First before I forget, there is a Ted Lyons and his Cubs sighting in this film. A brief one unfortunately, but they are the band for the song on the ship. To anyone outside the Bollywood World of the 1960s this means nothing but they show up as the band in a number of films for usually just one great number - Gumnaam, Jaanwar and a few others. And they have managed to become a cult item. On to the film.




Director Raj Khosla has a good eerie atmospheric film with a lot of mystery, mirrors, murder, mistaken identity, possible ghosts or reincarnation or schizophrenia going on and then decides to basically drop a piece of rancid meat in the middle of it. It is bizarre and criminal negligence. What was he thinking? I know. That Indian audiences wanted some comedy inserted in their films - often of the worst kind. Ok, I am used to that but it usually only lasts for a brief sketch and then the film is back. Here it goes on for about a 20 minute break from the film - right in the middle of this mystery within a mystery. And it adds nothing. You could cut it out and you would not even notice. It feels like it is from a different film other than our protagonist shows up in it. It takes a while for Khosla to bring back the mood but to his credit he does eventually. It is as if Hitchcock brought in Jerry Lewis and Milton Berle and asked them to do a routine in the middle of Vertigo - which this film has a passing resemblance to - if Vertigo had had a secret door in a haunted house that led to the villain's lair.


In the end I will admit that I never quite got it - the plot is a plate of spaghetti that you have to unravel. But anyways. Anita (Sadhana) is introduced to us lying on a thick shag carpet in a blue sari, with a few pillows propping up her head and surrounded by magazines like Life. She is eighteen and in love with Neeraj (Manoj Kumar). She is rich and he is poor. Never a good thing in a Bollywood film. Her father wants nothing to do with him. Neeraj sings to her from a tree outside her window. We have seen this a hundred times. Eventually, the father will come around and we will have a happy ending. Not so much here.




The two of them almost marry before her father puts a stop to it and then she is engaged to the father's choice, Anil, who seems like a nice enough guy. But then she runs away and commits suicide by drowning herself. And it turns out she was pregnant. Neeraj becomes obsessed with finding out who impregnated her but instead discovers there is almost another Anita - one who danced with gypsies and went on cruises and picked up men. Neeraj is tormented - how could he have been so wrong - even her father calls her a whore. Just as he is about to move to Delhi he thinks he sees her. But not sure. Then again. But it isn't her. It is his obsession. But then again. But no, the girl says she has no idea what he is talking about. Neeraj is kind of a weenie in all of this - moping around - grabbing women who he thinks are Anita - but perhaps his weenieness has some merit. Or is he crazy. Khosla had teamed these two up in a better film in 1964 Woh Kaun Thi that had similar themes.


I have never seen the appeal of Manoj Kumar with his chipmunk cheeks and soft sad eyes - but later on he became a big star in patriotic films that he directed and acted in. Sadhana on the other hand is wonderfully elegant and at times compared to Audrey Hepburn. Born into a filmi family, she was in leading roles by the time she was 19. Nearly every film she was in was a hit. The dire comedy relief was provided by Sajjan as a detective, Dhumal as his assistant and Tum Tum as a disgruntled customer who wants them to find her 4 foot husband - she is 6 feet. I half expected them to find him under her sari.