Category Archives: Dusted Off

Dracula (1958)

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My daughter, now nearing thirteen, has suddenly discovered the horror genre. She’s still too young to watch, but she’s been hearing about vampire movies and zombie movies and more. I have been asked which horror films frightened me the most (given that horror isn’t a genre I like watching much, I had little to say). And I have been asked whether I’ve seen this one, or that one. Have I seen, for instance, Dracula?

Which Dracula, I asked, since there are plenty of versions. She didn’t know, of course, of any of that: all she wanted to know was if she could watch Dracula.

So I set out to find out—by watching this version, which I had seen praised earlier on other blogs. Produced by the British cinema producer, Hammer Film Productions (who made horror their defining genre), Dracula—released in the US as Horror of Dracula—was the first of a series of nine films about the vampire count (played by Christopher Lee in seven of the films).

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Dil Apna aur Preet Paraayi (1960)

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When I was compiling my list of Raj Kumar songs last week, it occurred to me that there are several major films of his that I haven’t reviewed yet. Dil Apna aur Preet Paraayi, for instance, which stars one of my favourite actresses, and features one of my favourite songs. A film I watched many years ago and remember only in a fairly rudimentary way. Time for a rewatch, I decided.

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Ten of my favourite Raj Kumar songs

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I missed Raj Kumar’s birth centenary, which was on October 8, 2026 (he was born, Kulbhushan Pandit, in Loralai, now in Pakistan, in 1926). Ten days late, but better late than never, I guess.

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Burmah Road (1962)

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If you are an aficionado of old Hindi film music, you can probably guess why I wanted to watch this film: it has some really good songs, courtesy Majrooh Sultanpuri and Chitragupta (who should probably head the list of seriously underrated music directors). There was, in my case, another reason, a slice of family history. During World War II, when the Japanese invaded Burma and thousands of Indians had to flee the country, my uncle Col KC Datta (my father’s sister’s husband) was one of the Indian Army officers tasked with helping refugees cross those many miles of jungle into India. It was a hair-raising experience; my uncle caught kala azar on the way, but managed to complete the task.

What might Burmah Road be about? I did not really expect that it would be about that epic trek my uncle was part of; but perhaps something about the Burma campaign? Or about the INA in Burma, à la Pehla Aadmi? If none of that, at least something like Aadhi Raat ke Baad or Howrah Bridge, set partly in Burma?

Nope. Nothing like that. Burmah Road in this film is the name of a principality, and it’s not very clear exactly where it is. It is ruled by a king (Chaman Puri), whom everybody refers to as His Highness Burmah Road. This king has a young son, and is very worried about the future of this child, as well as of Burmah Road.

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Amar Bhoopali (1952)

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Aka The Immortal Song, a Marathi film directed by V Shantaram, about the Marathi poet Honaji Sayaji Shilarkhane (1754-1844).

Given that Indian cinema (and not Hindi cinema, but several other regional film industries as well) have always focussed heavily on songs, it’s hardly a surprise that films based on the lives of singers and/or poets have been made time and again. In Hindi, there’s been everything from Meera to Mirza Ghalib to Kavi Kalidas; in Gujarati, I’ve seen Kalapi, about Sursinhji Takhtasinhji Gohil ‘Kalapi’. And then there’s this, about Honaji.

The story begins in Saswad, where Honaji ‘Hona’ (Panditrao Nagarkar) lives with his mother Vithabai (Lalita Pawar) and his wife (?). This is not actually their home; they used to live in Pune with Hona’s uncle. However, the uncle was part of a tamasha troupe, and Vithabai found that a potential bad influence on Hona. She didn’t want him to get corrupted, so she shifted the family to Saswad, where Hona now spends his time being a cowherd.

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The Indian Love for ‘It Happened One Night’

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(And a brief review of Naadaan, 1951).

Over the past couple of days, I’ve watched one of Dev Anand’s earlier films with Madhubala, Naadaan. Ever since I watched Kaala Paani as a child, I’ve checked out every film in which they’ve worked together and which I’ve been able to lay my hands on: Jaali Note, Sharaabi, and now this—all in the hope that another film of theirs might be able to bring together that all-around excellence of Kaala Paani.

In the case of Naadaan, there was another incentive to watch: the fact that this was based on Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night (1934). This film, which stars Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, is a classic romance based on opposites attracting: not only is the heroine a very wealthy woman and the hero a not-too-well-off journalist, but she is, furthermore, in love with a completely different man. Pampered by her widowed father, the woman throws a hissy fit and runs off to her lover when her father refuses to let her marry him. The woman soon realizes that her father has organized not just a search party but has also offered a reward for anyone who can give him information about his fugitive daughter’s whereabouts—all calculated to scotch any attempts at her getting to her lover. But the journalist (who scents a good story) takes the woman under his wing, and gradually their initial friction gives way to friendship, and then to love.

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Songs that end a film: Ten Favourites

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Many years ago, I had done a post of credits songs: songs that appear at the beginning of a film, playing as the credits roll. Not just music, not just a verse or two, but a full-fledged song, often (as in the case of Garjat barsat saawan aayo re or Rangeen bahaaron se hai gulzaar Chinatown, to give just two examples) songs that were there only through the credits; they didn’t appear otherwise in the film.

Some readers suggested it might be interesting to find songs that did the opposite. Songs that ended a film, but were complete in themselves. Not (as is common in a lot of films) a verse or a refrain from an-already-heard song that is reprised at the end. Not like the hit love song of which the refrain is played again while the happy couple, now married, go off into the sunset.

No. These are songs which appear only at the end of the film. Not necessarily at the climax: Yeh mahalon yeh takhton yeh taajon ki duniya comes near the end, but there are several scenes beyond that. But songs which actually end the film.

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Prisoner of Golconda (1954)

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Aka Golconda ka Qaidi: a film made both in Hindi as well as English, though I’ve only seen the English version, not the Hindi, which I couldn’t find anywhere, despite much searching.

Prem Nath directed and starred in Prisoner of Golconda, which also starred his wife Bina Rai and his younger brother Rajendra Nath (whose debut this was, going by the film’s credits). I don’t remember now how I happened to stumble upon the film on YouTube, but I was immediately intrigued; Indian films in English from that era always have that effect on me. What’s more, on a web page, I saw it mentioned (as it turned out, incorrectly) that Prisoner of Golconda was a fantasy. This, I decided, was a film that might merit watching, since the last Prem Nath-starrer fantasy I saw, Aab-e-Hayat, was a thorough entertainer.

But no, Prisoner of Golconda is no fantasy at all. This is a patriotic film, a story set in the early 1940s, and Prem Shankar (Prem Nath) is a police officer, an ASP, who comes to the rescue of a besieged police station where the local officer, Zorawar Singh (Hiralal) has found himself surrounded by a crowd of irate locals. These people, full of anger for the high-handed ways of the British government (and, naturally enough, seeing in the police the embodiment of that colonial government) have been on the rampage. They have already set fire to a post office and are now getting ready to destroy the police station as well.

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Mere Humdum Mere Dost (1968)

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When Dharmendra passed away earlier this year, it struck me that while I have watched many of his films—from both before and after 1970, the cut-off year for my blog—I have reviewed relatively few. I decided, therefore, to make amends. By watching, for instance, Aaye Din Bahaar Ke and Aaya Saawan Jhoomke. Here’s another one, teaming Dharmendra with one of his more frequent co-stars, Sharmila Tagore.

The story begins on a road where Sunil (?) is walking along with his father, Hari Ram (?). Daddy, walking in the middle of the road [? Why? Also, you know what’s going to happen when a character walks in the middle of the road], is hit by a car, and the next we see, he’s dying in hospital, with Sunil, Sunil’s younger sister, and their mother (Achla Sachdev) looking gloomily on while a policeman tries to get Daddy’s final testimony. Daddy manages to gasp out an accusation: Seth Vishwanath has murdered him; the car accident was no accident. He dies, and the cop goes off to arrest Sethji.

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Stage Fright (1950)

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After a long, long time, a review of an Alfred Hitchcock film. Hitch has been one of my favourite directors ever since I (then aged twelve) first watched The Lady Vanishes. In the first few years of blogging, I ended up reviewing most of my favourite Hitch films from before 1970: The Thirty-Nine Steps, Rear Window, The Trouble With Harry, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Spellbound, Lifeboat… and others. But it’s been a while, and this film has been lying among the bookmarks on my browser, waiting to be watched, for quite a while now.

The aptly-named Stage Fright is set in the world of theatre, where Eve Gill (a very young Jane Wyman) is an aspiring actress. She has still not quite managed to make it into any productions, really, but she is hopeful. When the story begins, though, Eve is not acting or rehearsing: she’s busy helping a friend of hers who’s in trouble. Jonathan Cooper (Richard Todd) is likely to get implicated in a murder, and Eve is driving him to (hopefully) safety.

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