If you’ve been reading this blog some years, you probably know by now that I am a fan of Madhubala’s. I’ve watched most of her films (several of which I have not got around to reviewing on this blog), I’ve done lists of my favourite songs of hers, and I have waxed eloquent every now and then about how much I like her.

One of the things I dislike about much of the online (at least) raving about Madhubala is that the praise is invariably just about her beauty. How gorgeous, how exquisite. Yes, indeed; but Madhubala’s beauty, I think, often comes in the way of people appreciating what a good actress she was, too. Watch her performances in films like Mughal-e-Azam and Amar, for instance, and if you can look past her face, you will see how well she holds her own against heavyweight thespians like Dilip Kumar and Prithviraj Kapoor.

And she was a fantastic comedienne too. The madcap way she matches Kishore Kumar in Chalti ka Naam Gaadi, for example. Or her airhead character in Mr & Mrs 55. Interestingly, Madhubala is often compared to Marilyn Monroe, almost entirely on the basis of their beauty and popularity; but I think the two stars had one more thing in common: both could portray the ditzy beauty very well. This, in fact, is just the type of woman Manju, of Police, is: nutty, silly, a clown. But so endearing too (and, it goes without saying, so gorgeous).

Manju doesn’t put in an appearance till fairly well into the film, however. The first few scenes are used to establish the scenario.

In Bombay, a police inspector is killed after an encounter with some criminals. The city is caught in a crime wave, and the police chief (?) comes up with a plan to get the situation under control. This man (he shows his minion a photograph of Pradeep Kumar, looking unshaven and dressed in prison stripes) was called Rangooni. He was a notorious criminal, a jewel thief who committed several crimes in Bombay before fleeing to Singapore, where he has been these past few years. Rangooni is now dead, killed in a car accident the other day.

… but there is this man (the officer shows another photo, also Pradeep Kumar, but looking much better groomed), a Special Branch officer from Calcutta named Kiran Kumar. The police chief’s plan is to get Kiran to impersonate Rangooni. The plan unfolds later in the story, but in essence, it hinges on the fact that nobody here, not even everybody in the police, knows that the infamous Rangooni is dead. Kiran will masquerade as Rangooni, and with the help of Kabuli (a reformed gangster who is now willing to be a police informer), he will go undercover to try and unearth the identity of the dangerous criminal who heads the underworld in Bombay.

Sometime later, ‘Rangooni’ arrives in Bombay, and is met at the airport by a friend, Chakrapani Goswami Vitthalvasan Pillai (Dhumal), formerly a pickpocket but now a tailor. Rangooni and Pillai are still at the airport when a cop (Raj Mehra), having noticed Rangooni—and recognized him—makes sure that he lets Rangooni know that he, the cop, will be keeping an eye on Rangooni. Don’t try any tricks.

Soon after, Rangooni overhears a woman (Nilofer) making a phone call from one of the phone booths at the airport. She informs someone that “the guests from Singapore have arrived. According to the programme, they will be attending a song-and-dance show at Blue Heaven Hotel.”

Rangooni goes to Blue Heaven Hotel that evening. The ‘guests’ are important ones, a Sultan and his consort. There is a party in honour of these esteemed guests, and the Sultana is wearing a very fine necklace. Also present is Blue Heaven’s owner, Ramesh (Anwar Hussain), who gets talking to the Sultana and even dances with her.

In the midst of the dance, the lights go off, and the Sultana feels a hand snatch her necklace away. She begins screaming, the lights come on, and the alarm is raised. The police officer who had seen Rangooni at the airport is there too, and he quickly seals off the area and starts a search of everybody around.

The necklace has actually been stolen by Ramesh, though nobody outside of his gang knows this. He quickly manages to smuggle it away to safety into the hands of an accomplice, well out of reach of the police. The police officer is left fuming, frustrated at not being able to catch a culprit who should’ve been easily caught. He is convinced that Rangooni is to blame, so he visits Rangooni the next day…

… and Rangooni, as if to confirm that he is indeed a criminal, flees. The officer (who, really, should have been informed long before that this ‘arch criminal’ is really no criminal at all but a colleague), follows. A heated chase ensues, with the police hot on Rangooni’s heels. Rangooni manages to get ahead of the cops a bit, and then notices a woman going along in her car. This is the aforementioned Manju, though of course Rangooni doesn’t know.

He dupes her, manipulating her into getting out of her car. He then bundles her into his own car, long enough to frazzle Manju while he rushes over into her car and hijacks it. By the time a sputtering, indignant Manju has straightened up and seen what’s happened, Rangooni has gone off. Manju decides to follow—in his car.

It is while she’s driving Rangooni’s car that the police catch up and make her pull over. It’s only then that the misunderstanding gets sorted out, and Manju is told by the police officer (who’s very annoyed that he’s lost Rangooni) who has stolen her car. Most other filmi females might be expected to be glad to have had a narrow escape (Rangooni might have killed her, right? Or harmed her; all he’s done is drive off in her car, leaving her his own car). Manju, though, is very excited by the thought that she’s briefly met Bombay’s most wanted criminal.

The police officer, escorting her back to her home, ends up gritting his teeth because Manju is such a chatterbox and cannot stop talking of what has happened. By the time she gets home, she’s convinced herself that she came close to nabbing Rangooni; her photo will be all in the papers, won’t it? The police officer is rolling his eyes by now, and Manju’s father Rai Bahadur Kundandas (Om Prakash) is equally exasperated by his daughter’s silliness.

The crux of the matter, though, is that Rangooni is still on the run. But Manju, now all fired up with the zeal to be a heroine, has it in mind that she will be the toast of the newspapers, she will hold a press conference and be famous—by catching Rangooni.

As luck would have it, she does end up encountering Rangooni every now and then. Without realizing, of course, that Rangooni:
(a) isn’t a criminal
And (b) has fallen in love with her

Kiran Kumar aka Rangooni has, in the meantime, teamed up with Kabuli, and the two of them have made some headway in ridding the city of its criminals. They are able to keep tabs on which millionaire, jeweller, etc is going to be the next target of the gang, and the police is accordingly alerted. In this way, lots of would-be thieves are arrested; the one who still eludes the cops is the kingpin, whom they cannot even identify so far, let alone apprehend…

And this man actually is someone Manju knows: Ramesh is a friend of the family’s, and has his eye on Manju herself, whom he flirts with, though she’s oblivious.

Where does all of this lead? Rangooni, Manju, Ramesh: a cat-and-mouse game, with both Rangooni and Ramesh masquerading as someone they’re not, hiding their true selves.

I watched Police on YouTube, where Tom Daniel has cleaned up and uploaded a copy. Given that Tom puts in a lot of effort cleaning the videos he uploads, and given how (still) patchy both video and audio are, one shudders to think of how it might have been in its original, non-cleaned version. A pity, really, because while it’s not especially pathbreaking as a suspense film, it’s good time-pass, as we say.

What I liked about this film:

Madhubala, of course. As Manju, she really nails the ditzy beauty: vivacious, yes, but in a mad sort of way. Manju goes through much of the film solely devoted to catching Rangooni so that she can be feted and become famous. She doesn’t stop to think that Rangooni’s formidable reputation as a criminal might actually mean he’s quite dangerous, and she could be putting herself in jeopardy by pursuing him. She’s impulsive, she’s more than a bit nutty, and yet, there’s something endearing about her nuttiness, which makes Kiran Kumar fall for her, despite all the trouble she lands him in. An amusing character, and Madhubala seems like she’s having a lot of fun playing Manju.

Generally, too, the film is fun. True, it’s not as tightly scripted as (say) other cops-and-criminals films like CID or Johnny Mera Naam (and Kiran Kumar seems to get a huge amount of free time to romance Manju even while he’s being chased by both Ramesh as well as the unaware cop), but still. It’s more or less coherent, and whatever gaps there are, get filled in by some good songs and some funny scenes that help as distraction.

Lastly, the music, by Hemant, with lyrics by Majrooh Sultanpuri. I must admit that none of these songs was familiar to me, but I ended up liking most of them a lot, in particular Mere tum ho, phir kya hua (which features Nadira as a dancer at Blue Heaven); the dreamily romantic Chale hum kahaan; and the peppy O chhup jaa hamaare dil mein. The last song in the film, Dil par yeh kaisa tune khanjar maara re, is also a wonderfully infectious tune, though it’s oddly placed in the film, after the entire story is over and done with.

What I didn’t like:

The plot holes. For one, the somewhat vague idea of what exactly Kiran Kumar is being able to achieve by impersonating the dead Rangooni. It starts off okay, and even proceeds in an interesting way till a point; then, once he crosses paths with Manju, the focus gets blurred.

Among the other plot holes: the very fact that there’s a police officer, on Rangooni’s trail, who hasn’t been let into the secret of who this ‘criminal’ really is. While it makes for an amusing sort of side plot, it doesn’t make sense. Even if the idea is that the fewer people who know Rangooni’s real identity, the better—this cop is wasting precious time and energy pursuing Rangooni, and Rangooni is wasting equally precious time and energy evading him. An exception could have been made.

And, who is the mysterious, in-cahoots-with-Ramesh dancer at Blue Heaven (and is it Blue Heaven, as written, or Blue Heavens, as Pradeep Kumar calls it?). In most scenes, it’s Nilofer, long cigarette holder in hand, who is lounging about beside Ramesh, smirking and acting as if she’s in the know. In a few (very few) other scenes, it’s Nadira doing pretty much the same thing. What was this all about? Was one actress signed on to play the dancer, and when she left abruptly, another was brought in as a substitute, no explanations given?

So, no: not perfect; director Kalidas and writers Nasir Hussain and Deep Khosla don’t seem to have thought this through very well. Plus, as I mentioned in the beginning, the poor quality of the video (as well as the audio, which completely disappears in places) makes this a difficult film to watch at times. But, overall, quite entertaining.