As part of the birthday celebrations of Helen (she turned 85 on November 21st, 2023), another post of Helen songs.
While Helen has shimmied to umpteen songs by herself (or with a band of male dancers in attendance), there are also a fair number of songs where Helen isn’t the only woman dancing. To celebrate my favourite dancer’s 85th birthday, I thought, it would be fun to come up with a list of song-and-dance sequences featuring Helen with another actress.
And, of course, that pretty much implies: Ten of my favourite Helen dances.
The ‘Queen of the Nautch Girls’ (as a 1973 documentary about her dubbed Helen) turns 85 today: she was born on November 21, 1938, in Yangon. The story of the long journey from Myanmar to Mumbai is not something Helen talks about (she seems to be amazingly reticent; Jerry Pinto, writing about her in The Life and Times of a Bollywood H-Bomb, says that he wasn’t able to get hold of her for even a short interview). But that she entered cinema, courtesy dancing mentor Cuckoo, as a teenager, is well-known. And that she burst upon the firmament of the Hindi silver screen and made it her own is there for everybody to see. From the mid-1950s onward, Helen was to be seen increasingly in Hindi cinema, and with the foot-tapping Mera naam Chin Chin Choo, she rocketed to the top: by the 60s, no commercial film worth its salt could be without a Helen number.
Aaye-gaye manzilon ke nishaan
Lehraake jhooma-jhuka aasmaan
Lekin rukega na yeh kaarvaan
(The markers of destinations came and went;
The sky swirled, danced, bent down:
But this caravan will not stop…)
– From ‘Mud-mudke na dekh’ (Shree 420, 1955), lyrics by Shailendra, music by Shankar-Jaikishan. Sung by Asha Bhonsle and Manna De, picturized on Nadira.
Continue readingIn English, ‘Give and Take’.
I read a review of this Uttam Kumar-Tanuja starrer many years ago, and, ever since, I’ve been wanting to watch Deya Neya. All this time, I had never been able to get a subtitled version of it, but now there’s one (thank you, Angel), and I wasted no time in watching it.
The story begins in Lucknow, where Proshanto Roy (Uttam Kumar) lives with his parents: his very successful and wealthy industrialist father BK Roy (Kamal Mitra) and doting mother (Chhaya Devi). Mr Roy has Proshanto working at the office, doing accounts; but Proshanto is never to be found at work, and it riles his father up no end.
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].
I have a confession to make: I’ve never actually got around to watching, as far as I can remember, any of Buster Keaton’s films. The great American comedian, a contemporary of Charlie Chaplin’s, is often regarded on par with (if not better than) Chaplin. His The General, about an engine driver who accidentally becomes a Civil War hero, is considered by many to be a masterpiece, with Orson Welles calling it the ‘greatest comedy ever made’ (and ‘possibly the greatest movie ever made’).
It was about time I watched The General. Especially since it’s easily available (it’s in the public domain, you can even watch it on YouTube, here).
The story begins in Marietta, Georgia, in 1861. Engine driver Johnnie Gray (Buster Keaton) has just come into town, driving his beloved engine, which is named The General. The General is Johnnie’s great love, along with the pretty Annabelle Lee (Marion Mack). Johnnie attends to his beloved engine, then goes off to meet Annabelle.
This post is a little late. It was the birth centenary of Hindi film lyricist, composer, and choreographer Prem Dhawan earlier this year (he was born on June 13, 1923, in Ambala), but what with one thing and another, I just couldn’t find the time to work on this post back then. Anyway, better late than never, I guess. And Prem Dhawan was one person I did want to write about on this blog, because he is one of those rare individuals who didn’t merely excel in one realm of the film industry; he was rather more of a polymath than most.
What if you were to wake up one morning to find that your life had been switched with that of another? That the people closest to you were all dead, and that the people now claiming to be your friends and family were all strangers, or pretty much so?
This is how Bahaaron ki Manzil begins: with Radha/Nanda (we don’t know who yet; Meena Kumari) waking up one morning. As she stirs, we can hear her mind: she’s happy, looking forward to her wedding—because today is her wedding day. When she gets up, though, she looks down at the tinselly sari she’s wearing, and is puzzled. She doesn’t have a sari like this. And there’s a wound on her forehead…
I am always intrigued by films that have children in important roles, films like The Search or The Four Hundred Blows, which call for children to really show off their acting skills. The Bad Seed is another for the list, and an unusual film, in that it has the child (Patty McCormack) in what might have been an unsettling experience for a child actor.
The Bad Seed begins in the home of Colonel Kenneth Penmark (William Hopper), who has been transferred to Washington, DC and is just about to leave. His farewell to his wife Christine (Nancy Kelly) and their eight-year-old daughter Rhoda (Patty McCormack) is touching: these three are obviously a loving, happy family. Rhoda, in particular, comes across as an affectionate child, adored by her father.
The first time I watched Kaala Bazaar was perhaps in my early teens: the film was being shown on Doordarshan, and given that back then I was very fond of Dev Anand, I watched it. I have very vague recollections of that viewing. What I do recall, vividly, is that I didn’t like that my hero was a criminal.
… which, as I came to realize later, was actually not so very uncommon a style for the characters Dev Anand played. Unlike the other major romantic hero of the time, Shammi Kapoor, Dev Anand didn’t just play characters who got up to ‘mischief’, so to say; his characters—from Tony in Jaal to Raju in Guide, from Chhagan in Roop ki Rani Choron ka Raja to Babu in Bambai ka Babu, plus others—were outright criminals: thieves, conmen, smugglers, men definitely on the wrong side of the law.
Like Raghubir ‘Raghu’ in Kaala Bazaar. Raghu is a bus conductor when the story begins, and within the space of a couple of minutes, his life takes an about-turn. A belligerent passenger is standing in the bus (which is against the rules), and when Raghu asks him to get off the bus, the man refuses. Both he and Raghu lose their tempers. Fists fly, and the next thing we know, Raghu is without a job.
Raghu’s mother (Leela Chitnis) is ill, and he has a sister (Nanda) and a young brother (?) as well; he cannot afford to be without a job. Desperate, Raghu flounders about, trying to find work. If not work, money.
Dustedoff 