been so lucky; when Srinath meets her the next day, she points out a newspaper article: the police have mentioned that in connection with the murder of Jankinath, they’re suspecting a woman whose description—Lily knows—matches hers. It may just be a matter of time before the police turn up, wanting to question Lily.

In the meantime, we are introduced to a couple of other characters. Private detective Rajesh (Abhi Bhattacharya) and his assistant Balram (Kumud Tripathi) receive a visitor at their office. This woman (Mala Sinha) doesn’t say what her name is or where she’s from, but from a transport ticket she lets drop outside the office, Rajesh surmises that she’s come from Jeetpur. The woman tells Rajesh that she wants to hire him—to help her steal something. She doesn’t say what, she doesn’t say why, and Rajesh firmly turns down the offer. He doesn’t help people commit crimes.

The mysterious woman leaves, and shortly after, Rajesh receives another summons, also to Jeetpur. This time, it’s Srinath who wants Rajesh to come there, as soon as he can. Rajesh, intrigued by the coincidence of two people from Jeetpur, both requiring his services, goes to Jeetpur along with Balram.

There, Rajesh meets Srinath and is told the reason for the summons: Srinath is certain that he’s going to be killed. He’s scared for his life, but when Rajesh asks questions—whom does he suspect? Why?—Srinath cannot provide any answers. He’s just very worried, and he wants Rajesh to help him. Rajesh senses there’s something the matter, and agrees to stay on in the house…

… where he soon runs into the woman again. It turns out that her name’s Shobha, and that she’s a nurse. Srinath had been ill, and had hired her. She’s stayed on even after he’s recovered.

And there’s the doctor. This man has a bitter argument with Srinath; it emerges that Srinath had appointed the doctor as a trustee and had allowed him to carry out research in the room that functions as the doctor’s office and laboratory in the mansion. The doctor’s long research has enabled him to formulate a one-injection cure for asthma; and Srinath has managed to lay his hands on the formula. Srinath is now intent on reaping the benefits of that formula, claiming that he’s been financing the doctor’s research all these years, and so he has full rights to the profits from this formula; the doctor has been getting a salary all these years, and should be satisfied with that.

Later that night, there is a banging on the door. The police have arrived. Inspector Sinha (Paul Mahendra) has come bearing a warrant for the arrest of Srinath, who is suspected to having murdered Rai Bahadur Jankinath. For once, it seems the police have been quick in following up a lead (has Lily squealed?). Rajesh, who often works alongside Sinha and knows him well, accompanies the cops to Srinath’s room, Srinath having already retired for the night.

The servant and the cops bang on Srinath’s door, but to no avail. The rest of the household, curious, gathers round, and eventually they end up breaking the door down… to find Srinath lying dead, murdered, with a dagger sticking up out of his back.

Who killed Srinath? Could it be the doctor, who had reason to loathe him? Or Shobha, who wanted to steal something (and whom Rajesh catches shortly after, stealing out of Srinath’s room, clutching the second will in her hands)? Or Dinanath, whom Srinath had tried to do out of what was rightfully his? Or someone else, entirely?

… like the mysterious black-clad figure, whom everybody  soon dubs ‘Kaali Chhaaya’ (‘Black Shadow’), who flits menacingly about the house, and is obviously up to no good?

Tarun Bose’s daughter Shilpi Bose wrote a superb post about this film, some delightful behind-the-scenes trivia, and more, here. I won’t repeat all that Shilpi has already mentioned, about the provenance of the film, what it was based on, and so on, since that would be mere repetition. I will say, though, that this is one of the better Hindi mystery films I’ve seen. It does have its share of song and dance, but it’s mostly all fitted together well.

What I liked about this film:

The Agatha Christie ‘country house murder’ sort of feel: a mansion, a murder, several suspects (and each with plausible possible motives), and the detective in the midst of it all. The story moves fast and there’s very little extraneous stuff, other than a somewhat low-key romance, and the sort-of love triangle of Balram, Champa, and the deaf-mute servant. These romances don’t take up much more than a couple of songs and a few brief scenes here and there, so they don’t really intrude on the main story.

Also, the mystery is mostly pretty well constructed. There are a couple of plot holes, which are mainly in the form of things left unexplained (how did Shobha know that Srinath had the second will? How did she even know a second will had been made? Why was such a big hoo-ha made about Pitambar having vanished, never to be seen again, if nothing came of that?)—but other than that, it all makes sense. I have to admit I did figure out who the murderer was, pretty early on; but from the comments on Shilpi’s post about the film, it seems most people actually couldn’t figure it out. Director Asit Sen (not the Asit Sen of Deep Jwele Jaai-Khamoshi fame, but the Asit Sen who is better known as the Hindi film comedian) and producer Bimal Roy (who played a major hand in the making of the film) did a good job with Apradhi Kaun; it’s not the type of film Bimal Roy was known for, but it did make me wish he’d done more films of this genre.

And, the music, composed by Salil Choudhury and with lyrics by Majrooh Sultanpuri. Apradhi Kaun doesn’t have any songs I recognized as having heard before, but still, there were some very good songs here, my favourites from the score including the delightful Phir wohi dard hai phir wohi jigar hai; Baat koi matlab ki hai zaroor, and Koi dekhe toh kahe tujhko kahin deewaana na.

What I didn’t like:

Nothing, really. Those minor plot holes I mentioned earlier were irritating, but they didn’t really impact my enjoyment of Apradhi Kaun.

On the whole, a satisfying film. Interesting, engrossing. And it’s fun to see Abhi Bhattacharya as the detective.

38 thoughts on “Apradhi Kaun (1957)”

  1. I had seen this film in ‘morning shows’ in my college days.
    Loved it then. Saw it a couple of more times later. Loved it each time.
    Black and white does enhance a murder mystery.

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  2. I am Shilpi Bose’s brother. While scanning through this post (I need to read it in detail which I will surely do later) I noticed that you mentioned my sister. I have to inform you that Shilpi passed away on September 9, 2021. I wanted to inform you but did not know how, so I decided to inform you through this comments. She suffered a heart attack. She was just not my little sister but also a very special person in my life; we were a team. I miss her every moment.

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    • This is such shocking news. Though I never had the pleasure of meeting Shilpi, she was for a long time a regular on this blog, and she came across as such a warm-hearted and nice person. I recall her many posts – both on the blog about your father, as well as on the food blog – in which she mentioned you, and I could sense the very close bond between brother and sister, I can imagine how much you must miss her. My deepest condolences, and thank you for letting me know.

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      • Oh my! I just saw this… such shocking news. Please accept my deepest condolences, Aroop. I’m so sorry for your loss. We exchanged many comments here and on my blog as well, and her posts on your father were very informative and interesting to read.

        I used to also visit her food blog, where, as Madhu mentions, she had talked about you as well, to look for Bengali recipes. I will miss her. :(

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      • True, she was a warm-hearted person, she loved to good conversations; yes, she did talk more than I do, now the house is silent. We really had a good bonding, in fact our interests were very similar, whether it is the food we eat or order, movies and videos we watch, books… almost everything. We loved each others company, she was also very caring and understanding. She was the only family I had but both of us knew that only one of us will have to go one day. But I did not expect it to happen so early. I rarely write such a long comment, maybe I am getting a bit carried away. Thank you very very much for your condolences, it does mean a lot to me.

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        • Your comment brought tears to my eyes, Aroop. I can only imagine what a difficult time you must be having and how much you must be missing Shilpi. I know there’s nothing any of us can do to make it better, but I do want you to know that I – and I am sure, others here too – feel your pain.

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        • I knew about you through Shilpi; and I knew how close the two of you were. We’d planned to meet when I was in Bombay, but the best laid plans of mice and men, etc. Shilpi’s is a personal loss to me because while I had never met her, we had exchanged a lot of emails about food, particularly Bengali food.
          I can only imagine your sense of loss; nothing I say will ease that pain. But please know Shilpi’s larger family of bloggers will always be there for you. She was dear to many of us here.

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          • Sorry for the late response Anu and thank you for your kind words. I am to some extent familiar with you all because Shilpi used to talk about you all several times. Whatever you have written means a lot to me. Shilpi also has a food channel on YouTube which you may perhaps be aware of. I was the one to shoot and edit her videos, doing this would give us immense satisfaction and pleasure. I still have three of her videos to edit, but everything got disrupted. Editing her videos is going to be tough for me because I will be constantly hearing her recorded voice during the editing process.But I am determined to complete the videos, after all it is kind of a committment I made to her. I don’t know what rules apply on YouTube when a youtuber is no more, if they permit I would like to continue with the channel. For me it will be a labour of love, quite truly. I have started cooking some of the dishes she taught me and I have done my innovations, maybe she is guiding me, I would like to believe that. Thank you once again.

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      • Watched the movie and I agree – it’s well-made. The director introduced little touches that are usually missing in Hindi movies. The acting too, especially Jagirdar’s, was pretty good. Abhi Bhattacharya looked dapper but was stiff. I liked Lilian too. The songs were lovely. The only quibble I have is that as a whodunit it failed. I confess that I could not guess the ending but the process of deduction was not shown well. How did he find out that the killer had swapped identities with the victim? The ending therefore was a bit weak.

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  8. Glad that you wrote a post on this movie. I had seen it years ago and had quite enjoyed the suspense and the movie.
    And very thoughtful of you to choose this one as a tribute to Abhi Bhattacharya, as it is a well-made mystery film with good performances and songs..
    He was a competent actor and had some good roles and movies to his credit, notably Jagriti, Anuradha and Biraj Bahu.

    Apradhi Kaun, I always felt, it did not get the recognition that it deserved.
    Being fond of mystery-suspense-whodunit movies and thrillers, I always feel that there is a dearth of well-made edge-of-the-seat suspense movies in Hindi cinema

    Planning to revisit the movie, even though I know the story.

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    • I agree with you about Apradhi Kaun not getting the recognition it deserved. It’s sad, that a film so well-made, with the mystery well in place and not muddied by silly comic side plots or too many songs or too long a romantic element – is so little-known. This one definitely needs to be listed among old Hindi cinema’s best suspense films.

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  9. You know the best thing about “Anuradha” I like is the smile Abhi Bhattacharya gives in the end, before driving off. So much said in one smile.

    I think I read about this movie in Memsaab story, but haven’t come around to watch it. But now I will.

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  10. I love murder mystery movies. When I read your excellent review on this, I thought I should watch it and did it last week. It was really good. Thanks

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  11. Oh Lord Jesus!! Seems like a lot of water has flown under – and over the bridge( and in ways that are rather unpleasant to the core), since I last visited your blog.

    It is deeply traumatic to hear about Shilpi Bose’s unfortunate demise. Loved her father as an actor – very very underrated actually, and her blog on him was a wonderful gateway to times all of us -classic Hindi cinema lovers, wished so badly to be part off, yet couldn’t because of obvious reasons. Additionally, her food blog was a great blessing for Delhiwalas like me, and in ways more than one, helped a lot in establishing a culinary umbilical cord with those of my ancestors. So, her demise deeply saddens me.

    Anyways, coming back to your post, I genuinely appreciate the fact that you choose to remember Abhi Bhattacharya on his birth centenary. He was in many ways, a very special actor , especially in the Bollywood context, where there is a very rigid demarcation between who is a star/hero and who is a character actor. But, Bhattacharya kind of dissolved that barrier.

    To think of it, in addition to playing many wonderful character roles (I still vividly remember how well he portrayed the role of an aged mad lover in Asit Sen’s Sharafat for example), Bhattacharya acted in leading roles in films by the likes of Ritwick Ghatak, Tapan Sinha, Bimal Roy, Guru Dutt, Sohrab Modi, Debaki Bose, Nitin Bose, Satyen Bose, Pinaki Mukherjee, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Dulal Guha and Ramesh Saigal.. Now that’s a veritable list of almost who is who of Indian cinema filmmakers. Can any other ‘ character ‘ actor in Bollywood lay claim to such a feat? I don’t think so there is any other- and that includes someone as good as Pran.

    Yet, the fact that Bhattacharya isn’t really spoken of in a way he should be, is rather distressing. So, it really glads my heart to see that you choose to pay him a well – deserved tribute on his birth centenary, even though as far his own performance is concerned, Bhattacharya had definitely seen much better days than Apradhi Kaun. I mean, he looks like a Desi Cary Grant, all right. But performance wise, this isn’t Bhattacharya of Ek Gaon Ki Kahaani, Jagriti or even Biraj Bahu, films wherein he was simply superb. In the same context, mention must be made of two Hindi films that he did as a lead- Ratnadeep and Parichay with Debaki Bose and Satyen Bose respectively. Wonderful films, backed by top performances by Bhattacharya. It’s a pity that in spite of being hit films of that era, these two films are hardly available to watch today. Same unawareness and lack of accessibility plagues Bhattacharya’s work in Bangla cinema too, among the larger Indian masses (and that includes the intelligentsia), even though he was the hero of no less than a picture like Ritwick Ghatak’s Subarnarekha- unarguably among the top 5 films produced by our nation so far.

    Leaving aside Bhattacharya’s performance though, Apradhi Kaun is quite a delectable fare. Wonderfully scripted by the inimitable Premendra Mitra and competently directed by our funny, rotund Gopichand Jasoos man, the film does boast of very fine performance by Gajanan Jagirdar ( another underrated actor and director of our cinema).

    That said, the original Bangla of this film – Kalo Chhaya, directed by writer Premendra Mitra ( who, I rate, in my humble opinion, as among the ten greatest Indian writers ever in the genre of short stories) himself, is even better. For those of you who are interested, Kalo Chhaya is available for watching online. You may check it out, though I am not quite sure if a subtitled version of the film is available..

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    • Thank you for that long, as-always interesting comment. I really enjoy reading your comments; there’s so much to learn and appreciate from you, so thank you for taking the time to write. I had, in fact, found a subtitled copy of Kaalo Chhaya, but the subtitles were so badly synced, it became very stressful to watch the film, so I gave up after a while. But I do have Subarnarekha bookmarked and waiting to be watched, sometime!

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