I began this blog on November 4. 2008 (with a review of Vacation from Marriage), so this post marks the fifteenth birthday of Dusted Off. I dithered over how I might celebrate the occasion, and finally came to the conclusion that it would be good to mark it with a review of a film I’ve been meaning to review ever since I decided to start blogging about classic cinema. Woh Kaun Thi? is a film I enjoy a lot, and which I’ve seen in various avatars: first on Doordarshan, when I was a teenager. Then, when VHS tapes became available, multiple times on our VCR. Then, when CDs came along, this was one of the first VCDs I bought… then the DVD. Now YouTube.
The story begins on a stormy night. Dr Anand (Manoj Kumar) is driving down a pot-holed and lonely road when he sees a woman (Sadhana), clad in white and standing in the middle of the road. Anand tells her to move out of the way, but when she doesn’t respond, he is compelled to get out and talk to her. To all his questions—who is she, where is she going, isn’t she scared to be out here alone—she gives evasive, mysterious answers. Finally, however, she consents to let Anand give her a lift, but on one condition: he is not to ask any questions. [Given the way he’s been bombarding her with questions, I’m not surprised].
More mysteriousness is to come. Anand has already got back in and started the car, the windshield wipers going, when the woman gets in—and, immediately, inexplicably, the wipers stop. Anand is flummoxed: how will he drive now? It’s pouring outside, he can’t see a thing. But the woman tells him she can see perfectly clearly, and will guide him. Which she does.
Anand sees that the woman’s finger is dripping blood; when he asks about it, she calmly admits that she cut it while sharpening a pencil. It often happens when she’s creating art, she says. Anand has more questions [is this a habit that comes of being a doctor?], but the woman makes him stop: she has to get off here. But that’s a graveyard, Anand points out—“You promised you wouldn’t ask questions,” she says, and gets out. As soon as she’s out of the car, the wipers start up again. The graveyard gate swings open of its own accord, and a spooky song wafts on the breeze.
Later that night, Anand goes to meet his girlfriend Seema (Helen) and tells her the whole story. Seema and her maid Rosie (Indira Bansal) are intrigued, Rosie even quite horrified, but that’s the end of it: a creepy ghost story.
They get on with their lives. Anand works in a hospital where Dr Singh (KN Singh) is his boss, and Dr Singh’s daughter Lata (Praveen Chaudhary), also a doctor, is not just Anand’s colleague, but also a good friend. Anand doesn’t know it, but Lata is in love with him. She hides it behind a façade of camaraderie, for instance, when she informs Anand that a solicitor has come to the hospital with the news that Anand has been bequeathed a large fortune.
This man has come to Dr Singh, asking for a certificate of Anand’s soundness of mind. There have been some cases of mental illness in Anand’s family, so the person who bequeathed this wealth to Anand required him to be declared sane. Dr Singh happily writes out the certificate.
Soon after, there’s an office party. Seema has been invited too, and Anand is dancing with her when he bumps into his cousin, Ramesh (Prem Chopra). Anand introduces Seema to Ramesh, happily confiding that this is Ramesh’s bhabhi-to-be. He goes on to tell Seema about how Ramesh, ever since he was a boy, was in the habit of maintaining a diary, in which he’d write down every single thing. What he ate, where he went, what happened.
As always, Anand drops Seema off after the party. She goes into the building, and into the lift. Anand waits outside in his car, looking up at the balcony of Seema’s flat—and only when she’s come out onto the balcony and waved to him, does he drive off.
He doesn’t notice an odd-looking character standing somewhere in the foyer of the building, looking on.
At home, Anand finds a newcomer: Madho (Dhumal) is a new servant who’s been hired by Anand’s mother. She found him on the footpath, and taking pity on him, brought him home. Madho is quite forthright and frank, and a bit of a busybody too.
Anand and Seema keep going on dates, and one day, after a blissful day together, he again drops her at her flat. This time, though, Seema doesn’t appear on her balcony. Anand, wondering what’s happened, gets out to go up to her flat. As soon as the lift door is opened, out falls Seema, clutching at her throat. She gasps “Injection”, and dies in Anand’s arms. He is too distraught to notice that that strange character, holding some tuberoses, is standing nearby.
The cops begin an investigation into Seema’s murder. The officer in charge (Raj Mehra) has his suspicions about Dr Singh (why? We are never told the reason for his suspicions), and instructs his team to keep an eye on him. That’s the last we see of this investigation, for a while.
In the meantime, Anand’s mother (Ratnamala) has been trying to coax him into getting married. She had never met Seema, but she sees how badly shaken Anand is because of his girlfriend’s death. Get a new start in life, she counsels Anand. Get married.
A similar thought has been running through Dr Singh’s mind, mostly because he has, quietly, been seeing Lata’s demeanour towards Anand. This is a perceptive father, and even though Lata does not wear her heart on his sleeve, he can tell. Now, with Seema dead, there might just be hope… but when Dr Singh visits Anand’s mother, she happily tells him that Anand’s wedding has been fixed. His bride-to-be is an orphaned girl known to her sister; even Anand’s mother hasn’t met her prospective bahu yet, everything has been arranged by her sister.
Dr Singh comes away disappointed.
Meanwhile, Anand, still recovering from Seema’s death, has another weird experience. One stormy night, he receives a phone call. A man, calling from a public phone booth, begs Anand to come to a critically ill person. When Anand agrees, the man tells Anand he will meet him at so-and-so place, and take him to the patient.
Anand picks up the man soon after, and the man directs Anand to a creepy-looking mansion, its garden overgrown, its interior gloomy, cobwebbed, bat-infested.
The man leads Anand upstairs, and to the patient: already dead, as an old woman sitting by the deathbed screams. She is so distraught, Anand retreats swiftly—but not before he’s had a chance to see the face of the dead woman.
When he comes out onto the street, it’s to find a police jeep outside. The inspector asks Anand several questions, all tending to doubt Anand’s story. Anand, indignant at not being believed, insists on taking the cops in. But when they get to the room, there’s nobody there. No old woman screaming and crying, no dead girl.
The inspector tells Anand: this has happened often enough before. On stormy nights, other doctors too have received a phone call such as he, Anand, got. They too have been brought to this mansion, and have seen the dead girl, the bereft old woman. But there is nothing there. Nothing. This mansion has been deserted for many years now. Nobody lives there.
This episode, of course, serves only to give Anand the jitters, and in this state—stressed, spooked, unsure of what’s happening—he’s said yes to his mother’s constant pleas to get married.
Anand marries the girl, Sandhya, who’s been chosen for him. Sight unseen (her ghoonghat hides her face throughout), Sandhya comes home. It’s a stormy night; Anand moves forward to shut the windows of the room, while Sandhya sits, still veiled, on the bed. He decides to tell her everything, and how he hopes that by coming into his life, Sandhya will dispel the ghosts that haunt him…
Windows secure, Anand turns around, and sees that Sandhya has lifted her ghoonghat.
And this is only the start. A puzzled and increasingly torn Anand—attracted to this beauty who is his wife, repelled by the thought that she might be nothing more than a ‘zinda laash’ (a ‘living corpse’), as he tells his mother—finds Sandhya very mysterious indeed. Vague at times, illusive, elusive. Very flesh and blood at other times, but always hard to pin down. What is the truth behind her?
Woh Kaun Thi? was the first of three Sadhana-starrer suspense films directed by Raj Khosla (it was followed by Mera Saaya in 1966 and Anita in 1967). There was a long history behind the film: Guru Dutt was the one who had initially envisaged the story, loosely based on Wilkie Collins’s novel The Woman in White, with elements of Alfred Hitchcock’s films thrown in. The film, titled Raaz, starred Guru Dutt and Waheeda Rehman, and part of it had been shot before it was finally abandoned.
Guru Dutt never could see his idea to fruition, and it was his one-time assistant director Raj Khosla who finally saw it through, with a screenplay written by Dhruva Chatterjee.
The name of the film was suggested by Manoj Kumar, who also helped design the posters for the film. It ended up being his first big success.
Woh Kaun Thi?’s success led to it being remade in 1966, both in Tamil (as Yaar Nee) and in Telugu (as Aame Evaru).
What I liked about this film:
The overall story and script, which is fairly taut and intriguing. There are, for instances, no comic side plots, no mindless meandering away into long-drawn-out romances, or other elements that would divert attention from the mystery at the heart of the story.
… of course, there are the songs, but they really are, for me, the icing on the cake. Madan Mohan and Raja Mehdi Ali Khan were at the top of their game with Woh Kaun Thi?, and the film’s score boasts of one great song after another, from the oft-repeated Naina barse riimjhim rimjhim, to the ethereal Lag jaa gale, from Jo humne daastaan apni sunaayi to the subtly come-hither Shokh nazar ki bijliyaan dil pe mere giraaye jaa. Even the relatively less popular songs, Tiki-ri-ki-tiki-ri-ki taako ri and Chhodkar tere pyaar ka daaman, are good.
(On the topic of the songs of Woh Kaun Thi?, there’s an interesting anecdote about Naina barse. Lata Mangeshkar had not been able to find time to record the song when Raj Khosla had to shoot it in Shimla. With no other option left, Madan Mohan recorded Naina barse in his own voice, and Raj Khosla used that as playback to let Sadhana lip-sync to it. Shimla crowds who turned out to watch the shooting were—naturally enough!—taken aback, and amused, to see Sadhana lip-syncing to Madan Mohan’s voice. You can hear Madan Mohan’s rendition of the song here).
Then, there’s Sadhana. A good display of her acting skills, of course; but just how beautiful is she here?
What I didn’t like:
The plot holes. Despite the otherwise mostly good script, there are gaps.
Spoilers ahead:
When the denouement happens and the inspector explains everything (how does he know everything? Mightn’t it have helped to show glimpses of the inspector’s investigation, and how he arrives at his conclusions? May that diary, referred to, have been part of the story? Perhaps, too, there has been some slapdash editing done here by the video company who created the digital version?), there are questions left unanswered. For one, the windshield wipers: how come they stop and start depending on whether the woman is in the car or not? Then, why are there several convenient coincidences that help the villain along: the rain right after Lag jaa gale, and the train accident later?
Also, every now and then, a mysterious smile is shown on Sandhya’s face, right after yet another outburst from a frustrated, confused Anand. If she really was a mysterious, ghostly woman (or pretending to be one), this expression would have made sense. That she isn’t, and is actually as much at sea as he is, makes it discordant with the end. This seems to have just been put in for heightened effect, without a thought as to how it fits, or does not.
Spoilers over.
Despite all that, though, Woh Kaun Thi? remains one of my favourite films. Even when I know the truth, when the mystery is no mystery at all, the journey to the denouement is immensely satisfying. The songs are good, Sadhana is beautiful, the cinematography (by KH Kapadia, which won him a Filmfare Award) is superb.
Dustedoff 
Having watched Woh Kaun Thi multiple number of times and its opening scene with even more frequency, I am glad to have come to this post to experience one more viewing of it through your wonderful narration (though you’ve missed mentioning that Sadhana tells Manoj the reason for not applying any first-aid to her injured finger is that she likes blood. This movie can be watched any number of times because, as you’ve asserted, the journey (of watching) is more pleasant than the destination (that is, the denouement). Just like you, I am also a Sadhana fan (and a great admirer of Madan Mohan’s music as well). Hearty thanks for this post and congratulations for completion of fifteen years of DUSTEDOFF.
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Thank you, Jitendraji. And yes, the journey here is definitely more pleasant than the destination. It’s a very enjoyable film in that sense, plus, of course, Sadhana and Madan Mohan – both big reasons to watch this.
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Say, hadn’t you reviewed this movie earlier?
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No, never. Along with Teesri Manzil, Pyaasa, Kaagaz ke Phool and Guide, this is one of those well-known films I haven’t reviewed. :-)
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Oh, I see! I recall reading an excellent review of the movie, and then got it into my head that you had written it.
In any case, the review’s excellent. Makes for a most appropriate way to mark fifteen years of the blog. Congratulations on them fifteen years, and do please never never ever stop writing.
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Thank you so much, Abhik. :-) That sort of appreciation is what keeps me going!
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Happy Blog Birthday! ☺️ Congratulations.
Oh, I watched this movie many many years ago, I don’t remember whether it was on Doordarshan or VCR. But I remember these scenes. If I remember correctly, there’s a scene where Manoj Kumar is sitting by the window of his room. It’s the middle of the night and Sadhana’s face appears in the window so suddenly. It was spooky.
It was so wonderful to watch such a mysterious movie. Songs are so melodious (Even Madan Mohan’s version is so nice. Thank you for sharing). Both Sadhana and Manoj Kumar looked so good!
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Thank you! And yes, I know which scene you mean – it appears near the end of the film, when Manoj Kumar’s character is in hospital after the Naina barse song in Shimla. She appears at the window of his hospital room and smiles at him. Very creepy.
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Wow 15 years of fun writing! You’ve got such an amazing style of reviewing, Madhulika! Compels the reader to go and watch the movie ASAP. Worked with me (yet again) recently for Baharon Ke Sapne. Hope you never stop..! 😄
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Thank you so much. That’s high praise, indeed. I am really touched. :-)
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Happy Birthday, Dustedoff! This blog helps me re-live my younger days. The songs of WKT are superb and Sadhana’s acting is great. I found Manoj Kumar wooden, though!
Nadkarni
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Thank you so much! Yes, Manoj Kumar does tend to be quite wooden (and very hammy in his later films), but the rest of it is quite enjoyable, especially the songs, and Sadhana of course.
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Happy 15th anniversary of the blog!
May the blog continues forever!
I’ve watched the movie a year back and have forgotten the details of the mystery. Should watch the last part. But I do remember the plot holes and the initial scenes of K N Singh are enough to guess the mystery. Still there’s an element of surprise.
Wishing you many more years to blogging.
Congratulations!
✨✨🎇🎇🎆🎆🎉🎉✨✨
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Thank you so much, Anupji!
I agree with you: despite the plot holes (and the scenes with KN Singh’s character, especially given that he sees Lata’s hopes dashed) do come in the way of enjoying the film, but at least the story itself is mostly engrossing, and the suspense is there. I remember watching this the first time many years ago, and being very puzzled about what was going on.
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Raj Khosla remade this filmon colour with Rishi Kapoor and Farha. Naqaab was the name of that movie.
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Interesting! I must try to see if I can find it on YouTube.
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I will have to read this post in full later (and I never watched this film, either), but I just wanted to get my comment in today to say:
Happy blog anniversary, Madhu!
It’s a good feeling to know that you’ve been doing your blog for 15 years, right? ;)
But what is really remarkable is that you have continued to write good posts regularly, without – as far as I have seen – any pauses or slowdowns!
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“It’s a good feeling to know that you’ve been doing your blog for 15 years, right? ;)”
It is, it is! I am, honestly speaking, a little bit surprised that I’ve actually managed to keep going this long, and still enjoy the process of blogging as much as I did when I first began.
Thank you so much, Richard. From someone who writes as well as you do, those words of appreciation are really appreciated. :-)
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You’re welcome, and thank you, too – that comment is also much appreciated! :-)
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:-) And you’re welcome!
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Congratulations on the 15th anniversary of your blog. I wish you could bring out a compilation of essays, and call the book something like 150 Films You Must Watch–or Avoid! This one is beautiful too, just like film’s heroine and its music. On a separate note, a thought arrives. There’s something so fascinating about pipes, that you feel the pipe smoker has not just cultural grace but somehow, superior intelligence too. The photo of Raj Mehra the doctor above has him with a pipe. And Ashok Kumar carried one in so many films. Rehman too☺
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Thank you so much!
Coincidentally, talking about pipes… just the day before yesterday, I was watching a British film, Sleeping Car to Trieste (1948). Paul Dupuis plays a detective inspector (very intelligent!) of the French Surete. At one point, someone offers him a cigarette. He shakes his head and says, “No, thank you. I have my pipe.”
Which seems to echo what you say about pipe-smokers coming across as more intelligent!
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Happy 15th Birthday DustedOff.
I can’t remember an indifferent post but my favourites remain the ones on Edwina.
Can we expect updates on those ones please and more info on the LO!
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Thank you so much!
As for Edwina, I never wrote those posts – they were guest posts by Tom Daniel, with excerpts written by Edwina herself. I have no idea what Tom is doing these days, or whether he intends to write any more about Edwina.
About the LO (who will turn ten in January…), we are planning a trip in January, so you will get to read the travelogue(s) for that when it happens.
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Whenever I am in a Bollywood golden age quandary your site most of the times quenches my thirst with all the trivia and infotainment , way to go and congratulations @madhulika Liddle
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Thank you so much. It us the appreciation of people like you that keeps me going.
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One of my favorite movies. Thanks for the nice review.
Congratulations on your 15th anniversary of your blog.
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Thank you so much, Usha!
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Hi Madhu ji ! Congratulations for your 15th blog anniversary. For woh kaun thi. I Will say the movie has survived well. The print which is available on YouTube is quite good. The quality of one black n white movie which is very high is teen deviyan.
I was able to read Raj khosla late 70s interview in which he reflected over his career. He said original choice was nimmi.
But he found the age difference is too much so he brought sadhna.
N.N.Sippy was making small stunt flims so he could not afford to shoot in shimla Khosla persuaded him to raise funds to shoot in shimla to give the snow serene effect.
He was able to shoot in shimla in budget n without any reshooting.
Overall I loved the movie. Everything
i really love the Film atmosphere. N all songs are honey to ears. I do love manoj kumar in romantic thrillers movies like pathar k Sanam, himalya ki god mein , gumnam, Neel Kamal. In his generation of shashi ji n dharam ji. He only made gud pair with waheeda ji.
sadhna ji looks beautiful in the movie. I feel she looks best in her black n white movies.
Raj khosla said after Anita flop he lost interest in thrillers & moved into romantics. He said Anita was flop as 2nd sister was not in the movie. Audience felt cheated. I do wonder one thing for sure why ameeta, Parveen Chaudhary, jabeen jalli , azra did not make big into 60s. What i concluded new heroines who came asha, saira became more hit n they faded out.
Sadhna ji is one heroines who worked with maximum number of heroes n made great pairs with all.
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Thank you for that very informative and interesting comment. It made great reading! I too wonder why – especially Ameeta, who had after all worked opposite very popular actors, such as Shammi Kapoor – never really made much of a mark. She acted in several well-received films (Munimji, Tumsa Nahin Dekha, Dekh Kabira Roya, Mere Mehboob…) but was never really a star. The same with Kalpana, I think: though a leading lady in several films, she fizzled out fairly soon.
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15 years of extremely consistent quality reviewing.Congrats and keep it up.(Eleven or so years raising the energetic little one calls for extra appreciation.Seventy percent of the time our tastes match but what I like even more is you can almost convert me into and get me into your bandwagon.You are that persuasive.
Nice work keep going!
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Thank you so much! I, in turn, appreciate the way you and so many others take the time and effort to comment, to recommend, and to appreciate. It means a lot, and it is what has kept me going. Thank you for that.
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I think that the screenshots of the video you watched is a remastered one? because it looks so! anuradha warrier’s old review of the same has entirely different looking tape. thanks to ultra bollywood people! they have recently released improved videos of many guru dutt films and AI colored songs, they look so charming. i have enjoyed a handful of them.
moreover, your storytelling persuades me to watch the film. idk when? this has a very unusual gripping plot, looks so. like the random ups and downs most horrors have ending up nowhere, the reason i dislike mahal of kamal amrohi, it looks way too obsolete and old-fashioned, indeed it is. but then this film, looks like some made-a-day-before thing, never gonna be old.
thankyou for the nice review
moreover, congratulations! your blog turns a 15,sorry i joined it in late 2021, but have enjoyed since then. there’s a joyous road ahead madam, keep goin’
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Thank you for the congratulations! :-)
And I agree, Mahal, while its songs are good, was really quite a let-down. It does show its age. This one (and some of the other ‘supernatural suspense’ films, like Bees Saal Baad and Yeh Raat Phir Na Aayegi) are much more engrossing. I think this print is probably a remastered one – it’s a popular film, so video companies probably thought it makes sense to invest that much in it. Also, all previous digital versions I’ve seen of it have been much better than the usual prints one sees of old films – perhaps it was originally better maintained, too.
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Very interesting review of a film I meant to watch but never got around to do it. The songs are evergreen, I listen to ‘lag ja gale’ at-least once a day. Will watch this now.
Congratulations on 15 years of reviewing. May be a review of ‘Aradhana’ , my favorite film is long due, I am sure it is a pre 1970 film.
Girish Vaidya
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You’re very kind, thank you so much. And yes, I do need to review Aradhana one of these days… it’s one of those popular films that I have never got around to reviewing, even though I’ve seen the film more than once.
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Hi madhu ji ! I really felt that ameeta ji was not star . A star has x factor. Ameeta n sadhna were in mere mehboob. Sadhna clearly overshadowed her easily.
I really loved Parveen chowdhary. She has good personality. She was in prem Patra, preet na janey reet , jhuk guya aasmaan . I really love shokh nazar ki bizliya. But success did not come to her.
Azra not making big made me wonder a lott. So i thought a lot. I felt she had Similar personality n look like saira ji. If color flims would have come earlier then it would have helped her. She looked more stylish n polished than sadhna in love in shimla. Color flims would have helped her.
Having Similar personality n look like saira ji did not help her too. I also love her in picnic. Jab mera aanchal dhaelga.
Saira was helped by the fact that she directly debut in color flim era.
I have read heroes interviews saying in dere struggle time career depended on if established heroines worked with them or not. So dere own career was on mercy of top heroines.
Among heroes short career of joy ji did not made me much wonder.
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I think Joy Mukherjee’s short career is probably a result – at least to some extent – of his going downhill so quickly. By the late 60s his face was looking quite heavy and he had begun to lose his hair. :-(
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Hi madhu ji ! I also felt the same after watching joy ji later movies like mujrim, humsaya, inspector.
I feel all mukherjee brothers joy ji , shomu , deb were not that much ambitious. Whatever came in dere way they took it.
I remember shashi ji said while reflecting his career in 1976 that joy was d first one to become star in dere group. N his price was very high compared to them.
I love joy ji more in scenes than in songs in which I feel he gave same kind of expressions.
Raj khosla said while reflecting his career he felt he was depending too much on dev anand so he decided to take another hero and he work with joy in love in shimla.
He said he had to work on him as he was not the same calibre of dev. In next line he praised sahdna ji for learning quickly.
He said love in shimla flopped but later became hit after editing.
After flops of bombai ka babu n love in shimla. Khosla position in industry was in danger n doors would have been shut so he made woh kaun thi with care.
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Hi madhu ji ! I mistakenly mentioned love in shimla by R.k. nayar instead of ek musafir ek haseena by raj khosla in previous comment in context of raj khosla flop flims.
Writing an additional comment . I will like to share my more thoughts.
I did thought after reading sadhna ji interview.
She said she was 5 ” 6′ .
Bouffant used to add height and if she wear heels she would have been 5 feet 10 inch.
She said as most of our heroes are short. Raj kapoor was given stool to stand in badly made movie dulha Dulhan .
She said she did not wear heels due to her height but wear mojris made for her and walks become different in mojris than in heels.
She said once Raj Khosla asked to her remove heels for a sequence but was shocked that she was not wearing any heels.
There is a photo of new year party 1966 given by Rajesh khanna in which sadhna ji definitely looks taller than him.
But If we see most of her regular co heroes like shammi ji / joy ji / manoj ji / Sunil dutt / Sanjay khan were definetly range btw 6 to 6 more.
Some exception will be Shashi ji/ dev saab / Rajender ji with little less height.
She looked good with all on screen n this height aspect has never crossed audience mind for sure.
Thinking from sadhna ji point of view. Probably more height compatibility is needed for screen. 😃
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Very interesting. I hadn’t realized Sadhana was that tall!
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Hi Madhu,
Congratulations on the 15th anniversary of your blog.
Yours is the only blog, which I know has continued regularly for 15 years. This shows your disciple and dedication to your blog, and your passion for writing as well as films.
Wish you all the best for the further years.
Thanks for your interesting and in-depth blog posts, they make great reading.
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Dear Harvey, thank you so much. You were among the first few people to start reading this blog, and your ardent support – your long and thoughtful comments, the fun interactions – played a huge part in making me continue with it. Thank you for being such a good friend to Dusted Off.
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Dear Madhu, So nice to note that you’ve completed 15 years of blogging , and that you’re still going strong. Congratulations ! I love reading and re-reading your blogs. “Woh Kaun Thi” is one of my absolute favourite movies also. I never get tired of seeing it again and again. Remastered prints make movies a joy to watch . They’ve remastered “Anita” and “Ek Musafir Ek Haseena ” too, which adds to their viewing pleasure. The songs of “Woh Kaun Thi” are amazing especially “Lag ja gale” which has perhaps the most views on You Tube than any other black and white movie song (284 million views). Sadhana looks ethereally beautiful in this film, and her acting (underacting) should be made a mandatory watch for aspiring actresses. “She holds the camera with her stillness”, is what one critic said. This was remarkable in the age when overacting was the norm. Incidentally the opening scene of this movie was copied from James Hadley Chase’s book , “The flesh of the orchid” , in which Miss Blandish’s daughter runs away from an asylum and is standing on the road. A trucker stops near her and says “Who are you ? ” She says “Nobody” . He then asks “Where do you want to go ? ” She answers ,”Nowhere”. He says “You’re Miss Nobody from Nowhere ?” No one seems to have noticed this resemblance to the book. Well ,all the best to you. And I hope you’ll us entertained with your intelligent and perceptive reviews of old films.
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Thank you for the appreciation, Pradeep! I really value that.
And yes, how fabulous Sadhana is in this film. Beautiful, of course, but also very understated in her acting.
Thank you for sharing that bit about that dialogue from The Flesh of the Orchid – I hadn’t known. Very interesting.
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Hi , Madhu. My comment’s not going.
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I discovered all your comments in spam! – WordPress was playing up again. I couldn’t see any logical reason for your very innocuous comment to get flagged as spam; strange are the ways of WordPress…
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I’m surprised that you’ve never reviewed this movie before! But then that’s good, because if it had been before I started reading your blog then I’d have missed it. So glad you did it now! :-)
Actually, considering how famous the movie and – more importantly – the songs are, I’m surprised that I haven’t seen the movie ever!!! Maybe I should.
Thanks for a thoroughly fascinating review!
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Thank you so much, Rajani! It’s a thoroughly engrossing film. Not perfect, but very entertaining. If for nothing else, it needs to be watched for the songs. :-)
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I think one loophole, or unexplained thing in this was..if she was not a ghost then how did the wipers stop working just as she steps in the car…
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Yes, I’ve mentioned that.
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Hi madhu ji !! Woh kaun thi was released on 7th Feb 1964. Happy 60 year to woh kaun thi. 😃 The flim will be never forgotten cause fans of musical team always remember like lata ji fans , madan mohan fans.
Wish to add trivia madhu ji.
R. d.burman ji said forgive me. But guru dutt was fickle in nature. After making Raaz for 8 n half reels . He shelved the picture which was made by his assistant raj Khosla as woh kaun thi. Raaz was going to be debut flim of Pancham.
There was no shooting for 3 months as both raj Khosla n sadhna were unhappy about hero choice. Therefore g p sippy went to sign nimmi ji. Sadhna ji came back to do the role as she found the role too good.
Sadhna ji ghost Story. sadhna ji ghost story was published in Madhuri magazine. N it goes like this.
Sadhna ji lived in Pali hill bunglow. N her driver hukum singh n writer Arjun dev rask saw a ghost of lady n heard weird noises. That there is something wrong in the bunglow. Sadhna ji bought a ambassador car from Calcutta. But car petrol used to vanish. Mechanic did not find any leekage.
Finally sadhna ji sold the car. But the car troubled every single owner n finally was caught as it was bought by a smuggler who was smuggling gold worth 30 lakh.
But the police officer who caught it got demotion. Sadhna ji said car became cursed due to bunglow. N she sold the bunglow n went to live in carter road flat.
She said she did not believe in ghosts even she worked in woh kaun thi n Anita but after this she changed her beliefs.
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