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.

Dilli Ka Thug (1958)

Kishore Kumar (Kishore Kumar): a man reduced to poverty and gambling by his father's murder

Asha (Nutan Behl): Kishore's childhood fiancee, whom he has not seen since infancy

Anant Ram (Amar): a manufacturer of false medicines and the murderer of Kishore's father; he has now assumed the identity of Asha's uncle (wearing a prosthetic mask) and writes detective novels

In short, the plot is this: Kishore Kumar uses a disguise as the Prince of Sajampur to get a job with Anant Ram, and also unwittingly ends up with a wallet containing a letter that reveals Anant Ram's true identity. Kishore does not examine the contents of the wallet, but Anant Ram sees him with it and tricks Kishore into writing a suicide note signed with his own name. While Anant Ram bides his time, Kishore does his best to repair the fortunes of his family and woo Asha.

The point of this movie, as far as I can make out, is simply to be a vehicle for Kishore Kumar's irrepressible buffoonery and to showcase Nutan Behl's glowing beauty. The film does a good job at both these things. Kishore Kumar is pretty funny in some places, and Nutan is always stunning.

Unfortunately, they don't really enhance each other, in my opinion. Nutan does a good job of coming around to Kishore (as well as the script allows, anyway), but Kishore . . . . Kishore apparently had a very odd personality, and you can tell from his movies that not all of the bizarreness was acting. You can also tell, I think, that Kishore wasn't that good at relationships. He does a good job at the acting that involves personal emotions, like stress and fear, but when it comes down to relational acting, he looks pretty uncomfortable. He and Nutan have a beautiful love song where Nutan looks loving and radiant. Kishore, on the other hand, looks like he wonders how he ended up there and where the nearest exit is.

The movie also has a few other odd things, like the part where Anant Ram shows up to take Kishore (in his very silly disguise as the Prince of Sajampur) to "the water valley" just after Asha figures out the Prince is Kishore. The valley turns out to be a kind of pond full of girls floating around on intertubes and singing, and then Asha pops up out of the water in a lily kind of thing.

So, I'm puzzled. Why would the Anant Ram have a pond full of singing women, and why would Asha, who was annoyed at that point, show up and sing in it? If it's a dream sequence, why would the Anant Ram come and tell Kishore he was taking him there? Maybe it's actually a show Asha was in (and that was never explained)?

Incidentally, Asha, who seems to spend most of her time at home like normal Indian girls, is not only an international swimming champion and owner of a large medicine company, she also seems to spend a little bit of time being a recreational -- doctor? (I think it's great, too, how often she rescues Kishore. And how swimming gives her colds.)

I don't really understand this movie. I don't really get Kishore Kumar, either, other than that he seems to be the Indian equivalent of Danny Kaye. I love Danny Kaye, and I'm beginning to kind of understand the Kishore Kumar humor better, too, but I still find him rather odd.

But if you're a big fan of Kishore Kumar or Indian slapstick, this is your movie. Or if you can't get enough of Nutan Behl (and I don't really blame you there) and you don't care a ton for a tight plot (this is Bollywood, after all), go ahead and watch Dilli Ka Thug.

Bandini (1963)

This film has a number of actors I really enjoy, and they all give solid performances. Dharmendra's is particularly -- I want to say, delicate, but that doesn't sound as manly as it should. Each flicker of his face is perfect, with subtle changes that express clearly his preoccupation with his work, his distractions, or his emotions. And Nutan's face has always struck me as not only beautiful but tender and intelligent, and her eyes are invariably expressive and lovely.

The storytelling is exceptional, diving into the plot immediately and continuing steadily, unveiling information bit by bit. We start out with the transfer of a new -- batch? is that the word? -- of lady prisoners to a jail. Kalyani (Nutan) catches the eye of the deputy jailor (Iftekar) because of her great beauty, youth, and quiet dignity.

Shortly after the transfer, one of the lady prisoners becomes ill with tuberculosis, and the jail doctor (Dharmendra) is summoned. The doctor tells the head jailor (Tarun Bose) that he will need someone to stay and look after her, and the jailor requests a volunteer. The other women silently hide behind their blankets, but Kalyani steps forward.

When he takes her papers to put these orders on them, the jailor is shocked to see the crime she is undergoing punishment for -- murdering someone with poison. The doctor asks about his reaction and learns about her crime.

The young (and handsome!) doctor, however, is an unusually kind, loving, and forgiving man, and he withholds judgment.

During the illness of the patient, the doctor begins to fall in love with the melancholy and mysterious Kalyani, but she begins to avoid him. Eventually she tells him that associating with her would be bad for him and that her past is incompatible with a happy future with him. The doctor sadly resigns and returns to his hometown. The jailor, who sympathizes with both, tries to intercede for him and begs Kalyani to tell him her story. She does.

Kalyani's past includes a freedom fighter (Ashok Kumar), a string of very bad luck, an incident of nobidity, and a moment of insanity. "Nobidity" is a word I just made up. It means "an act that a character believes is noble but is in fact simple stupidity; the making of a pointless sacrifice for someone, generally in direct opposition to what that person wants; a plot device that greatly aggravates Bollywood viewers."

So the nobidity part was a bit aggravating, and I'm not really sure how I feel about the ending. But still, the movie was unusually well scripted, intelligently told, and finely acted. Camera work, music, too -- everything was above par in this movie, with meaty, "artistic" undertones that add to rather than distract from the main storyline.

Whether or not you agree with everything the movie is saying is another question, but it certainly is beautifully told.

With lots of beautiful people.

Isn't Nutan just the cutest thing?

Fakira (1976)

I very much enjoyed this movie while I was watching it. It was fun and entertaining and I accepted what it had to offer without stopping to examine it too closely. The action starts soon and the craziness keeps going right to the very end. Sadly, once I'd finished the movie and started thinking back about some of it, I found it less satisfying.

For one thing, the romance has some creepy vibes to it. The age difference is enough that Shashi's cute romantic lines sometimes come across as a bit disturbing. Most of their scenes together are either song sequences or involve Shabana's character groveling at Shashi's feet. Also, the whole basis of their relationship is deceit, which I didn't feel was adequately worked through once things were revealed.

I feel like the other relationships were hardly given any attention either. I suppose masala films aren't known for realistic and deep relationships, but there was a lot of potential for more development here that just was not taken. Actually, in general, the characterizations seemed to be vague and ill defined.

Still, as far as action and fun and farce are concerned, it's a good choice. There were several very funny gags, (I especially liked the bomber pigeons), so if you're looking for a fun timepass (as Filmi Geek calls it), this is your movie.