Dil Deke Dekho
Director: Nasir Hussain
Year: 1959
Duration: 187 minutes
Music: Usha Khanna
Rating: 8.0
This is another one of those Bollywood
films that I would never recommend to anyone who hadn't been bitten badly
by the Bollywood bug. For one thing it is in black and white. For another
it is just a whisker short of three hours. Then there are the multitude of
songs that pop up like prairie dogs in heat. It is as old-fashioned, well-worn
and comfortable as your favorite pair of slippers that you have been meaning
to throw out. And whoever came up with the tangled spaghetti absurdist plot
should have worked for the CIA Dirty Tricks Unit. It is totally objectively
nutty and yet taken as seriously as a dead woman in your bed in the morning.
But for me watching this film was as enjoyable as sinking into a warm bath
with bubbles; happy bubbles. Where others would throw bric-a-bracs at the
TV screen for all the coincidences, I just thought but of course; the blind
father who just had his sight given back to him in surgery had to show up
just as his son was being beaten by his mother who had no idea he was her
son that she lost years before and has cried for every night since. Where
others might laugh at poetic romantic dialogue that escapes from their lips
like confectionary moonbeams, I thought shabash - well said!
A simple recount of the plot if I may -
Harichand has it in for another family and wants his small boy to inherit
the money from the wife of the happy family some day. What could be easier.
So he finds a dead body, shoots it in the head thus making it unidentifiable,
leaves a suicide note saying he had an affair with that wife named Jamuna
and disappears. Jamuna's husband Jagat sees the note and immediately leaves
his rich wife and vanishes with their son, Roop. She is left with the son
of Harichand who is named Kailash to bring up. Why she does so, I don't know.
Needless to say some 25 years later all
these people come back together but no one knows who is who. Throw in another
son of Harichand's who pretends to be Roop in order to marry the cousin of
Jamuna and get the fortune. She is Neeta, who is expected to marry Kailash
but is in love with Raja the drummer in a band who she of course initially
hated, but who is in fact Roop but doesn't know the old lady is his mother.
That is when he doesn't disguise himself as Professor Samrii, a fixer of
relationship problems who is simultaneously hired by Neeta to rid herself
of Kailash and by Kailash to get rid of a man flirting with Neeta. Got that?
There is plenty of mother worshipping - a common theme - at one point Raj/Roop
and Jamuna pass each other and stop - look back - don't I know you from somewhere
- it feels that way - I wish I had a mother like you in my life. That kind
of thing. And then she slaps him for being in love with Neeta.
But that just skims the surface. Three
hours is a lot of time to fill and there are other sub-plots that surface
and sink along the way. This is above all a romantic comedy with the usual
complications that all these films have. Love is never a straight road but
there is always a soft landing - it is the getting there that makes these
films so much fun.
It also helps to have two enormously charming
and charismatic actors playing out the two main parts. Shammi Kapoor was
just hitting his stride in this film. He is one of the three famous Kapoor
brothers who have spawned a litter of other actors - but back in 1959 Raj
Kapoor was already a huge success both in directing and acting, Sashi didn't
make his film debut until 1961 and Shammi had been in films since 1954 but
not being all that successful until director Nasir Hussain took him for his
film Tumsa Nahin Dekha in 1957 and created the Shammi style that became a
phenomenon. Charming, comical, insouciant, quick of mouth and wit, a little
bit rude, flirtatious and he could dance! Something most male stars disdained.
There was no one else like him that could capture the swinging sixties that
were coming up. Tumsa was a big hit and Nasir was to direct Shammi in a number
of films including this one. At this point Shammi is lean and lionesque -
very handsome - in a few years admittedly his weight was to get the better
of him in his battle with chapattis.
On the other side of this romantic equation
was a new actress in her first starring role. 16 years old though she seems
older in the film so it never feels creepy. From the get go she is captivating
and was to become an enormous star, Asha Parekh. A favorite of mine. She
was always to play the good girl, the good wife, the good widow - she was
India's sweetheart. There is one lovely moment in the film that I wish had
gone on longer - she is outside and inside the hotel music is being played
and she can't help herself from dancing on her own - playful and charming
- until Shammi comes out to join her - because this was Shammi's film and
he dominates; she just adds luster by the layer. They were to appear together
a few times - in Teesri Manzil also directed by Nasir and likely my favorite
Bollywood film ever.
In the cast are also Sulochana Latkar as
dear old mom, Rajendra as Kailash (he was to appear in many of Shammi's films
as the comic foil), Surendra as Harichand and the devious impersonator Sohan
is played by Siddhu in his debut.
The musical director is Usha Khanna, one
of the very few female film composers back then. It is a terrific melodic
varied soundtrack and sung by the two greats - Mohammed Rafi and Asha Bhosle.
