I spent part of last week reading fellow blogger Todd Stadtman’s book, Funky Bollywood: The Wild World of 1970s Indian Action Cinema (more on that, along with a link to my review of it, at the end of this post). Todd’s book discusses, in affectionate detail, all the iconic action films—spy thrillers included—of the 70s. In a fit of enthusiasm, brought on by Todd’s book, I told my husband, “I want to see Gunmaster G-9”. To which he replied, “I didn’t like that. What I really liked was Aankhen. That was fun.”
Tag Archives: Sujit Kumar
Gustakhi Maaf (1969)
Happy New Year!
The other day, someone mentioned that after Omkara, Maqbool and Haider—based respectively on Othello, MacBeth and Hamlet—Vishal Bhardwaj was going to be making a trio of films based on Shakespeare’s comedies. The thought came into my head: had any Hindi film maker remade a Shakespearean comedy before? The very next moment, the answer popped up. Of course: Angoor. And (my brain was beginning to work overtime by now), another film based on A Comedy of Errors and also starring Sanjeev Kumar: Gustakhi Maaf.
I hadn’t heard of Gustakhi Maaf until a few years back, when I happened to find (and subsequently buy) a delightful lobby card featuring Sanjeev Kumar in this film. I went looking for the film, discovered that it was based on A Comedy of Errors and that it starred the ever-bubbly Tanuja—but I couldn’t get hold of the film anywhere. Until Harini (over at bagsbooksandmore) pointed me to it. So here goes: review #1 of 2015, of a fun, frothy film.
Kohraa (1964)
I feel that, no matter how high an opinion one may have of oneself, it is risky business to attempt to remake a classic. If (for example) Alfred Hitchcock made a film, don’t attempt to remake it—especially if you plan on tinkering with the way the story plays out. Biren Nag (who had already made the pretty good suspense thriller Bees Saal Baad) tried his hand at remaking Hitchcock’s atmospheric Rebecca here, and while he got some things right, the end result is not quite as memorable as Rebecca was.
Ittefaq (1969)
Fact 1: Today, January 8, is Nanda’s birthday (mine too, but that’s a different matter).
Fact 2: Since one of Nanda’s finest performances is in Ittefaq, I’d decided I’d review Ittefaq today, as a tribute. Nanda deserves it!
Fact 3: Bollyviewer yesterday did an interesting post: a link to a youtube clip of the launch party of Ittefaq.
Mere coincidence? Perhaps.
And ittefaq, by the way, means coincidence.
China Town (1962)
Like memsaab, I too am a diehard Shammi Kapoor fan. Which is why China Town—with Shammi Kapoor in a double role—is bonanza! Add to that good music and two gorgeous heroines (Shakila and Helen) against the backdrop of Calcutta’s Chinatown (well, a sanitised set version), and you have a movie that’s quintessential Shakti Samanta: very entertaining.
Dustedoff 