Joshila (1973)

The premise of this story seemed interesting: a love story that starts in a jail -- and the beginning was promising. Amar (Dev Anand) is working in a prison camp with the other prisoners. He offers food and rest to a fellow inmate, Madanlal Dogra (Madan Puri), and also stops to pick up the scattered pages of poetry dropped by a startled visitor, Shalini (Hema Malini). Shalini is intrigued by Amar's philosophical acceptance of his position and his great gentleness of temper.

That night Amar sings from the jail one of Shalini's poems. It's a beautiful song, and I was pretty excited about the movie at this point.

Shalini, who is visiting the jailor (Manmohan Krishna) is able to visit Amar as often as she likes and to read his file. She learns that Amar is in jail for killing (in a fight) a man who had tried to rape someone. The man also happened to be the son of his boss and the brother of his girlfriend, Sapna (Raakhee). Unfortunately, the attempted rape victim had been bribed to testify falsely against Amar, and he was convicted. His father had died not long before this incident, and his family is in straightened circumstances.

Shalini is clearly interested in Amar at this point, but Amar seems to still be in love with Sapna, and everything is set up for a sweet and interesting film (I was thinking Bandini style).

Well, here's where the plot gets a bit weirder (and a lot more scattered). After Amar almost single-handedly puts down an uprising in the jail, he gets an early release. He comes home and is horrified at his family's new poverty (what was he expecting?) and discouraged with looking for a job. When he finds one, he turns it down because he finds out Sapna is now the boss's wife. Immediately after that, he finds out that his sister dances sleazy dances at a nightclub -- and Amar's philosophical acceptance starts fading fast.

At this point he runs into his old jail friend Madanlal Dogra, who offers him help, acting pretty sketchy. Amar is either unaware of Madanlal's sketchiness, or he ignores it (neither of which seems to match his intelligent, decent demeanor in the jail).

The job Madanlal is offering to split with Amar has been offered him by a man named Kundan, and the job description is to take a letter of recommendation and become estate manager to a rich landowner, then murder the landowner (so Kundan can marry the widow and seize the property).

Madanlal asks Amar to meet him later at a nightclub to learn the details. When Amar gets there, the club is crowded with frantic dancers, (seriously, these guys seems to have contracted St. Vitus' dance), and the whole atmosphere is definitely not great. Madanlal offers him a large portion of the money and the letter of recommendation he is going to give the landowner.  Then, suddenly, Madanlal gets on the wrong side of the pretty rough clientele around there, and I thought Amar would try to come to his aid. But Amar watches passively as Madanlal is murdered, and then he runs away, fearing he'll be pinned to this murder as well.

Not knowing what else to do, and taking some of Madanlal's earlier advice about being less conscientious about taking his opportunities, Amar heads off to impersonate Madanlal as estate manager, not knowing the homicidal part of the plan. On his way there he runs into Shalini again and flirts with her, coming across a little too smarmy to be comfortable.

The landowner is Thakur Saab (Pran), a handicapped gentleman with great hair. His wife is Rani (Bindu), who meaningfully examines Amar about getting the job done. And then, weirdly, she starts trying to seduce him, and Amar acts like he's going along with it, and I start thinking, "Amar, I don't think you're thinking what she's thinking." As it turns out, though, he was. Either that or he doesn't see anything wrong with hanging out with his disabled boss's wife in their bathrobes, singing sketchy songs and drinking cocktails.

I do, though, and I lost whatever interest I still had in this movie. What's weird about it, too, is that Rani still treats Amar with suspicion and distrust, and Amar still treats her with distrustful diffidence as well. Nothing seems to change about their relationship, and it doesn't seem to make sense with either of their characters to this point.

And then, when Shalini shows up (she's Thakur's daughter, of course) and begins to suspect an affair between her stepmother and Amar, Amar acts so injured.

Whatever. The first song is nice, Pran is awesome as usual, and the fake horse stunts in the final fight scene are pretty funny, but I don't really think any of them are enough to recommend the movie. There are plenty of others that are worth watching.

Kab? Kyoon? Aur Kahan? (1970)

Once again, I was home sick on a rainy day and turned to Bollywood. Shammi really ought to have been my choice -- he always has been before -- but I was kind of in a Dharmendra mood, and Kab? Kyoon? Aur Kahan? seemed like it might do the trick.

When the title of your movie is "When? Why? and Where?" you ought to expect a murder mystery (although these are also the lyrics to a love song in this movie).

The real question it boils down to in this case, however, is not when, why, or where, but "Which murder are we talking about?"

The film starts with a man driving down the road and being gunned down by two men. His car careens off a cliff and is engulfed in flames. We soon find out that the victim was the father of Asha Prasad (Babita), that the murderer was her uncle, Daljeet Prasad (Pran), and that poor Asha is in for a big shock.

Asha has been touring abroad and has not heard the news, but has cut her trip short and decided to head home because she misses her father. Thanks to a mistake with the shipping company, she has been bunked together with a flirtatious CID inspector named Anand (Dharmendra), who chases her ceaselessly and not very decently.

Asha resists for a long time, but once he fights a buck-skinned goon for her, she gives over.

Asha and Anand continue to meet after they arrive home in India, in spite of her grief and of her uncle's disapproval of Anand. When Uncle Daljeet takes Asha to Kashmir "for her health," she convinces Anand to tag along.

This ends up being fortuitous, because an action hero boyfriend is always good to keep handy, especially when you have a homicidal uncle.

Asha manages to make it back to Bombay in one piece, but what about Uncle's continual advances on Asha's friend, Lata (Ashoo)? Can anything stop Uncle Daljeet from trying to kill Asha and get her money? What if Asha gets driven to do something rash? Can Anand save her then?

I was hoping for more love story and less murder mystery, but I have to say that the murder mystery was really well done. The love story wasn't bad, either, in spite of Anand's wolf-ish behavior at the beginning. If you like suspense and a good story, give it a shot.

Jaanwar (1965)

Sunder (Shammi Kapoor) and Mahendra Srivastav (Rehman) are two sons of a vainglorious businessman (Prithviraj Kapoor) and his loving wife (Achala Sachdev). Here you can see Mahendra hemmed in by his unreasonable father and a bust of his father,

and here a framed picture looms over his girlfriend, Seema (Shyama), whom he has not gotten the courage to bring to his father yet.

Sunder, the younger son, is the sort of guy that girls at college fight over who gets to pick up his fallen books.

He is less abused by their father, but even he is intimidated. He uses another bust, this one in their home, to practice saying things to his father.

Even with the practice, he still only barely gets out what he wants to say between his father telling them all about his plans for them.

Still, he does get the permission, and he heads off with his goofy friend Chintu (Rajindernath) to Kashmir for his tournament. On the train, he gets off to refill his water bottle, and accidentally gets on in the wrong compartment -- a compartment full of pretty girls! They give him a hard time, but he still makes a good impression.

It turns out that the girls are going to the same tournament Sunder is going to, and a little room mix-up occurs at the hotel as well. Sunder is put in room 209, but as the door shuts the 9 flips upside down so it looks like a 6, and the girls are, of course, supposed to be in room 206. Sapna (Rajshree), mistakes Sunder's room for hers and comes in and takes a shower. Sunder gets back at the girls by having them apologize before he lets Sapna go.

Not long after that, Sunder begins romancing Sapna, who is still annoyed at him for giving her a hard time.

Meanwhile, Chintu wins over Sapna's adorable friend Radha (Madhavi),

and it doesn't take too long before Sunder get's Sapna to admit she like him, too. She also admits that she's poor and has only been wearing borrowed finery for her trip. Sunder assures her he doesn't care about that.

Unfortunately, his father will.

Chintu and Radha's romance goes off without a hitch, but not even Mrs. Srivstav's interference can stop Mr. Srivstav from blowing up when he learns of the romances of his two sons.

Mahendra, who has always been abused and is rather weak, eventually cracks while on a business trip in Calcutta, (where his father's portrait still looms overhead).

His associate takes him to a brothel, where Mahendra dives headlong into vice to try to hide from his problems.

Sunder, then, is left with the task of rescuing his family, but this puts his own romance in jeopardy.

Does he save his family? Does he win his love? Watch the movie to see! (But, obviously, of course he will!)

I think it's pretty fun. Enjoy!

What's Your Raashee? (2009)

(I wrote this post about a year ago -- it's just taken a while to get around to posting it.)

Whenever one of my friends learns that I love Bollywood movies, they always seem to ask me, "What is it you love about them so much?"

And I never know how to answer that. I love the vibrant colors, but I still love the black and white movies. I love the focus on family, but I like some that don't have that. I love the big Yash Chopra sweep-you-off-your-feet emotions, but I also like the more reserved, introspective films. I love the singing and dancing, but I like some films without dancing, and some where the soundtracks are kind of forgettable. But, thinking about it the past few days, I didn't like as well the only Bollywood movie I've seen that had no music at all, and I do really enjoy the music and dancing. That's what first drew me to Bollywood, and that's what I watch over and over. So maybe that is a big part of the draw for me.

And guess what? This movie has thirteen songs!

We rented it from netflix, and we were a little confused at first when two discs came in the mail for it. Well, that's how long it is. We watched the first half on Saturday night and were enjoying it, but decided to stop there for the night anyway because it was late (for Dad, anyway). That's when I went on the internet and discovered that there were thirteen songs, and I said to myself, "I think this movie is a good thing."

Yogesh (Harman Baweja) is an NRI (non-resident Indian) with an MBA and a good job in Chicago. Back in India, his brother, the gormless Jitu Bhai, has wracked up an astonishing amount of debt, and he cannot pay it. An astrologer is consulted by Jitu Bhai's parents to help get them out of trouble. He tells them that Jitu Bhai is not fated to go to jail, and also that according to Yogesh's horoscope, he will be married in twenty days, and that on that day he will become wealthy.

They immediately con Yogesh back home to India and convince him that he needs to get married in order to save them from ruin. Yogesh reluctantly agrees, and as he is trying to recover from his jet-lag one night, he reads a book on the shelf about raashees (zodiac signs), and decides to meet only 12 of the 176 applicants to his matrimonial advert, one from each sign, in the hopes that he will fall in love with one of them.

All 12 girls are played by the same actress, Priyanka Chopra, because in a strange sort of romantic phenomena, he sees the same face in each girl. Other people apparently don't think they look alike, but Yogesh can only tell them apart by posture, style, and personality.

So I enjoyed what I watched on Saturday and was looking forward to finishing the movie on Monday night. But when I finished it on Monday night, I found the film disappointing -- even though I thought the soundtrack was, if anything, stronger in the second half. It's just too long. If there were 6 zodiak signs, it could have been a good film, but 12 just makes it too scattered.

Priyanka did deliver impressively individualized performances for each of her roles, and as a showcase for her talent, the film works. On any other level, not so much. Harmen Baweja does a good job, too, but he seems to be seriously channeling Hrithik Roshan here. He has the same kind of persona and expressions and movements; he even looks like Hrithik. It's enjoyable enough -- I like Hrithik -- but it doesn't showcase him particularly.

There is some kind of social commentary in the film, but it's tucked in at the end after everybody's gone to sleep, so while it's a good message, it's not super effective. It has to do with marrying off girls when they're still super young, but that's about all I remember about it.

My recommendation? Watch the songs on youtube. You'll get the gist of the plot, it'll be much faster, and you won't really miss anything. Some of the songs are pretty fun, I think, and the distinction between Priyanka's characters is preserved, so they're kind of interesting that way, too. Enjoy!