Shikari
 
    
Director: Mohammed Hussain
Year:  1963
Music: G.S. Kohli
Duration: 139 minutes
Rating: 6.0
Egads! This is a Bollywood film that would be so easy to make fun of but somehow it wormed its way into the back of my brain where it may reside for a while and rot. By the end I was just smiling at the stupidity of it and wondering why they can't make films as looney as this any more. If you ever thought King Kong would have been so much better with a few song and dance numbers - with Fay Wray looking deep into King Kong's eyes and singing "Whoever thought you could be, carrying all that hard wood for me". This would be that film. At the most ridiculous times this film breaks into a song. Even a three inch woman in a sari breaks into a dance. But King Kong isn't enough for this film - it is much too ambitious for that - it also serves a big old slice of Dr. Moreau at his craziest. And it is all done wonderfully seriously without a note of snark or parody. And it has Helen. And a boatload of terrific music. But on the What Were They Thinking scale it ranks pretty high. But glad they did.




With really a bunch of character actors - hard to believe the A actors turned this one down - and incredibly bad special effects they give it all they can. So King Kong is clearly a man in a cheap gorilla suit (so was Godzilla in his way) - maybe bought from the Jungle Jim films - and the greasy giant dog-like creature is clearly made of clay - and the volcanic lava is something a kindergarten class made - they made an effort and I praise them for that. And as I mentioned within this raggedy fun film is some great music composed by G. S. Kohli, excellent dance choreography and the voices of Rafi, Asha and Lata - the big three playback singers of the era. That I expect is where most of the money went in the budget.



Mr. Kapoor and his main investor Jagdish are moaning about how poorly their circus is attended. They visit a competitor that has an all-Caucasian ice skating show - the footage which is clearly stolen from somewhere and goes on for 5 minutes - and moan some more - how can we compete with that. Oh, I have an idea. Let's capture King Kong also known there as Otango - who has fortunately for them moved from Malaysia to India. So they gather a group of intrepid adventurers  - a scientist in a goofy beard who says nothing but "idiotic" during the film and hits people with his umbrella, Chandu who is the servant and provides the dreadful comedy relief by spilling things on people and Kapoor's daughter the lovely Rita Meter Maid (Ragini). Rita is also the high wire swinging specialist for the circus and so you might suspect that she would be useful on this jungle trek. You would be wrong - she falls into a river and has to be saved, is attacked by a tiger and has to be saved and nearly falls into the lava and has to be saved. She is no Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. Or even Fearless Nadia*. But she can dance. And pout.



So off they go with no apparent equipment to trap a 30 foot gorilla. Rita is saved from the tiger by Ajit (Ajit Khan) and he tells her within minutes - you know I live out here in the jungle and haven't seen a woman in years - errr - err - can you cook?. Ajit is the hero of the film chapatti gut and all. So we are about an hour into the film and no Otango and no Helen - but a few musical numbers. Ajit tells his servant - do we have any entertainment for my guests - and a huge musical number springs up with Rita leading it. How did that happen? Because it's Bollywood!




But still I am complaining that this is kind of dull and then the breaks come off  - they are captured by Dr. Cyclops (who oddly has two eyes and is played by K.N. Singh) who has a totally cool lair in underground caves. He has plans to take over the world of course and is experimenting making animals human and humans animals. Not to mention a serum that will turn humans into 3-inch people and keeps them under a beaker. And he has the villain accessories like a snake pit, a few monsters on guard and a zombie like creature. And a daughter. The lovely Helen.







From this point it gets nuts - a lot of over the top action performed fairly poorly, a tribe of savages, Otango finally shows up, villages burn, people get trampled, Jagdish shows his true colors as a swine but we knew that from the start because he is played by Madan Puri who is always a swine. But my favorite scene is when Jagdish is about to whip a tied up Ajit and as the whip comes back it is grabbed by Helen who purrs and leads him onto a disco floor and dances for him. I will watch Helen in anything and generally if you see her name in the credits - even as an item one-time dancer - it will be a fun film. Sure I wanted to see King Kong but it wasn't the beast that brought me to the beauty, but Helen who brought me to the beast.





As a note to myself, Tun Tun makes an appearance - one of my favorite female character comedy relief players - usually in heat and Ton Ton would better describe her. Very popular.