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!

Awara (1951)

My school library has a decent amount of Bollywood films, but not many oldies. That's why I was very pleased to see Awara on the shelf, and I checked it out immediately. After I watched it I glanced through a few Bollywood blogs, and I was surprised to see this listed on so few of the blogs I checked. I suppose there are reasons for it not to be a popular pick, but there are also some strong reasons to watch it. I'll just tell you two, these being:

Reason 1: Little Shashi! I make it a point never to read back covers before I watch the movie—they tend to give away too much—so I was very surprised and happy when Shashi showed up as the young Raj. He looks just like himself (i.e., adorable). He actually gets a fair amount of screen time, too, and acts extremely well. The cover informs me that this was the only child's role he ever played. See how cute he is!

Reason 2: The song at the end of this post. It's quite trippy, which is usually a plus in my book. I especially love the fallen column slide. Of course, the devils dancing in hell are quite entertaining, too. The helpful back cover informs me that this was the first dream sequence in Hindi cinema. Obviously, it caught on.

In case you were curious about what reasons would make you not want to watch the film, I'll share one of those. Prithviraj Kapoor plays Judge Raghunath, and Raj Kapoor plays his son, Raj. Judge Raghunath firmly believes that honesty is hereditary. Predictably, Raj becomes a thief, but he does inherit another characteristic of his father's—mistreating women. Judge Raghunath throws his wife out of the house while she's in labor with Raj because he suspects (falsely) that she was raped. Raj slaps his girlfriend until she falls to the ground when she tells him it's ungentlemanly to look her way when she's changing. (Both of the women seem to think they somehow deserve this treatment, too.) This made the rest of the story a bit less satisfactory.

Still, the movie has its points. I mean, it has Little Shashi! That's worth something. Also, it's a must-see if you're a fan of the Kapoor clan; it's got Prithviraj, Raj, Shashi, and Wikipedia says that "Prithiviraj's father Dewan Bashwanath Kapoor also played a cameo role in his only film appearance." I'm not quite sure, but I have a guess about who he played.