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.