Given that I am a fan of mid-1950s-early 1960s Dev Anand, and that this film also stars Vyjyanthimala (whom I like a lot), it should come as no surprise that I’ve had this film bookmarked for several years now. Somehow it kept getting ignored, until some weeks back, when I discovered that Amardeep was a remake of the 1956 Tamil film Amara Deepam (starring Shivaji Ganesan, Savitri, and Padmini). And that Amara Deepam was based on Random Harvest.
What I didn’t like about this film:
Yes, I am breaking with tradition: this is not going to be the usual type of blog post format I use for film reviews on Dustedoff. For the simple reason that this travesty of a film doesn’t deserve that much time and effort.
So, what I didn’t like:
The mockery they’ve made of a Wodehouse story. Writers Joseph Hoffman and Stephen Gross, and director Arthur Greville Collins, give credit to Wodehouse but all that remains in the film that is even vaguely connected to Wodehouse and his style are the two main characters: Bertie Wooster (David Niven) and his gentleman’s gentleman, Jeeves (Arthur Treacher). Nothing else, not the elements of the story, not the language, not the story, is anything like the Jeeves-and-Wooster stories.
The characters are insipid. Wooster isn’t a chump; Jeeves is. In fact, Jeeves is such a moron, he doesn’t even realize he’s literally on the edge of something big. He is distinguished only by that stiff upper lip; no brilliant brains, no coming up with genius schemes to haul the young master out of the mulligatawny. In fact, when Jeeves eventually does come to Bertie’s help, it’s with fists flying. It’s Jeeves’s fighting skills, not his brainpower, that comes in use here.
A couple of months back, my sister Swapna was invited to head a quiz team at a pub quiz (Jai Arjun Singh, who was also there, wrote about it here). Telling me about the quiz later, Swapna mentioned that there was one question that even Jai didn’t know. In Aarzoo, which place in Delhi does Rajendra Kumar’s character say he belongs to?
Nobody could answer that question. But the answer is Okhla Village.
… which sort of struck a chord with me, because till we shifted from Delhi to Noida, my husband and I had spent many years living very close to Okhla. And Noida, in case you weren’t aware of this, is actually an acronym for New Okhla Industrial Development Authority. Okhla follows us around. Or we refuse to really move away from Okhla.
This incident reminded me, though, that I have never reviewed Aarzoo on this blog, though I’ve watched the film at least twice. Time to amend that, I decided.
Newly-minted medical graduate Gopal (Rajendra Kumar) and his neighbour Ramesh (Feroze Khan) have been best friends since their childhood. Gopal’s younger sister Sarla (Nazima) and his widowed mother (Achla Sachdev) regard Ramesh pretty much the same as Gopal: a member of the family, a brother/son just as Gopal is.
This was a film I watched by way of tribute to Nalini Jaywant earlier this year. I had initially not planned to review it, but there were several points about Raahi that I found unusual enough to make me decide it needed to be documented.
I first heard about Raahi on Anitaji’s blog, where she mentioned that it was based on Mulk Raj Anand’s novel Two Leaves and a Bud—which is where one of the songs of the film, Ek kali aur do pattiyaan, draws its inspiration. Anitaji had included this song in a list of songs picturized in tea gardens, and it intrigued me. The story, set in a tea garden where friction between the workers and a heartless, predictably colonial (money-minded, racist, contemptuous) management causes problems, sounded like something that might merit watching.
Raahi begins on a country road in Assam in 1945. A Britisher (S Michael) going by in a jeep loses his temper at Ramesh (Dev Anand), who’s walking in the middle of the road.
My go-to expert for opinions on old Malayalam and Tamil cinema is Anu. Some years back, I’d been complaining to Anu about how so few old films from the South are available with English subtitles, but then I found a bunch of them on Jio HotStar. Anu asked which ones I’d found, and then was kind enough to give me her opinion on the films. About Ashwamedham, she wrote: “Ashwamedham deals with the social attitudes towards leprosy patients. Fabulous performances, especially from Sathyan. If you want to see the then-reigning triad of Malayalam actors from that age – Sathyan, Prem Nazir and Madhu – this is the film to watch.”
That sounded good, so why not watch (finally!)?
The film begins in the home of Keshavan (PJ Antony), whose wife Laxmi (Santha Devi) is expecting her tenth child. She’s quite sick of the whole thing and had been wanting to get surgery done to prevent her getting pregnant again, but Keshavan had refused. Now she’s pregnant again, and very upset about it. Already they have lost three children; already they have four daughters whom they need to marry off… the strain, both financial as well as emotional (not to mention physical, on Laxmi) is tremendous.
When Dharmendra passed away some months back, it reminded me that while I have seen a good bit of his filmography from the 1960s—including little-known, forgettable films like Begaana, Main Bhi Ladki Hoon, Chandan ka Palna and Jab Yaad Kisiki Aati Hai—I haven’t reviewed too many of his films. Some, yes; but plenty, even much-loved films or well-known ones, have somehow slipped under the radar. Time to correct that, I decided.
And why not with this film (directed by Raghunath Jhalani), which I had last seen perhaps a little over 20 years ago, and which I remembered vaguely. Nirupa Roy, having (once again) misplaced a child. Aruna Irani on the verge of becoming an unwed mother if some good Samaritan doesn’t come to her rescue. Asha Parekh, lower lip quivering and eyes swimming with tears. Some very well-known songs.
I don’t know how many of those reading this post know about the actor James Shigeta. Shigeta, a third-generation Japanese American, was one of the first Asian-Americans to really make a mark in Hollywood, playing roles that were different from the (till then) standard supporting characters. I first saw Shigeta in the excellent noir The Crimson Kimono, and then in the delightful (and unusual) Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Flower Drum Song, but this is one film I’ve been wanting to watch for a while. I finally discovered it on YouTube, and so here’s a review.
Walk Like a Dragon is set in the 1870s, in California. Linc Bartlett (Jack Lord) owns a freight line and is headed home to the town of Jericho when he stops en route at San Francisco, to collect a consignment. The old Chinese man from whom he takes the goods asks him for a favour: with him is a young Chinese fellow, newly arrived from China, who needs to go to Jericho. Will Linc take him along?
This is a film I first heard about many years ago, when Memsaab reviewed it on her blog. It’s been in the back of my mind to watch it sometime, but it kept getting put on the back burner. Then, some months back, when I was watching Baaz (1953) as part of my tribute on Guru Dutt’s 100th birth anniversary, I was reminded of Amar Jyoti. If Geeta Bali’s woman pirate in Baaz seemed a surprisingly progressive character for 1953, Durga Khote’s pirate queen Saudamini, playing the lead in V Shantaram’s Amar Jyoti in 1936, was even more progressive.
This is a film that’s been on my radar for a long time—in fact, from when I first read about it on Memsaab’s wonderful but now sadly defunct blog. As those who have read my Muzaffar Jang books might know, I find certain sections of Mughal history (especially around the reigns of Akbar, Jahangir and Shahjahan) fascinating. So rich, so interesting, a period of such efflorescence, in different ways. Spirituality; art; architecture; beauty in myriad forms. Among the greatest examples of the Mughal contributions to culture is the exquisitely beautiful Taj Mahal, ‘a teardrop on the cheek of time’, as Rabindranath Tagore put it.
The Taj has been the subject of numerous films over the year (the latest one seems to be controversial enough to have run into trouble). Arguably the most famous film on the subject is the 1963 version, starring Beena Rai and Pradeep Kumar and directed by M Sadiq; there have been more recent ones, including a 2005 one named Taj Mahal: An Eternal Love Story, supposedly the most expensive Hindi film of its time.
Long before all of these was this silent film, directed by the Bavarian film-maker Franz Osten and produced by Himanshu Rai (who also played the titular role in the film). Himanshu Rai’s interest in cinema had led him to visit Germany, where he had spent some time with the Emelka film production company, exploring ways of getting German collaboration to produce an Indian film. When Rai returned to India, he brought with him one of Emelka’s best directors, Osten, as well as several of their top technicians. Osten went on to direct 16 films in India over the years, of which the second was this one, a story about how the Taj came to be built.
For the first few years of blogging, I marked each Christmas with a review of a Christmas-themed film: The Shop Around the Corner, A Christmas Carol, Christmas in Connecticut, The Holly and the Ivy, and so on. Then, somewhere along the way, I fell out of the habit (I am, in some ways, not a creature of habit: I get bored too easily).
But this year, wondering what I should post next—after a slew of tributes—I decided that since Christmas was coming up, and there were several Christmas films I hadn’t yet watched, why not? Therefore, this: a film starring Cary Grant as an angel. Yes, you read that right. Cary Grant as an angel sent down on Earth at Christmastime to help out a beleaguered bishop.
The bishop in question is Henry Brougham (David Niven), a harried man because he’s trying to raise funds for the construction of a new cathedral. As the story progresses, we learn that Henry used to once be a kinder, gentler man, the sort of man who had time to go out for walks and meals with his wife Julia (Loretta Young), who could take time to visit his old parish and listen to the boys’ choir. A man less obsessed with the grandeur of a new cathedral…
Dustedoff 