Filmi Geek

Blackmail (1973)

Blackmail is one of those films I really want to like more than I do.  One of my favorite directors in Vijay Anand, one of my favorite stars in Dharmendra, a gentle and sensitively portrayed romance - there's really no reason I shouldn't adore this movie.  And yet, the whole seems to me less than the sum of its parts, and I can't put my finger on why.

Kailash (Dharmendra) is the business manager of a power plant.  Shy and earnest, he has long nursed his love for Asha (Rakhee), his childhood friend and the daughter of Mehta (Iftekhar), who happens to own a rival company.  Kailash's best friend Jeevan (Shatrughan Sinha) works for Mehta, and - unknown to Kailash - is all but engaged to her.  But, when Kailash's uncle, Professor Khurana (Madan Puri), develops a solar-powered battery that promises to make them a fortune - not to mention put Mehta out of business - Jeevan starts scheming.  He machinates to get Kailash and Asha married - only to drive a wedge between them, in hopes of manipulating them to get his hands on the blueprints for the battery. 

The unquestionable strength of Blackmail is its sweet, mature portrayal of the romance between Kailash and Asha as it grows, both before and after their marriage.  Asha's conscience struggles as her developing feelings for Kailash challenge her commitment to Jeevan, and Rakhee's performance conveys Asha's internal conflict very sensitively.  Kailash's nervous shyness is sweet, too, and contrasts intriguingly with Dharmendra's remarkable masculinity.  (Indeed Dharmendra, who is quite good at this sort of tender romance, is at times too masculine for me in this role - I kept finding myself aware of his thick, enormous hands, his square body and shoulders.  Viewers who like that sort of thing would, I think, find Kailash utterly perfect.) 

The romance is expressed most perfectly in two of Blackmail's superb songs.  The first is the lovely "Pal pal dil ke paas," which draws on a delightfully unusual device for its picturization.  Kailash has written Asha many love letters over the years, but only finally finds the courage to give them to her, all at once in a bundle, before fleeing in a fit of bashfulness.  The song shows Asha reading the letters, falling slowly in love with Kailash as the poetry of his words reaches her - and reaches us, as the words of his letters are the words of the song.  The second splendidly romantic song, "Mile mile do badan," occurs during the film's climax, after Jeevan engineers Asha and Kailash's estrangement.  Fleeing from the bad guys - the rift between them not yet nearly reconciled - the couple takes refuge in a woodpile, and there, with armed enemies swarming around in search of them, they provide one of the most satisfyingly steamy song picturizations you'll ever see in a Hindi film.

For all the delicacy of the romance, though, the rest of Blackmail just isn't very memorable - and is at times marred by touches of ridiculous that undermine the better parts of the movie.  The international crime syndicate that Jeevan works for is pointlessly absurd, headed by a creepy, fey "Italian" called Antonio (Kuljit).  Banter about the "formula" - as the film's characters call the battery blueprints - lends the movie a masala air that isn't really appropriate to the tenderness of the main story. (Though the "filmi science" grates a little throughout, it's offset by some marvelous machinery scenes during the film's credits, which for all I know were shot inside a real power plant.)  And despite a groovy outfit or two on Rakhee, the movie doesn't offer anywhere near the overwhelming mod style of some of Vijay Anand's others. 

On reflection, though, I think I am being hard on Blackmail.  For sure it has its weaknesses, but they are less bad than the better parts are good, and should be amply offset.  For sure Rakhee is not my favorite star, but her performance hit the right notes for Blackmail's best aspect, the mature and delicate romance.  I think, in time, I'll forget what is forgettable in Blackmail, and let the exquisite sweetness of "Pal pal dil ke paas" linger. 

It's safe to say ...

With five new reviews in the last month, I think it's safe to say that I'm back in the swing of things. 

I can't really offer any excuse for my hiatus; there are just too many enthusiasms competing for my attention, and Hindi films got neglected for the better part of a year. 

I missed them, though, and it's been a priority of mine to figure out a better balance among all the stuff I'd like to spend my time doing.  And so lately I've been watching again, and writing again.  I intend to keep at it. 

Those of you who are still with me, thanks very much for sticking out the long break.  I know I have lost some readers with my inactivity, and I'd love to win them back, because one of my favorite things about running this site is engaging in dialogue with other lovers of Hindi movies.  And so I'd like to ask your help.  Please consider telling your friends and the readers of your own blogs that Filmi Geek is back and writing again.  

In the meantime, stay tuned, because I have a few more reviews in the pipeline.  Up next is Vijay Anand's romantic thriller Blackmail, which I'll try to get written up this weekend.  After that - who knows!  But thanks for sticking around to find out. 

Caravan (1971)

कारवाँ

Fully five years ago now, when the door into the bright world of Hindi films had just begun to crack open for me, I picked up a couple of movies that had songs I had heard and liked.  Caravan was one such - on the strength of the famous "Piya tu ab to aaja" - but I somehow got the idea that the movie was bad, and never got around to watching it.  As has happened so often before, once I finally saw it, I kicked myself for waiting so long. 

When Rajan (Ravindra Kapoor) is caught with his hand in the company till, he murders the company's owner, Mohandas, and convinces Mohandas's daughter Sunita (Asha Parekh) to marry him.  The marriage is a ruse that Rajan planned with his girlfriend Monica (Helen) to get at Sunita's fortune, and Rajan intends to do away with his new bride just as he did her father.  But Sunita escapes and, posing as a simple village girl named Soni, falls in with a gypsy caravan heading to Bangalore.  Sunita's presence among the gypsies causes some strife, though; their top performer, Nisha (Aruna Irani) is jealous of the attention paid to Sunita by the gypsies' hired truck driver Mohan (Jeetendra).  And Rajan's men are still after Sunita as well, endangering them all.

The plot is light on substance, but no matter - the movie is utterly engaging and delightful all the same.  Jeetendra is charming and funny as Mohan - earnest, goofy, and somewhat deluded about his own intelligence, he emits a continuous stream of daft English malapropisms.  He is a skilled dancer and provides some decent physical comedy as well.  (Caravan was my first Jeetendra film but I'm certain it won't be my last.)  He's supported by two entertaining sidekicks, his little brother Montu (Mehmood Jr.) and the perpetually drunk but wonderfully soft-hearted Johnny (Kishen Mehta).  The chief of the gypsy tribe, Mithalal Tota (Madan Puri) is fatherly and fun, and the inimitable Manorama plays his wife, adding moments of her uniquely physical comedy to the mix.

And then there is Nisha, the delicious Aruna Irani, whose bare midsection is practically another character in the movie - it features prominently in several of Caravan's many wonderful R.D. Burman songs.  "Dilbar dil se pyari" is the most memorable of these.  Asha Parekh turns in a satisfyingly physical performance as well; her highlight also comes in a song, the comically absurd "Daiya yeh main kahan".  And of course there is the famous item number of Helen that brought me to this film in the first place those five years ago.

The story of Caravan pokes playfully at issues of class and culture, but is not heavy-handed about them.   Mohan insists that because of his "untocation" (his version of "edumacation") he deserves a classy, cultured girl, better than the ragged gypsy Nisha and even better than Sunita, who he thinks is a simple village girl.  The rich and educated Sunita doesn't share his snobbery, and the resolution of their romance feels to me a bit like a light-hearted twist on the end of Jab jab phool khile - Sunita throws off her high-class advantages and joins Mohan's dusty vagabond life, but not because of any haughty notions of traditionalism and Indianness.  Rather, she does it mostly out of love for him, and because the prospect of living as a widow in her dead father's house just can't be all that appealing. 

There are a few elements that rub the wrong way; I can't shake a feeling that I should not have enjoyed the film as much as I did.  Nisha is not merely spunky and spirited; her manic energy crosses the line into violently insane. And in rejecting her advances, Mohan tries to convince her to marry a member of the tribe so stupid that he can barely string a sentence together without drooling - clearly an awful match for the willful Nisha.  The film finds disturbing humor in violence against women, too, as when Mithalal Tota beats his wife because he thinks she has burned his lunch. 

Yet, I have forgiven more egregious anti-feminist sins in less entertaining movies.  Caravan's more cringe-worthy moments are amply redeemed by the sweet moments, and indeed by everything it delivers.  From Jeetendra's doofusy earnestness, to Asha Parekh's impressive talent for physical comedy, to the wonderful, colorfully-picturized songs that come fast and thick - not to mention the delectable midsection of Aruna Irani - Caravan is pretty much a big silly grin from beginning to end - an instant favorite. 

Shaan (1980)

शान

When you watch enough masala movies, they start to blend together in a sort of meta-masala of fun pranks, wacky costumes, and sociopathic villains.  Only a few standout films rise above this masala miasma, distinguished as truly great movies and not just paisa vasool masala.  Shaan ("grandeur") is not one of them.  But even if it's not the richest masala dish ever offered, Shaan serves up a tasty enough meal for a rainy afternoon.  

Shiv Kumar (Sunil Dutt) is a fine, principled police officer.  He risks his life to chase bad guys, and puts law and order first in his life, as he repeatedly explains to his wife Sheetal (Rakhee).  To his chagrin, though, Shiv's younger brothers Ravi (Shashi Kapoor) and Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan) are little more than layabouts and con artists. When Shiv Kumar runs afoul of a smuggling gang headed by the megalomaniacal sadist Shakal (Kulbhushan Kharbanda), the villain forces sharpshooter Rakesh (Shatrugan Sinha) to attempt to assassinate the officer.  Rakesh betrays Shakal, who completes the job himself and offs Rakesh's wife for good measure.  Devastated, Rakesh joins forces with Ravi and Vijay to extract their revenge from Shakal.

Shaan fully provides what Beth calls the "Recommended Masala Allowance" of comedy turns, caricatured villains in elaborately unlikely lairs, and cute stars pursuing cute romance.  It's asking a lot of a masala movie to deliver more than that.  And yet, director Sippy and writers Salim-Javed set such a high bar with so many superb masala films - dishing substance with the dishoom-dishoom - that Shaan can't help but come out unsatisfying in comparison.  In Shaan, there is little more than personal revenge at stake; unlike Salim-Javed's Mr. India - a later film with a similar ending - there's no greater message about the common man giving his life to protect the republic.  Indeed, there is little of anything in the way of grand theme; the value of law and order gets some lip service but the film doesn't seem to mean it.  There is no message of redemption or friendship or unity, or any of the principles that lend gravitas to the best masala movies. 

Still, when one doesn't hold it to the gold standard movies of its era, Shaan is a heck of a lot of fun.  Most of its best moments come in the first hour, in a brilliantly constructed series of escalating cons.  After duping a hotel operator out of 15,000 rupees, Ravi and Vijay find the tables turned as the uncle-niece team of Chacha (Johnny Walker) and Renu (Bindiya Goswami) con them out of twice the sum.  Then the four of them join forces, only to be one-upped again by the night-club singer Sunita (Parveen Babi).  These sequences are as good as any cleverly turned by Salim-Javed and are a joy to watch.  They reach their culmination as Sunita joins the gang for an elaborate religious and musical hoax, the hysterical song "Dariya mein jahaz". 

There are other surprising touches as well, including some remarkably good cinematography.  The film is full of interesting shots through doorways, from overhead angles, and other unusual vantage points.  A friend of Ravi and Vijay, the paraplegic Abdul (Mazhar Khan), propels himself through Bombay on a wheeled board, and his excellent song ("Aate jaate hue main") and chase scene are full of dizzying views of the whirling bustle of Bombay whizzing by at knee-level.  And of course, in addition to the photography, the "Shashitabh" combo always delivers some good old-fashioned musical double-romance ("Jaanu meri jaan").  And for the connoisseur of masala villains with elaborate underground lairs, the bald-pated Shakal's tribute to the classic Bond villain Blofeld (almost two decades before Mike Myers gave us Dr. Evil) is not to be missed - complete with remotely-operated exploding chairs, shark tanks, and an alligator moat. 

Dilli ka thug (1958)

दिल्ली का ठग

Returning to Hindi films after a bit of a hiatus, I've rewatched a couple of movies that I saw about a year ago but didn't get around to writing up, and it's been interesting to note that some of them I liked better the second time around.  Ashanti was one such. And another is Dilli ka thug ("Delhi rogue") - while not much more than a pleasant timepass, it is loaded with smiles, songs, and antics that just reminded me why I love Hindi movies. 

Kishore (Kishore Kumar) is an unemployed newspaper reporter who makes his living conning rich folks at the gambling table.  His mother scolds him, fearing that his roguish antics threaten his sister's engagement to a boy from a respectable family.  But Kishore has no respect for the rich, whose unscrupulous greed, he says, ruined his father's name and caused his death.  Meanwhile, Kishore's friend Suhanlal, who is mixed up with a counterfeit medicine racket, is murdered by the racket's mastermind Amarnath (Krishnakant).  Kishore learns from Police Inspector Dilip Singh (Ifthekar) that this murderer is likely the man responsible for Kishore's father's downfall and death.  Kishore vows to find him and bring him to justice - but he has no idea that the man is the uncle of the charming girl he's set his heart on, Asha (Nutan).

Dilli ka thug does not pack much in the way of substantial messages or delicate themes.  But it does have its surprises.  Asha is a champion swimmer, a doctor, and owner of a controlling interest in a pharmaceutical company  - her intellectual superiority to Kishore is made quite plain, both in the lead-up to the charming song "C-A-T Cat" and in several clever tricks she plays on him.  And she shows her guts in the film's climax (aboard a pilotless aircraft), where she steps up to take the film's decisive action. 

The real star of Dilli ka thug, though, is Kishore Kumar's relentless and adorable energy.  He dons costumes, leaps around the screen waving his rubbery limbs every which way, smiles and pouts with a charming childlike air.  Even the fight scenes are played for laughs, and his comic interactions with the owner of a drugstore where he works are hysterical.  In one delightfully manic scene, Kishore cons three investors (very broadly caricatured themselves - a rich nawab, a South Indian swami, and a Parsee businessman) by pretending to negotiate with a maharaja.  He jumps - literally - from one side of the conversation to the other, first playing his own role, then the role of the maharaja, then back again.  He even manages to squeeze in a few lines for the maharani.  

And in his courtship of Asha, Kishore's manic energy takes a very sweet tone.  I grinned like a dope all the way through "Hum to mohabbat karega," both at Kishore's adorable courtship and at Nutan's sweetly and willingly weakening resistance to it.  There are other very fun songs too, including two excellent cabaret numbers and an impressive display of synchronized swimming that features Nutan emerging from the petals of a giant lotus blossom.  But the sweet moments of Kishore's courtship of Asha - and her gradually warming  to his goofball earnestness - are the best pleasures of Dilli ka thug.  It's not in the same league as Chalti ka naam gaadi - but that is pure perfection, one of the most fun films ever made.  Still, if you liked Kishore and the tone of the romance in that movie, you will find something to enjoy in Dilli ka thug.