Bollywood in Black and White

C.I.D. Inspector Dinesh (Dev  Anand) follows a man into a hotel that he suspects of being involved in counterfeit money. But the man has become aware that Dinesh is behind him and closing in when he sees the Boss's moll and asks her to hold him up so that he can escape. Lily only knows one way to do this. Dance, sing and flirt as she stops the Inspector in his shoes by not letting him go by. Soon he joins her in the musical number because this is Bollywood and she is Helen. Helen could stop a speeding train with a few swings of her hips and a come-on expression. Weirdly, the escaping man also seems to want to watch and hides behind a group of female background dancers that appear from nowhere. In the end Dinesh just leaves and says to his sergeant "We will get him another day". He should first check to see what Lily's work schedule is. Ah Helen, once again having to play the bad girl, the vamp, the vixen - but it made her into a legend and here she gets three musical numbers which made my feet feel better.


This is directed by one of my favorites from this period Shakti Samanta - he did a few with Ashok Kumar and then Shammi. Before this film he directed the wonderful Howrah Bridge in which Helen does the Chin Chin Chu number and Singapore with Shammi and Helen and afterwards Chinatown with Shammi and Helen and the wonderful An Evening in Paris with Shammi.  These early works tended to be crime films. As is this one with its hero and a rogue gallery of villains. And of course the heroine, which is never Helen. But it doesn't get much better than Madhubala. Anand and Madhubala worked together in eight films and have great playful chemistry that in particular shows up in their songs together when she uses her eyes to flirt, to joke, to be coy, to show diffidence. They have a couple songs here in which I just watched her face go through an expression a second.


Anand said of her "the most beautiful of all the heroines in the fairyland of films, with her natural looks, always as fresh as a morning dew, sans heavy make-up, false eyelashes, contact lenses or scanty dresses fashioned by designers to impart artificial glamour that would titillate male curiosity. Her childlike innocence was accentuated by the most noticeable trait of her character, her famous giggle." In this one he gets the vast majority of time unfortunately as she is shunted a bit to the side.


Counterfeit bills are being passed and Inspector Dinesh is assigned to the case. Everything seems to lead to the Shangra-la Hotel so Anand goes undercover and disguised as a rich Prince he checks into the hotel. On the heels of the bad guys is also a reporter, Renu (Madhubala), who also checks in. It takes one song for them to fall in love and then she overhears him asking to buy phony bills and her world comes crashing down. Don't worry Madhubala, it will work out fine. Not that suspenseful or well-paced but it is saved by the score by O.P. Nayyar and Raja Mehdi Ali Khan with singing by M. Rafi and Asha Bhosle. The film and the music - 8 songs - were big hits.  There is one section in which there are three songs like freight cars on the track, one after the other ready to go. All good.