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An Eye Candy Post to Begin Shammi Kapoor Week

October 20, 2011, 10:06 pm
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Over a year ago, my husband remarked, “You’ve done special weeks on Robert Mitchum and Tyrone Power. You’re also going to be doing one on Johnny Walker. But what about your favourite actor? Don’t you think you should be doing a Shammi Kapoor Week sometime?” Of course, I said. I just wanted to time it [...]
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Dil Deke Dekho (1959)

October 21, 2011, 9:32 pm
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Dil Deke Dekho isn’t quite the perfect film I’d like to make it out to be. (a) The story isn’t exactly original (Nasir Hussain had already used it in Tumsa Nahin Dekha. He also went on to use it in Jab Pyaar Kisi se Hota Hai and Phir Wohi Dil Laaya Hoon, but that can’t [...]
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Kashmir ki Kali (1964)

October 22, 2011, 8:39 pm
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This particular Shammi Kapoor film has a very special place in my heart – because Yeh chaand sa roshan chehra was one of the first Hindi film songs I ever learnt to sing. I must’ve been about eight years old. I’d never seen the film; television was yet to make its way into our lives [...]
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Ten of my favourite Shammi Kapoor roles

October 23, 2011, 10:18 pm
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It seems a bit of a paradox that Tumsa Nahin Dekha was both good and bad for Shammi Kapoor. Good, because it turned him from a wannabe to a big star. Bad, because it created a certain persona – the fun-loving, completely madcap yet good at heart rebel. Bad? Was that ‘bad’? I think so. [...]
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Junglee (1961)

October 24, 2011, 10:01 pm
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For a lot of people of my generation – or those younger than me, who have seen Shammi Kapoor in his earlier films, this is the film that is probably representative of Shammi Kapoor: the ‘Yahoo! Kapoor’ as a friend of mine says with a sneer. Junglee is one of the major successes of Shammi [...]
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Professor (1962)

October 25, 2011, 9:31 pm
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The first time I watched this film was on TV, back in the mid-80s. Luckily enough, our TV was hooked up to a VCR, and a blank tape was in the VCR – so we recorded Professor. I loved the film so much, I rewatched that tape again and again over the next 15 years. [...]
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Ten of my favourite Shammi Kapoor songs

October 26, 2011, 9:58 pm
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My sister keeps a stack of CDs in her car. Often, when she gives me a lift, she puts a CD into the stereo and we listen as she drives along. The CDs are a mixed lot: Harry Belafonte, Simon and Garfunkel, 3 Idiots, Wake up, Sid!, The Best of S D Burman… and The [...]
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Tengoku to Jigoku (1963)

November 3, 2011, 1:58 am
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This blog’s been focussing on Hindi cinema for a while now, so I decided it was time to get back to being a bit more diverse. And this time with a film from one director whose work I admire a lot: Akira Kurosawa. If all you’ve seen of Kurosawa are his samurai films, I’d recommend [...]
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Celebrating the Uncelebrated: Ten of my favourite songs by lesser-known composers

November 9, 2011, 12:19 am
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This blog hosted a ‘Classic Bollywood Quiz’ a while back. In true film awards style (and we have pacifist to thank for this idea), everybody who submitted answers got a prize. The winner, Anoushka, got a tangible prize, and our runner-up, Anu Warrier, got the ‘dictate-a-list’ prize. For the others, I decided I’d dedicate one [...]
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Midnight Lace (1960)

November 15, 2011, 4:44 am
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“Racy stuff, eh?” said my husband, when I told him the name of the film I was going to review next. No. Not at all. In fact, Midnight Lace has nothing steamy about it except a rather stylish black top that Doris Day wears in the climactic scene. A couple of weeks ago, I’d read [...]
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Insaan Jaag Utha (1959)

November 22, 2011, 1:18 am
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The main reason I rented this film was that the credits were so absolutely mouthwatering. A cast that included Sunil Dutt, Madhubala, Minoo Mumtaz, Madan Puri and Nishi Kohli. Music by S D Burman. Shakti Samanta as director. A winner, I’d have thought. Alas, no. While it’s not a dud, Insaan Jaag Utha isn’t more [...]
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High Noon (1952)

November 27, 2011, 9:51 pm
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I was – at least as far as emotional maturity is concerned – a baby when I first saw High Noon, and I didn’t care for it much then. Not that I wasn’t fond of Westerns; I adored Westerns. In book form, in cinema, in song. For me, the genre was all that was gloriously [...]
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Ten of my favourite saheli songs

December 3, 2011, 10:20 pm
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(And a very brief tribute to Dev Anand, 1923-2011). This is the second of my ‘prize posts’ for the Classic Bollywood Quiz. The first of these posts was dedicated to Karthik, who’d once suggested I do a list of lesser-known composers. This post is dedicated to Anoushka Dave, our overall winner. Anoushka, whose prize included [...]
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Dev Anand in Ten Moods

December 7, 2011, 3:55 am
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As teenagers, my friends and I were unanimous about one thing: there was no beating Shammi Kapoor and Dev Anand as the most watchable stars. Not that they were then in their prime; this was in the very late 80s, but as far as my pals and I were concerned, Hindi film heroes stopped being [...]
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Paths of Glory (1957)

December 15, 2011, 11:24 pm
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We’ve been on a spate of tributes all this month. First, it was a farewell for Dev Anand, the man who embodied ‘leading man’ for so many Indians across generations. Then, there were birthdays – for the ‘hunkiest of them all’, Dharmendra, and then for one of Hindi cinema’s greatest thespians, Dilip Kumar. Somewhere amidst [...]
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Book Review: Sidharth Bhatia’s Cinema Modern: The Navketan Story

December 20, 2011, 3:59 am
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A few days back, an editor from The Indian Express phoned to ask me if I’d like to review a book for them. Which book? Sidharth Bhatia’s Cinema Modern: The Navketan Story. Too mouthwatering an opportunity to miss, I decided, even though I already had a lot of work to get done. But here it [...]
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Taj Mahal (1963)

December 27, 2011, 8:48 am
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I ended up re-watching this film in a roundabout sort of way, which is a story in itself. A few months back, my sister (a historian, whose PhD was on 19th century Delhi) remarked, “I’d like to watch Lal Qila. I’ve never been able to find it in stores.” So, good little sister that I [...]
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Don Camillo (1952)

December 31, 2011, 11:33 pm
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I am not a party animal. I do not drink. I have two left feet. Loud music makes my head throb. I find it difficult to keep awake after 11 PM. So when friends ask, “What’re you doing on New Year’s Eve?” I say, “Watching a movie at home.” And what better way to say [...]
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The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)

January 7, 2012, 7:03 pm
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Ever since I began this blog, I’ve maintained one annual tradition: on my birthday, I post a review of a film featuring a film personality who shares my birthday. I’ve reviewed Ittefaq (starring Nanda); Wild in the Country (starring Elvis Presley) and Baghdad ka Jaadoo (with Fearless Nadia). This time, it’s back to Baghdad – [...]
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Maya (1961)

January 11, 2012, 4:44 am
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A wealthy young man strikes out on his own to see how the rest of the world lives. He pretends to be poor, goes to live in a community of poor people, and falls in love with a poor girl who doesn’t realise he’s a wealthy man. Starring Dev Anand as the protagonist. Asli-Naqli? No. [...]
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