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.

Hum Dono (1961)

(I wrote most of this review about a year ago, right after I had seen the movie. It's been a while now, and I no longer have access to it, so I'm sorry about the paragraph I'm a bit fuzzy on.)

Things I love:

• the way they don't speak in the beginning, going from acting sans dialogue to song

• jolly Major Verma! His moustasche, his big booming laugh, his ridiculous (and wonderful!) British accent

The movie:
A young man (Dev Anand) sits on the edge of a pond. A tinkling melody announces the arrival of his sweetheart (Sadhana Shivdasani), who has come to meet him and also to give him the cigarette lighter that made the melody. He has apparently been waiting some time, and is a little miffed, but she placates him. This entire scene is sans dialogue, and the effect is really lovely. It goes straight into a song without either of them having said a word.

The young man, Anand, and the young woman, Mita, decide as they part to talk to their parents about getting married. Anand's mother (Leela Chitnis) has been expecting this, it seems, but Mita's rich and doting father is unpleasantly surprised. At Mita's confident urging, he reluctantly agrees to meet the poor and unemployed Anand, in spite of his misgivings.

Throughout their interview he becomes increasingly agitated at the thought of giving his beloved daughter, for whom he acquired his great wealth, to someone as poor and unproven as Anand.

At last, he buries his head in his hands and sobs out his consent for them to marry, but Anand is too offended to stay, and also, I think, too afraid that her father is right, and he immediately leaves, joining the army on his way home. His mother is pretty unhappy about this, to say the least.

Before long Mita, who was out of the room getting tea while Anand met with her father and still who doesn't know why he left or what he's done, comes to look for him. She finds Anand's mother, who seems to be trying to both go mad and die with sorrow on the spot, and who throws Mita out summarily, leaving her sobbing by the door. She hears her outside crying later, and seeming not to remember her, asks her who she is.

(Okay, this is the paragraph I'm summarizing from memory.) Mita moves in with her "mother-in-law," Anand's mother, who is not well. Meanwhile, Anand is moving up the ranks in the army, still in love with Mita but ignorant of everything back home. One day he finds a wallet on the road and tries to find the owner. The owner, it turns out, is Major Verma, a man physically identical to Anand, but who has a different hairstyle and a very silly English accent.

It turns out that Anand and Major Verma are from the same town but have never met before (and no one in their social circles at home or in the army knows both of them, either, apparently). They sit down and drink together and discuss love and war. Major Verma speaks eloquently on both, and Anand sings a beautiful song. Clearly this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Major Verma invites Anand back to his tent to stay, where they entertain themselves by scaring the living daylights out of Verma's servant by pretending to be Major Verma and his "ghost."

Major Verma shows Anand pictures of his wife, mother, and house, helpfully including all the information that should be necessary should the plot require Anand to impersonate him in the future (Nahiiin!).

Also, I can't but think it is very weird (and hilarious) that two women would not only fall in love with identical men, but pick out identical handbags as well.

At any rate, a year has passed since Anand signed up, and he and Major Verma have become best friends. Verma writes to his wife, Ruma (Nanda), to tell her and his mother (Lalita Palwar) that the war will shortly be over, and he will be bringing home a friend whom he'd like her to meet. Anand writes the same message to his mother, still unaware that Mita is living in his house and taking care of his increasingly frail ma. Both fail to mention the uncanny resemblance between themselves and their new friend. Before they head home, Major Verma and Captain Anand must participate in one last skirmish, led by Capatin Anand under radio direction from Major Verma.

In Anand's perilous and outnumbered position, the enemy seems to come like a never-ending horde, constantly mown down but always coming. And yet, the camera also takes a few short surprising breaks to focus on enemy soldiers who have just fallen, not on the blood or the wounds, but just on their still forms and faces, as if to say, "Here were men, too, with mothers at home."

In the middle of this battle, and right in the middle of the movie, I had to go to bed. No! So many unanswered questions! I went to bed thinking, clearly both friends can't make it out of this unscathed. Will it be capture? Death? Amnesia? Incapacitating wounds? In the inevitable identity mix-up, will both be confused for the other, or will one of them be beyond mix-ups? What of Anand's dying mother? Will some heartbreak caused by this confusion cause Mita's lonely and unhappy father to do something desperate? (Actually, her father's role in the second half of this film surprised me a bit.) Is Major Verma's mother actually evil (I had trouble believing Lalita Palwar could be playing a nice mother)? Are they somehow lost brothers (they're always lost brothers, right?)? What was going to happen?

Along with all my questions, I thought about all the things I liked in the movie: the chemistry between the stars, the sweet tone and pace of the movie, the songs, and everything about Major Verma. And now that I've finished it, (with some yelling at the screen), I'm still a fan. I liked Sadhana's performance particularly, and Dev Anand also did a very good job. Nanda looks lovely. You should see it!