Teesri manzil (1966)

तीसरी मन्ज़िल

I love the 1960s - I love mod.  I love bouffant hair, cat's-eye makeup, and cigarette pants (on guys too). It's no accident that my favorite Hollywood movie, when it comes to style, is Breakfast at Tiffany's, and my favorite Hindi film Jewel Thief.  Lucky for me, the mind behind Jewel Thief, Vijay Anand, had more than one stylish thriller in him in the 1960s. Teesri manzil ("third floor") is not quite as perfectly delicious as Jewel Thief but it does have a great deal of tasty 1960s style to offer.

One night a girl named Rupa plummets from a third floor window of a posh resort hotel.  Her death is put down as suicide until a year later, when Rupa's sister Sunita (Asha Parekh) turns up to investigate.  Sunita believes that Rupa was driven to suicidal despair by her love for a musician named Rocky who seduced and then jilted her.  Meanwhile Rocky - also known as Anil Kumar Sona (Shammi Kapoor) - is attracted to Sunita, and hides his identity from her as he tries to win her over.  As the investigation unfolds, a number of suspects come to light - Sunita's angry fiance Ramesh (Prem Chopra), originally promised to Rupa; a dancing girl named Ruby (Helen), herself jealously in love with Rocky; a mystery man who, the police inspector on the case (Iftekhar) reveals, left physical evidence at the scene of Rupa's death.  Soon Rocky finds his own life in danger as he gets closer and closer to the truth. 

The twists may not be as wild as in Jewel Thief, but Teesri manzil is, nevertheless, a satisfying and entertaining noir thriller with a generous helping of romance and style.  The characters inhabit a nighttime fantasy world of smoky nightclubs and cabarets with outrageously trippy sets, a perfect mise-en-scene for shady dealings, dark jealousies, and, ultimately, murder.  Yet these elements are offered up in contrast with Rocky and Sunita's sunny hilltop romps.  The result is a film of shifting moods, the kind of pastiche that perhaps only a Hindi film can pull off. 

The actors and their characterizations form no small part of the pleasure of Teesri manzil.  Shammi Kapoor here does what he does best - he romances earnestly, dances spastically, and is an all around charming good guy.  His character indulges in the Bollywood staple of stalker romance, and while a guy's refusal to take no for an answer often grates, Shammi somehow always makes it work with his inherently reassuring and non-threatening sweetness.  Asha Parekh handles her role with the right amount of poutiness, but she's not given as charming a character to work with.  Sunita is a little stupid; her grand plan to avenge her sister's death is to lure Rocky into a remote mountainside where a troupe of schoolgirl athletes await to beat him senseless with hockey sticks.  ("Rocky - hockey; it's perfect!" she exclaims.)  The best scenes in the romance, and its turning point, come when Rocky finally loses patience with her - a refreshing twist in the standard romance line, acknowledging that a pretty face isn't enough to make an appealing heroine.   

What will remain with me most from Teesri manzil is the outstanding soundtrack by R.D. Burman, already a favorite before I saw the film and made that much tastier with the over-the-top picturizations, in which the film's beehive-and-cigarette-pants 1960s aesthetic is most aggressively on display.  (Once again, more on the music can be found over at Sanket's Desi Music Club.)  There's something ineffably wonderful, for example, about the the filmi adaptation of the mashed potato in "Aaja aaja main hoon pyar tera."  The very best song is "O haseena zulfonwali", staged on a set that is beyond elaborate and that occupies three-quarters of the cabaret theater in which it is located.  The centerpiece of this stage is a magnificent giant blue eye, so enormous that it has dancing girls for eyelashes.  This song features the gyrations of Helen, who is positively delicious in her non-musical scenes as well - but to see her framed in the pupil of that humongous eye is sublime, a concentrated moment of pure 1960s Bollywood bliss.   

Comments

[Meera]

Hi Carla

Didn't you like the other lovely song by Mohd Rafi " Tumney mujhey Dekha Ho Kar Meherban, Rukh gayi yeh zameen, tham gaya asmaan - jaane man jaane ja". I reall like that song and have heard it several times on tape. I haven't seen Teezri Manzil yet. Have to hunt for a copy in the local desi store.

[Akshay Shah]

On a roll here as always Filmigeek! This is one I have a great weakness for. The music, setting, Shammi and everything else. BTW the role was written with Dev Anand in mind, but Anand wasn't able to do the film due to date clashes and it ended up going to Shammi who made it his own, one of his biggest hits!!!! R.D Burman rocks!!!

[Lalita]

Shammi Kapoor. Pancham. Helen. Rafi. 60s. You say it very succinctly in the last line. Sublime. Yes, Teesri Manzil is landmark. Thanks for an excellent review. And that nice, fullish jog down the Bollywood-in-60s lane.

[maxqnz]

I finally watched this one on Thursday, and was a little underwhelmed. There are some nice songs, and I love Shammi's Rocky, but I'm at a loss to understand why so many of my desi friends eyes light up when I tell them I own this one. Maybe it's just because I saw Kashmir ki Kali first. Or maybe it's because I watched Jab Jab Phool Khile 3 or 4 times last weekend. Whatever the reason, this perfectly adequate entertainer just didn't grab me that much. Of course, I loved Asha Bhosle's songs, and I thought Helen was great, but I'm hoping for more from Asha Parekh when I watch Jab Pyaar Kisise Hota Hai this weekend.

[carla]

maxqnz, I like *Kashmir ki kali* better as well, but *Kashmir ki kali* has two major advantages over *Teesri manzil* - gorgeous shots of Kashmir, and gorgeous shots of Sharmila Tagore. :-)

[Sharmi]

Hey,
Great post. while your's is Jewel Thief, my favourite is this one. I find it awesome. And, i've written on this on my blog too. Do read and lemme know what you think. Here's the link:
http://oldfilmsgoingthreadbare.blogspot.com/2010/05/three-tiered-thriller.html
great blog by the way:)