This is one film that’s been on my to-watch list for several years now, mainly because it is the only film that stars both Dev Anand and Dilip Kumar. Also, as I’ve gathered from a few articles and posts I’ve read, this is also possibly the only film that doesn’t feature Dev Anand as a modern city slicker. He’s still somewhat of a sophisticate—by no means an illiterate rustic—but this is set in some undefined ‘raja-rani’ time period where Dev Anand spends all the film in something other than Western clothing.

But, to begin at the beginning. Zangoora (Jayant) is a nasty tyrant whose idea of ruling his kingdom is to be brutal with his subjects. Every now and then, his soldiers are sent out into the countryside to loot villages and bring back all that they can find. Zangoora’s troops are vile, uncaring, as brutal as their boss.

They’re at one village, upturning things, grabbing and snatching, when a furious village woman, Durga (Bina Rai) comes charging up. Durga lets fly at the man leading the troops, Bhanu Pratap (Dev Anand, his upper lip topped with a ridiculous moustache). Durga slaps Bhanu, and then proceeds to berate him for his mindless cruelty.

Bhanu is so affected by Durga’s diatribe, he reforms. He goes back to report to Zangoora, to tell him that he (Bhanu) has had enough of this life. Basically, he’s handing in his papers as Zangoora’s sipahsalar or chief commander. Zangoora is, of course, mad as a wet hen. Bhanu’s buddy general Martand (P Jairaj) is also pretty annoyed at Bhanu’s perfidy.

The only person who seems pleased is Zangoora’s queen Chanda (Vijaylakshmi), who has all along been trying to get her husband to change his ways.

Zangoora gives Bhanu an ultimatum: go back and destroy that village, loot it for all it’s worth. If Bhanu doesn’t do that, he and the village will be toast. Zangoora goes off, and Bhanu goes his way, taking off his breastplate and weapons and stuff, so that when he arrives at Durga’s village some time later, he’s unarmed.

The first person Bhanu meets when he arrives in the village is Durga herself. To her, he is earnest in his assertion that he wants to turn over a new leaf. Durga is sceptical and scoffs at Bhanu: can a leopard change its spots? She thinks not. Durga’s childhood pal Mangal (Dilip Kumar), who, unknown to Durga, has been in love with her all these years, also turns up and wants to know what’s happening.

Bhanu’s well-intentioned proposal to enter the village is shot down and he, Durga and Mangal go their separate ways. But just then, a bull goes after Durga (how conveniently timed) and Bhanu fights the bull to save Durga. Mangal comes rushing up too and gets the bull in control. By then, Bhanu has been badly gored.

Because Durga is so grateful to him, Bhanu is immediately taken to her home, where Durga and her father (Badriprasad) call the vaid (Kumar). Mangal too joins in in attending to Bhanu. By a well-timed act of selfless bravery, Bhanu has at least managed to impress some of these people here…

… and thus it is that when he has recovered somewhat and again puts forward the request that he be allowed to stay on in the village, Durga, her father, Mangal and the vaid all support Bhanu. They are so vociferous in their agreement that Bhanu become part of the village that they (and Bhanu’s rather impassioned pleas) convince the rest of the villagers. Bhanu is accepted into the village.

Soon after, an old friend of Bhanu’s from his days at Zangoora’s court turns up. This man, Bhola (Agha) had been slapped into prison by Zangoora, and has been sharing his cell with a chimpanzee (Zippy, billed as such in the credits) whom Bhola has named Zippo, and who seems to have become Bhola’s dearest buddy.

Bhanu and Bhola are glad to see each other, and Bhola (along with Zippo) also settles down in the village.

Durga and Bhanu quickly fall in love with each other, though this is not apparent to most other people. Mangal seems to be completely unaware, for instance. His mother (Shobhna Samarth) has seen her son buying trinkets for Durga all these years, and keeping them safely by for the day when he is able to summon up the courage to propose; now Ma takes matters into her own hands. Having confirmed that Mangal is indeed in love with Durga, she goes to Durga’s father and arranges the match.

There is a brief episode of misunderstanding and angst, when Durga tells Mangal the truth, and Mangal realizes that she thinks of him only as a friend. Mangal is heartbroken, but his better self asserts itself soon enough. He is the one to put Durga’s hand in Bhanu’s, and to wish them both a joyful life together.

But will Zangoora be sitting back and letting Bhanu be happy (or letting any of his subjects be happy, to be honest)? Never. Zangoora, with Martand now working overtime to carry out his liege’s brutal orders, attacks the village just as Bhanu and Durga are getting married…

And this is just the start.

Insaniyat was a remake of the Telugu hit film Palletoori Pilla (1950), the film which had given NT Rama Rao his first lead role (it also starred ANR and Anjali Devi). The original film had been directed by B Subba Rao; the Hindi remake was directed by SS Vasan, who remade several big hits of Telugu and Tamil cinema in Hindi. Insaniyat also went on to be a big hit, the unique combination of Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand, coupled with an array of fairly hummable songs (by C Ramachandra) probably working in its favour.

What I liked about this film:

Some of the songs: Aayi jhoomti bahaar, Main bandar shahar ka, Zulm sahein na zulm karein na and Apni chhaaya mein bhagwan are some of the nicer ones here.

And, Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand, who are invariably watchable (Dev Anand, I must hasten to add I find increasingly hard to watch from about the mid-60s onwards; and impossible after about 1970). Neither of them is at his peak (Dilip Kumar isn’t required to really flex his acting muscles, and Dev Anand is not as appealing as he is in his suave, urbane city slicker roles), but they are among the better elements of Insaniyat.

Zippy as Zippo is a good example of an animal being well-trained, and I suppose if you like watching trained animals onscreen, you might enjoy this. Not only does Zippy get to be the hero, he also has several songs picturized on him, including Main bandar shahar ka and Raja beta bada ho. 

What I didn’t like:

The frequency of the songs, and therefore the flimsiness of the story. They’re good songs, but they’re far, far too many. Some of the songs (Gori tu karle singaar, Sunte hain koi maut ka mehmaan, etc) are actually barely even worth all the effort that went into them, because they’re just about a minute long. What happens is that there’s one scene, and then there’s a song. And another scene, another song. And so on. I generally like the songs of 1950s Hindi cinema; but this, even though the songs were mostly good, was just too tedious for me.

The end result is a story that’s fairly ho-hum, and which, even with a decent complement of songs, could’ve easily fitted into two hours rather than the nearly three hours it is right now.

Besides, there’s a good deal of melodrama now and then, especially on the part of Bina Rai’s character in the last quarter of the film, that I could have done without.