Category Archives: Dusted Off

The Spiral Staircase (1946)

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Years ago, when I first watched Wait Until Dark, I was blown away by the ingenuity of the idea: a blind woman trapped inside a house with a murderer on the loose. Audrey Hepburn was superb as the woman who must use all her wits to keep one step ahead of her pursuer, and if possible, to turn the tables on him.

That was the film I kept remembering when I was watching The Spiral Staircase, a story about a mute girl who is caught in a large mansion with a murderer coming after her.

The story begins, not at the mansion, but at a small hotel in the nearby town. On the ground floor of the hotel, a film (silent, shown with an accompanying pianist providing the music) is being projected. A small but engrossed audience is in attendance, and this includes Helen (Dorothy McGuire), who is mute.

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Aladdin aur Jaadui Chiraagh (1952)

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Some weeks back, when I reviewed Police (1958), the thought that had stayed in my mind regarding Madhubala’s character—and her acting—in that film and otherwise, in the larger context of her career, was that she got sadly stereotyped. Too many people, film-makers most of all, ended up slotting her as the ravishingly beautiful woman who need only be cast for the fact that she could light up a screen like few others could. Her acting ability (which was actually very good) got overlooked far too often.

Something similar, though in a different way, happened to Meena Kumari. In Meena Kumari’s case, the ‘Tragedy Queen’ label got affixed fairly early in the actress’s career and branded her forever as the Main Chup Rahoongi type: the weepy, self-sacrificing, stoic Bhartiya naari. Despite films like Kohinoor, Azaad, Majhli Didi, Tamasha and Bandish, most people today associate Meena Kumari with ‘serious’ roles.

So, this film, which starred Meena Kumari in one of her lighter roles.

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Ten of my favourite title songs

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Given that I’ve done so many song lists, it surprises me, too, that I’ve so far never done a list of my favourite title songs. Blog reader Naghma (who has suggested some great themes for song lists over the years) suggested this one too, and I was a little taken aback to realize that—though I’d done a credits songs list, and had another noted down for climax songs or songs that end a film—I’d never even thought of doing a title songs list.

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Hindi film characters with books, Part 2

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Just last month, on the occasion of World Book Day (in Britain and some other parts of the world), I published a post on characters in English-language cinema who are readers. This post had been inspired by a much earlier post, from some years back, where I had listed characters from Hindi cinema who are shown with books. This time, for the English books post, a blog reader suggested I do a sequel to the post on books in Hindi cinema.

And why not, I thought. After all, books aren’t all that uncommon in Hindi films. True, Life magazine or newspapers do seem to rule the roost when it comes to people reading, but there are books to be seen now and then.

Today, April 23, is the day designated by UNESCO as World Book Day. And here is the sequel to that long-ago post on characters in Hindi cinema with books: another instalment of screenshots of Hindi film characters with books; and not just characters with books in the background, such as this:

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Bunny Lake is Missing (1965)

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A little girl, an American newly arrived in England, goes missing from the nursery school she’s just joined. The police come to investigate, but things begin to get very puzzling soon after and the superintendent in charge of the case ends up wondering: Is Bunny Lake really missing? Does Bunny Lake even exist?

This film, produced and directed by Otto Preminger, was nominated for several BAFTA awards, and having seen it, I wonder why it didn’t win even a single award. It’s a gripping story, and moves swiftly from the very start.

It begins at a home in London, where Steven Lake (Keir Dullea) goes about picking up stuff, making sure everything is draped in covers, before he locks up the house and has a word with a couple of workmen who are there to help shift some stuff to another home. Much later in the film, when Steven and his sister Ann are talking to the police, it transpires that Steven, who is a journalist, has been working in London for some time and was staying in Frogmore End (which is the house shown in the opening frames).

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Lal-e-Yaman (1933)

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Aka Parviz-Parizaad.

I had heard of Lal-e-Yaman (literally, ‘Rubies of Yemen’, though why it’s so named, I couldn’t tell) before, but it wasn’t until I read Manek Premchand’s Director’s Chair: Hindi Cinema’s Golden Age some weeks back that I was reminded of it: it appeared in JBH Wadia’s filmography, being the first film he produced and directed, along with his brother Homi Wadia. Premchand described Lal-e-Yaman as an ‘Arabian Nights kind of adventure’, and that piqued my interest.

The story is not explicitly set in Yemen, though it’s probably someplace in the Middle East. The King (Jal Khambatta) of a kingdom has recently remarried after having been widowed. He has a ten-year old son, Parviz (?) from his first wife; now the second wife (Mohini) is sitting beside him when a dervish arrives. This man prophesies that the new queen will wreak havoc, that the king will be much plagued because of her.

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Penn (1954)

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When I reviewed Zindagi (1964) some time back, blog reader Maitreyee, in a comment, asked me if I had watched any of Vjyyanthimala’s Southern films. I admitted I had not, and that mostly because it’s so difficult to find subtitled versions of South Indian films. I did have one Tamil film, with subtitles, bookmarked, and when Maitreyee too mentioned it (as a comedy), I decided it was high time I watched Penn, (in Tamil, ‘Girl‘).

The film begins by introducing us to Rani (Vyjyanthimala), a firebrand who goes about singing songs of women’s emancipation, gender equality, and the crushing of patriarchy. Rani walks the talk too: for instance, when she comes across a woman being beaten by her husband, Rani (who is an enthusiastic equestrienne) gets her whip out and uses it on the man.

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It’s what you wear: Ten songs about attire

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Every now and then a blog reader makes a request for a song list. Some I find interesting enough (and challenging enough) to decide to take up.

This is one such: songs that make a mention of a particular garment. A blog reader, an avid participant in antakshari, made this request, having first told me that he found my blog a very good resource for coming up with songs to fit just about any theme. Would I do a song list on items of attire, please? I had already published a list on dupattas/chunaris/odhnis, but beyond that, offhand, I could think of only a handful of other pieces of clothing that had been celebrated in song. It took a good bit of time, effort, and research to dredge up others.

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The Three Worlds of Gulliver (1960)

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A few weeks back, after years of telling myself I must read more of the classics, I finally got around to reading Jonathan Swift’s highly-acclaimed satirical novel, Gulliver’s Travels. Over a period of time, I’ve realized that books of this sort—extremely popular, appearing on just about every list of ‘must-read English novels’—are popular, too, among film-makers looking for material for screen adaptations. Of course, given that Gulliver’s Travels would require (I guessed) a fair bit of special effects, I had little hope that I’d come across anything from before the 70s; but guess what? It’s there: The Three Worlds of Gulliver, directed by Jack Sher and with special effects by Ray Harryhausen.

The story begins in Wapping, England, in 1699, where a physician, Lemuel Gulliver (Kerwin Mathews) is torn between his fiancée Elizabeth (June Thorburn) and his profession. It all actually boils down to his love for Elizabeth: she deserves more than to live in a hovel and subsist on next to nothing, because Gulliver is such a sweet welcome mat that he goes around treating people left, right and centre, often for free, or for payment in kind. Like cabbages and hens that run away.

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Jhansi ki Rani (1953)

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Given my penchant for history, it’s hardly surprising that I would, sooner or later, end up watching this film. It’s been on my radar for a while, though it was only last month that I was reminded of Jhansi ki Rani, because it showed up in my list of YouTube’s suggested videos. Oddly enough, what YouTube suggested wasn’t exactly this film but its English-language counterpart, The Tiger and the Flame, which was released in 1956. Sohrab Modi, who produced and directed (besides acting in) both versions of the film, went all out on creating a spectacular production, bringing in technicians and other crew from Hollywood, including Oscar-winning cinematographer Ernest Haller, who was responsible for the cinematography of Gone with the Wind.

This film was not just made in two languages, but with other differences between them too. The Tiger and the Flame is in Technicolor (the first India-made film in Technicolor) while Jhansi ki Rani is in black and white. Jhansi ki Rani has songs (composed by Vasant Desai with lyrics by Pandit Radheshyam), The Tiger and the Flame is minus the songs. Other than that, though, the films were much the same: the same cast, the same script.

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