Tumsa Nahin Dekha! – Shammi Kapoor all the way....

This was Shammi Kapoor’s first hit movie and the first movie that was really his style. It seemed like the role was written with him in mind, but originally Dev Anand was supposed to play the lead. Shammi Kapoor only got the movie because Dev Anand walked out. Lets all thank Dev Anand for walking out of this movie, shall we??  This movie brought the energetic, exuberant, fun style to Hindi movies, which then led to swinging sixties. Sixties were dominated by Shammi Kapoor and his style, and this movie is where it all started… Thus historically this movie is very important – it changed the face of the Hindi movies forever… And Shammi made this movie so completely his, that it is difficult to imagine anyone else playing the lead.

This is a must watch for all Shammi Kapoor fans. This is also a must watch for all the people who loved 60s and then 70s movies – this movie, I think is the one that set the ball rolling…

(For the plot of the movie, please refer to the earlier post – “Plot of the movie and other things”)

The movie is high on coincidences and low on logic – more than an average Hindi movie. Sardar Rajpal (erstwhile  Gopal) goes “far away” to Assam after he ends up killing a man, leaving his wife and a small son behind. When he gives an advertisement for his wife using her pet name some twenty plus years later, in a city which is just an overnight journey away from his place, in name of Rajpal (a name not known to anyone from his earlier life), not just his wife but his enemy sees the advertisement and knows his identity right away!! So now, basically not just his wife but his enemy too has moved and is in a city which is just an overnight journey away from him. What a coincident!! Whats more, even police read this ad and decide that there is something fishy about the whole thing!! Oh come on!! Really??!!!  Police reading an advertisement and deciding to go after that person to find out more? Don’t they have any real cases to solve???

Then when a thief steals Shankar’s (hero’s) clothes and the letter his mother gave him to give to Sardar Rajpal, falls out and guess who finds it? The bad guy, of course! That letter makes it easy for him to go to Sardar Rajpal and pretend to be his son.

The movie also has “tribal people” – the Hindi movie, zinga lala variety tribals…

And this movie was released in 1957 – and maybe it was made a year or two earlier – but in the movie, Shankar keeps referring to a war and he being in Burma in the war. Which war was that? Wasn’t the Second World War over in 1945? At least 10 years prior to when this movie was made?

And yet, this is such a wonderful movie!  Its said that this movie was made for Ameeta, and she is quite cute in the movie. But it was a perfect launch pad (or re-launch pad) for Shammi Kapoor and he made this movie a lot of fun.  He looks very young and very handsome.  The comic timing is very good throughout the movie. The supporting star cast too is good and Pran as the bad guy is very cool & smart.


Music is simply superb; there are six songs, all of them have a very strong Shammi Kapoor stamp; and each one is a real treat.


Jawaniya yeh mast mast bin piye – this is sung in such a soft voice by Mohd. Rafi. And this is one song, that even though it’s a Shammi Kapoor song, I find that it’s a much better song, just to listen to, rather than seeing the video… I somehow get bored looking at so many of the girls just frolicking around. :-)

Yuh to hamne lakh haseen dekhe hai – It’s a fun song in the tonga –the way Shammi can make it so energetic in that confined space of a tonga, is just amazing; the way he starts signing to the coachman instead of Ameeta at one point; or the thing he does with his eyes when Ameeta flicks him on his head is just so lovable.

Aye hai door se – this is a song where Shammi is pretending to be an old man, a shayar… If I have to pick my least favorite song of the movie, this is it.

Chhup ne wale samane aa – This is a beautiful dance number. I love the gentle rhythm of the whole song and how everything seems to move to that rhythm. Even the way the song ends – with all the tribal girls in a line behind Shammi, he as well as all the girls moving so gently to the rhythm. Just superb!

Dekh Kasam se – Oh, this is another lovely song. And both of them are really wonderful in this. And the chemistry is….

Sar par topi laal – this is another dance song. Its obvious in this song that Ameeta was not much of a dancer, and that Shammi definitely could dance. He knew how to move to the rhythm, how to act in the songs that was to the rhythm…

What should one watch the movie for? Shammi Kapoor and the songs….

Plot of the movie - and other things…

Hero’s parents separate in his childhood, the hero lives with the “poor” parent (or  the parent could be middleclass but basically has lot less money than the other parent) not having met the rich parent in all the years since his parents parted ways in his childhood/infancy.  The rich parent is close to the heroine, who has grown up to be a very smart, firebrand of a girl. Then the bad guy comes along and meets the rich parent “by chance”, pretending to be the son that the rich parent has hoped to meet some day. Now the rich parent wants the heroine to marry the “bad guy” thinking he is his/her son, but in the meantime the heroine has gone and fallen in love with the hero – the real son and heir to all the “jaidaad” of the rich parent. The rich parent believes the hero to be the “fraud” till proven otherwise at the end. Then the “bad guy” either tries to kidnap the heroine (or some such), once its become obvious that he is not the real son but the bad guy; the hero then has to fight the bad guy and save the heroine. And of course the hero’s parents then get together and give their blessings to hero-heroine – who then sing away in the sunset….

From this plot, can you guess the movie? If you thought of “Tumsa Nahin Dekha ” (starring Shammi Kapoor & Ameeta - 1957) , you are absolutely right!! But if you thought of “Dil Deke Dekho” (starring Shammi Kapoor & Asha Parekh - 1959) you are right too!! Oh and of course, you are also right if you guessed it to be “Phir Wohi Dil laya hoon” (starring Joy Mukherjee & Asha Parekh - 1963) … And maybe there are some others that would come to your mind, and you would still be correct.  The basic plot of all the three movies I mentioned is the same.(All three are Nasir Hussain movies) And yet, each movie managed to be seen as “different” and managed to be a hit.

Of course there are some variations in the basic plots itself –

In “Tumsa nahin dekha” Hero’s father ends up killing someone and so runs away, leaving his wife and small son. The father then goes and lives in Assam under a different name, buys land there and makes a lot of money; he adopts a girl, who grows up to be the heroine.

In “Dil Deke Dekho” Hero’s father suspecting his wife of being unfaithful to him, leaves her, taking their small son with him. In this movie, it’s the hero’s mother who is very rich – she has many estates. The heroine is a family friend’s daughter, whom the hero’s mother sends to London to study.

In “Phir Wahi Dil Laya Hoon”, hero’s father throws his wife suspecting her to be of “bad character”. She then arranges for her son to be kidnapped from her husband.  The heroine is the family doctor’s daughter and her father dies in an accident leaving her all alone and so hero’s father brings her up.

But the movies seem different from each other because of many other factors too – the locations, the buildup, personality of the actors in those specific movies, the chemistry between the lead pair, the other characters in the movie (though 2 of these have Pran playing the “bad guy” – the pretend son, two of these movies also have Rajender nath playing the heroine’s would be husband, before the pretend son makes an appearance), the music and song situations – the overall feel becomes quite different with these variations. The music is good in each of these movies and must have been one of the reasons for these becoming such big hits.

But I think a big reason for these movies to do well was that the audiences loved the fun factor that was a big part of these movies – in fact good part of the movie was really hero trying various things to win the heroine over. People loved to see the hero- heroine sing and dance with abundance. They loved to see them having fun while falling in love with each other. So one does wonder, how important is the basic plot to the overall feel of the movie and the enjoyment one can get out of it… These movies and their music is as enjoyable today. You don’t watch the movie just for the plot – you anyway know the plot when you are watching it the second time. But you can watch these movies again and again and listen to the music time and again.

With these movies, the idea was not to tell a very profound story or give an important and serious message. And while there are some wonderful movies from this period that did those things too, the serious and meaningful message of a particular time, many times is relevant only in that time period and many years later, those issues and messages do not seem as meaningful. And however good a very serious and profound movie is, you can’t watch it again and again like the fun movies. And these fun movies are the ones that remain timeless and are as watchable today as they were then.

Basant – Shammi Kapoor & Nutan!! This could have been so magical…

So I watched this movie from 1960, only because Nutan is my all-time favorite actress and Shammi Kappor is my all-time favorite actor. I didn’t expect much from the film. The movie is not very cohesive, but some of the scenes are well done. Overall, the movie is not great, but the lead pair is wonderful, especially in the first part of the movie. And they are very good together. In parts, you feel that they are having a lot of fun working together. There are scenes that I felt maybe they just made up – like the scene where two of them are walking down the road and she tells him that she has got something stuck in her teeth. Hard to believe that was part of the script. It felt like the two of them just decided to have some fun…

The basic story of the movie is same as that of Chori-Chori (or “Dil hai ke manta nahin”). Meenakshi (Nutan) is the only daughter of a rich father. Her father is against her marrying Rajesh (Pran) who she is in love with. Her father is taking her away from Bombay (where Rajesh is) to Calcutta by train. In the night, she runs away to go to Rajesh. While she is making her way from somewhere on the Bombay-Calcutta rail line, to Bombay, she meets Aseem (Shammi Kapoor), and falls in love with him. In the meantime, her father, out of desperation meets Rajesh and agrees to let Meenakshi marry him. But when she comes back, she no longer wants to marry Rajesh because she is in love with Aseem. To test their love for each other, Aseem and Meenakshi part deciding to meet after a month.

Beyond this point, the story is different – and seems to go completely haywire…. Aseem meets a rich man who asks him to go to Kamroop in Assam where he has to deliver a very expensive necklace. Rajesh sends his man to kill Aseem, who attacks Aseem, leaves him unconscious (though not dead) but manages to bring “proof” that he is dead to Rajesh, who presents it to Meenakshi. Things go all wrong for Meenakshi, her father dies, she becomes paralyzed and on Rajesh’s insistence (who she has come to trust thanks to the way he has made things look), agrees to marry him. And many other complicated things later, everything works out for the best in the end…

Oh, did I mention that Johny Walker is also there throughout the movie? And of course he is a great comedian and some of his scenes are also really good, he also has 3 songs… but overall his role is too patchy and contrived in parts.

But like I said, Nutan and Shammi Kapoor are wonderful together. First half of the movie, though not cohesive is a collection of some enjoyable and fun scenes. There are 4 lovely songs picturized on the two of them –

1. Raasate me ik haseen
2. Mere lehenge me ghungaroo
3. Naino me suraj ki kirane
4. Chori chori ik ishaara ho gaya hai

Now, Nutan is no dancer, but she is such a wonderful actress, that she carries the dances off really well. And like in the scenes, in the songs you get the feeling that two of them are really having fun.

Oh and, you discover that this is the origin of some of the ideas and scenes in “Dil Hai ke Manta Nahin”. Like how Nutan dresses up as a fisher woman and sings and dances when she runs away from her father and the police are looking for her. Or how Shammi runs after the thief who runs away with Nutan’s bag and she has no idea. Or like the fight they have as “husband” and “wife” to mislead the police…

If you are a Nutan fan or a Shammi Kapoor fan, do watch this movie – they both are really good in this – they look great, act well and have a lot of fun together… If you like both of them, the in spite of its second half, it’s a must watch for the first half… Watch if for the two of them – for the scenes that these two do so well – and some very good melodies and see how well songs can be done – both of them were real “song” experts too.

But I could not help feeling disappointed with the movie. Feeling that this could have been such a magical movie...