Movies ‘R’ Us: 6#-2008

1. Parvarish (Upbringing) (1977) (Hindi movie)

A nature vs nurture drama. A dacoit’s son is raised by a police officer side-by-side with his own son. The inevitable takes place. The bad guys son turns to be good and the good guys son bad.
Stars a portly Shammi Kapoor as the father, Vinod Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan (in their heydey) as the 2 sons with Shabana Azmi and Neetu Singh as their romantic interests. There’s hardly anything in this movie to recommend it to anyone.

Shammi Kapoor is downright silly, very sorry to say this but on the positive side, he is not at all uncomfortable with the cinematic medium. It’s a pleasure to watch VK and AB though, both excel within the limitations of this movie and they were at the height of their powers when they did this movie. Neetu Singh is a natural charmer but Shabana Azmi is hopelessly miscast. She just doesn’t fit-in into masala films and she can't dance. But sweet as she is, she tries. J Good for us though that she’s stopped doing masala films, more or less.

It has silly editing, silly dialogues, silly sequence of events, hairbrained schemes of smuggling, villains toying around with toy submarines, the development of the romantic tracks is flawed and charm-less.

None of the songs rise above the ordinary: neither in lyrics, tune nor picturisation

It’s not even so bad that it can be enjoyed, it just falls flat on its face

Starring
Shammi Kapoor
Amitabh Bachchan
Vinod Khanna
Neetu Singh
Shabana Azmi
Kader Khan
Amjad Khan
Tom Alter
Screenplay: Prayag Raj
Dialogue: Kader Khan
Playback: Lata, Rafi, Asha, Ki.Ku., Usha Mangeshkar, Shailendra Singh, Amit Kumar
Dances: Kamal
DoP: Sudhin Mazumdar
Lyrics: Majrooh Sultanpuri
Music: Laxmi-Pyare
Producer: A.A.Nadiadwala
Director: Manmohan Desai

PS: Amit, Shabbo, Neetu retain their real names on screen too. So why not VK who is Kishen in the film?


2. Chote Sarkar (Little Master) (1974) (Hindi movie)

You watch an overweight, overage Shammi Kapoor with deficient acting skills, within the first few frames and lose hope in the movie.

Wikipedia tells me that Shammi Kapoor’s ‘….significant weight gain ended his career as a romantic hero in the early 1970s,’. This film in 1974 must be one of his later ones. Thank god the hulk retired from the lead roles thereafter.

Sadhana stars as his romance partner. The normally charming Sadhana is burdened with ordinary dresses, hideous blue mascara and crap dialogues. Plus she displays a dialogue delivery style that was the staple of some cinema heroines of that age i.e. childish, petulant, dumb! Tchaah

The story is not of much consequence.

Errata:
* SK first meets Sadhana in an artificial garden. Some of the older films had some fantastic artificial sets indoors: gardens, lakes, fantasy sets etc. You don’t get to see such creativity nowadays. Is it more to do with the fact that outdoor photography is much less complicated today?

* The cabaret dancer Helen, the one who has a child out of wedlock is Christian. But she has a photo of Krishna and Jesus at home. Funnily enough, SK has a statue of Mother Mary next to his mother’s photo.

* SK turns Sadhana from a village girl to a modern city girl. That includes a crap song within which he also teaches Sadhana how to tie a sari…….. in a public park !@#$$%

* Songs:
- Main Kesar Kasturi – a dull cabaret by Helen’s standards
- Jhuke Jhuke Naino wali: In which Sadhana wears a Maharashtrian Nav-vari sari to the backdrop of the backwaters of Kerala and exhibits some very curious dance steps which belong…….frankly, neither here nor there and possibly never before seen in Hindi films
Yes, you guessed, not much that is noteworthy in the songs too.

Ultimately the movie is just Maudlin Sentimental Tripe.

Starring
Shammi Kapoor
Sadhana
Shashikala
Sulochna
Helen
Story and Screenplay: Gulshan Nanda
DoP: Sudhin Mazumdar
Lyrics and Dialogues: Rajender Krishan
Music: Shankar Jaikishan
Produced by Bany Talwar
Directed by K.Shankar


3. Apradh (Crime) (1979) (Hindi movie)

A silly juvenile thriller which is the directorial debut of Feroz Khan. His unique style which continues through all the movies that he made afterwords, is immediately visible in his first movie. Full of exotic locales, stylish and sexy women, naughty camera work and naughtiness generally.

Nothing much creative in the storyline, dialogues etc.etc. The only things which stand out are
- Well done action sequences
- Extensive racing action and maybe the first time that formula car racing was depicted in Hindi movies.
- The utterly charming Mumtaz who charms in a charmless role
- ‘Hamare Siva tumhare aur kitne diwane hai’ is the only song and tune that you might possibly remember in an otherwise forgettable movie.

As for the simpering Helen: I was fed-up of her in the movie…her dialogue delivery and simpering. So too Iftekhar, the dandy police officer who fights in suits.

Starring
Feroz Khan
Mumtaz
Prem Chopra
Iftekhar
Tun Tun
Helen
Story and Screenplay: Omkar Saheb, Akhtar-Ul-Iman and FK Internationals Story Department
Dialogue: Akhtar-Ul-Iman
Lyrics: Indeevar
Playback: Lata, Asha, Kishor
DoP: Kamal Bose
Music: Kalyanji Anandji
Produced and Directed by Feroz Khan