Posts Tagged ‘Prem Chopra’

Ajanabee (1974)

January 17, 2010

Let me come come to an end with Rajesh Khanna special week with this movie.

One night, a pretty young girl, Sonia (Yogita Bali), gets down from a Taxi and runs towards the Railway station in Deena Pur asking for a ticket to Bombay.

The train to Bombay pulls off the station before she can board.  She doesn’t have any place to go and decides to wait at the station for the next train, the following morning. She’s carrying an attache case containing jewellery worth lakhs. She deposits it to Rohit, which he safely locks in his safe.

Since Rohit feels it’s not safe for her to wait at the platform he offers to drop her at his quarters, near by and she readily agrees to it.

It’s so obvious that she’s running away from someone and Rohit feels she must have stolen the jewellery but she denies the accusation. She tells him that she inherited them from her mother but there are goons behind her because of it.  And she’s escaping from them. He buys the story and assured that she’s safe and comfortable there, he goes back to the station.

Sitting on his chair in his office, he goes back in time and lives in flashback for a while thinking about how he first came across Rashmi (Jeenat Aman).

He’s riding a motorcycle on his way to his uncle’s (Asit Sen) house for his cousin’s wedding. On the road he sees a car ahead of him and they have a race. After a while,  Rashmi’s car runs out of petrol. Attempting to help her and also not wanting to lose an oppotunity of spending some time with a lovely dame, he empties all the petrol from his motorcycle into Rahmi’s car and decides to travel along in her car. But before he can get in, she drives off. With no petrol, he gets stuck and finally manages to get a lift in a lorry.

He meets her again for his cousin, Shanta’s sangeet, – she happens to be Shanta’s friend. When forced by everybody, he sings Ek ajnabee haseena se, saying it’s a true story.

They meet a couple of times during his stay there and they fall in love.

Her father, Diwan Sardarilal (Hari Shivdasani), is looking for an assistant for Moti Babu (Prem Chopra), her brother-in-law, who has been looking after the business now. And Diwan feels Moti Babu is over-burdened with work and responsibilities. Rashmi presents Rohit to Diwan and he agrees to hire him.

Rashmi has a hunch that Moti Babu is not as honest as he appears to be and tells Rohit about it. Rohit immediately begins auditing the records and discovers that the entries are not correct and a huge sum of money has been missing.

Moti Babu, scared that the truth will come out, plots against Rohit. Since Rashmi is so fond of him, the best way to get Rohit out of his way would be to somehow make her dislike him. As a part of the plan, they have a celebration with lots of Bhaang followed a dance Satra baras ki.

And with the help of Bahadur and Bijli he manages to prove that Rohit tried to rape Bijli and has cheated on Rashmi. As per Panchayat’s decision, a punishment, he’s thrased in front of the villagers and asked to leave the place immediately.

Moti Babu is celebrating his victory with Bahadur and Bijli. Rashmi happens to witness this and is disgusted. Much against Diwan’s and Moti Babu’s wish she leaves the house and runs away with Rohit singing Hum dono do premee . They go to Bombay and get married in a temple.

Two men show up at his office and they wake him up from his reverie. They introduce themselves as Inspector Tiwari and Inspector Sinha and enquire about a girl with an attache – Sonia. They tell him that she has stolen some valuables and has run away, and they are investigating the case. Though suspicious, Rohit doesn’t reveal her whereabouts. He goes to his quarters and confronts her. But she tells him she hasn’t stolen anything and gives him her mother’s letter. After reading it he’s convinced that she’s innocent.

He comes back to his office. It’s raining very heavily outside. Standing by the window he stares out and gets into a flashback mode again. This time the newly wed Rashmi and Rohit are singing Bheegi bheegi raaton mein in the rain.

Brought up the way she was, Rashmi doesn’t know much of household work. She has a tough time trying to learn how to cook. They get acquainted with Chetan Kumar (Asrani), who lives in the floor below and become friends with him. He also helps her develop her culinary skills

Rohit works for Bombay Publicity, an Ad Agency and Rashmi, on the other hand gets bored sitting at home the whole day with nothing to do. Since she has a good knowledge of colors she starts painting (inspired by Chetan) and wants to gift the painting to Rohit on his birthday. One fine day Chetan suggests her to start modelling.

Having seen how his boss, M.M. Puri (Madan Puri) deals with models, Rohit’s not happy about the modelling idea.

(That’s one of the models with M.M. Puri – I found her so much like Rakhee Sawant)

But Reshmi, with a wealthy background is not used to live the way she is living and doesn’t like compromising for every little thing. And she remains adamant about her decision until Rohit gives in. Indifferences start creeping in but Rohit is understanding and does all he can to keep Rashmi happy, though his ego keeps coming in between (sounds conrtadicting?). In no time she becomes a top model and even goes on to win a beauty pageant. And she’s so thrilled about it.

Soon after, she realizes she’s expecting. She wants to pursue her career and thinks it’s not the right time to start a family and even thinks of going for an abortion. But Rohit wants the child. So she decides to keep it. One day Rohit calls and when she goes down to Chetan’s flat to answer the call, she slips and falls down the staircase. This results in a miscarriage. But Rohit feels she got an abortion done and gets mad at her. They have a row and he walks out of the house. Having realized that he over-reacted, he comes back home in the evening and apologizes but only after a while he finds out that Rashmi has left the house and gone.

He later on learns from Chetan that she had fallen down and had a miscarriage. He calls her but she desont speak to him. He resigns from Bombay Publicity and he sets out to bring her back. He goes to Diwan’s house but learns that they have left the place and gone on a vacation. Noone knows when they’ll come back. Devastated, he goes to his uncle’s house. There’s a letter for him there, a legal notice asking for a divorce. Not knowing what to do next, he seeks employment and with the help of Mr. Saxena (Mama’s friend), he gets the post of a Station Master at a remote hill station, Deena Pur.

Back to present…he’s at work and Mr. Saxena comes to meet him. He’s surprised to see Mr. Saxena at such a remote place. To this , Mr. Saxena says he had come hunting with Diwan Sardarilal, who has put up at a place named Karimganj, near by.


He leaves for Karimganj to meet Rashmi. But he is humiliated by Diwan and Moti Babu because he is poor. He also vows that he’ll earn enough money and get Rashmi back.

But he doesn’t know how to get so much of money. He eyes the safe with Sonia’s attache. And next, he is arrested for Sonia’s murder.

Did Rohit really kill Sonia? Why did he take Sonia to his quarters? And who was Sonia in the first place?  What were his intentions? Is Rohit the Ajnabee who nobody actually knows? Will he be proved guilty? What happens to Rashmi and Rohit’s relationship? Will they get back together or will Rohit be sentenced to death/life imprisonment?

Few loopholes – Though Rashmi knows what Moti Babu is upto, Diwan never gets to know about it. And she also doesn’t do anything to get him caught. What’s Chetan’s profession? It’s never expalined (or was it deleted from DVD?) - he’s shown as an artist who sits at home painting, but once Rashmi decides to take up modelling, he becomes her photographer. And he’s an MC for the Beauty Pageant contest!

It’s a nice movie (though not one of my favourite Rajesh Khanna movies) - Story is quite convincing, but very predictable. Lovely tracks and good performance. But what I liked the most was Prem Chopra’s sidelocks ;-)

Pagla Kahin Ka (1970)

November 29, 2009

Movie with a title like this can have only one actor – the one and only Shammi Kapoor!!!

 

Jenny (Helen), the Dancer; Sujit (Shammi Kapoor), the Singer and Shyam (Prem Chopra), the Musician. They all perform in a night-club that’s owned by Max (K.N Singh)

Jenny lives with an aunty (now I am not sure if she’s really her aunty or she’s just staying as a Paying Guest with her). And somebody please help me with her name.

Aunty somehow doesnt like Sujit and she doesnt appreciate Jenny going around with him. She think’s he’s really mad because that’s what everyone thinks he is.

Sujit is madly in love with Jenny.

He feels blessed to have Jenny and Shyam in his life.  Jenny is his love and Shyam his best friend. Sujit and Shyam live together. He tells Shyam one night that his life is so beautiful now. His mother had died when he was six. His father unable to accept his mother’s death goes insane and gets admitted into a mental hospital. Soon after he dies leaving Sujit all alone in the world. He never had a reason to live until he met Shyam who brought him here and gave him this life.  And now with Jenny around, he doesnt need anything else in life, he’s the happiest person in the world.

They perform to the title track, Log Kahen Mujhe Pagla Kahin Ka, for the New Year party in the night-club. And after the performance, Shyam announces Jenny and Sujit’s engagement.

So long dance-partners are finally turning into life-partners and everybody cheers for them. But Max is not happy about this.

Max insults Jenny and Sujit gets into an argument with him. Situation gets heated up. Max draws his gun, but Shyam hits on his head with a bottle and Max dies. Sujit rescues Jenny and Shyam but gets caught himself before he can escape.

Jenny and Shyam go to meet a lawyer, Advocate S.K. Mehta (Brahma Bhardwaj). He feels that the guards saw Sujit trying to run away, so the case is strongly against him. Even if Shyam confesses that it was he who killed Max, it will look as if he’s trying to save his friend. The only way to save Sujit is to prove that he’s insane (majority of the people anyways feel that way already, so not all that tough a job).

Sujit feigns insanity, almost everyone who knows him tells a tale about Sujit’s insanity. Shyam tells the court that he found Sujit one day and heard him singing. Since he had a good voice, he brought him along and gave him the job of a singer in the band. He used to get fits at times and that’s why they lived together so that he could take care of Sujit.

Jenny claims that Sujit is in love with her but she just acts along because he’s insane and she’s scared of him.

As he’s proved mentally unstable, he’s not punished for killing Max. The Judge orders him to be admitted into a mental asylum until he recovers.

With really insane inmates, Sujit goes crazy in the asylum and tries to run away. When the guards realize that he’s trying to escape they follow him and he ends up hiding in a girl’s wardrobe in a room in one of the houses near the asylum. As it turns out that the girl, Dr. Shalini (Asha Parekh) aka Shallu is Doctor’s neice and when he warns her about an inmate who has escaped, she locks her door from inside only to discover Sujit in her wardrobe. She  tries to catch him and call the guards but on an attempt to free himself, he pushes her, she falls and hits her head on a table. Seeing her hurt, he cant just run away and is caught and taken back to the asylum again.

One of his inmates sells another inmate (Asit Sen) role-paying a buffalo to Sujit and there’s a fun-filled track Meri bhains ko danda kyun maara when the old owner hits the buffalo. Being his usual self he is very entertaining and soon everyone in the asylum grows very fond of him. One of the nurses, Sudha (Kumud Tripathi) even goes on to tell Dr. Shallu that had he been normal she would have fallen in love with him.

The doctors in mental asylum read his file, study his case and reach a conclusion that he’s really insane except for Dr. Shallu. She takes permission from Dr. Shah (Manmohan Krishna) to study this case in depth.

She makes friends with him and when he says he doesnt like the asylum, would love to go out, she takes him out. He likes places that has hills all around, a water body with a lot of turtles in it. He seems obsessed with turtles.

She takes him for an outing to such a place, sans the turtles – to a place that has hills all around and a beautiful lake. He does complain that he cant see turtles but he’s happy to be out.

She confronts him saying she’s convinced he’s perfectly normal but has feigned insanity to so that he doesnt get punished for killing Max.

He himself admits that he’s not insane and he was just putting up an act. But he had done all this for his love. He tells her all about Shyam and Jenny.  Goes on to give a long lecture on love. She’s so impressed by how deeply he feels for Jenny. And decides to help him. In the process she herself falls in love with him (how could she not). She asks him what he’d do if Jenny’s not serious about him or has forgotten him. He says it’s impossible that Jenny forgets him and sings – Tum mujhe yun bhoola na paoge

Finally they declare his recovery at the asylum and time has come for him to leave

He goes to Shallu to take his leave. She sends him aways telling him never to come back to the asylum again . He goes back home but finds the room locked. On asking his neighbour, Mr. Pinto he learns that Shyam has gone for a reception. Curious, he asks what the occasion is and is devastated to learn that it’s Jenny and Shyam’s wedding reception.

He goes to the party confused and angered at this betrayal.  He sees Jenny and Shyam seated and Madhumati dancing to Suno Zindagi Gaati hai.

He loses his faith in love and friendship. He is totally shattered and unable to take the shock, this time he really goes insane. He ends up being re-admitted in the very same asylum. But this time his chances of recovery are very slim and he doesnt remember anything except for Jenny, who he feels muderous about.

He doesnt recognize anyone at the asylum. Shallu goes on to sing the same song Tum mujhe yun bhoola na paoge with a hope that it might remind him something, trigger something atleast,  but in vain.

The lively Sujit who everyone was almost in love with during his earlier stay has become a total stranger now. He sings a song, more to himself than to anyone else, when one of the inmates, Ramu dies – Ae mere dil yahan tu

Will Shallu be able to bring him back to normal again? What happens to Shyam and Jenny? Was Jenny ever in love with Sujit? Or was killing Max  just a trap?

I wont say this is one of the best movies of Shammi Kapoor but it’s a typical SK movie, thoroughly entertaining. And it did make my weekend.  I usually dont find faults when Shammi Kapoor is around and I have always liked Shammi-Asha chemistry. Not much of chemistry here but Shammi’s make-up in the second half when he comes back to the asylum the second time looks really wierd. He’s shown with a little stubble on his cheeks but it looks more like kajal/coal smuged on his face.

Oh, btw, Helen looks very very pretty in this movie.

And if anyone has watched this movie and knows why he’s so obsessed with turtles, please enlighten me ;-D


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