BUNDALBAAZ

Stars:Shammi Kapoor,Rajesh Khanna and Sulakshina Pandit
Year: 1976
Genre:Fantasy/Comedy
At the time of its release the movie virtually went unnoticed.People in India were just not ready for fantasy films.Although this family fantasy lifts its plot entirely from the Hollywood movie The Brass Bottle (1964) the movie is entertaining nonetheless.This was Shammi Kapoor's second and final directorial effort following 1974's Manoranjan whose plot was also lifted from another Hollywood movie Irma La Douce.Its said that a n actor of Shammi sahib's calibre choose to direct ripped off movies.Anyway, like Manoranjan this movie also failed to excite the viewers.Both were comedy movies but were complete opposites in terms of target audiences.Manoranjan was a completely adult movie meant for grown ups only while Bundalbaaz is a family oriented film althiugh the movie contains atleast two attempted rape scenes.

This was different role for Rajesh Khanna also who was at time known for his romantic and dramatic roles.It was around 1975 that he started doing a wide array of movies venture into action and comedy movies on a regular basis.He is fun to watch here as the daydreaming hero.  

THE PLOT

Raju is a daydreamingcollege student who lives in his own dream world.He is confident that one day he will become very wealthy and famous.His best friend Asrani and girlfriend Nisha(Pandit) urge him to look at life realistically but hers none of it.After final collee exams he heads to his village where his aunt(Lalita Pawar) and sister(Farida Jalal) live.There his eyes are opened when he sees the difficulties both ladies are facing in paying for his fee.He comes to his senses and heads to city to look for a job but as soon as he gets to the city someone tries to steal his stuff but he is caught.Actually he worried about losing his college degree but it is found.Here he meets Suleman(Johnie Walker in arguably the best role of his career).Suleman is an old man who takes Raju with him to his house.There Raju finds out that Suleman deals in scrap items but when Raja tells him that he is a college graduate Suleman tells him that he has got a masters degree in arts!Sleman teaches him about the dignity of labour and Raja gets his point.

One day adejected Raja comes home and starts crying.In his frustration he throws away the waster sack he is carrying.The glasss bottles inside break and from one of these bottles springs a Genie(Shammi Kapoor).At first Raja is petrified but then calms down.The Genie tells him that he was trapped in the bottle by his uncle 20,000 years ago beacuse of his mischiefs and he made a vow that whoever frees him he will serve that person for a entire year.

Raja is apprehensive and reluctant at first but then agrees.The rest of the film follows the misadventures of the two as the well meaning Genie always creates a problem for Raja.But he helps Raja in getting the girl of his dreams,gets Raja's sister married to Ramu(Asrani),creates an indoor palace for Suleman(Walker),saves Raja's life from the clutches of the devil form hell and the conniving Ranjeet(Played here by actor Ranjeet!).At the climax a battle beneath the depths of earth ensues in which Raja and the Genie emerge victorious.

SUM-UP:

Bundalbaaz is a film aimed at the families and it doesn't disappoint.The special effects are laughable though.Shammi Kapoor gives a terrific performance.Good fun.

Rating:6/10. 

IMTIHAN

Stars:Vinod Khanna,Tanuja and Bindu
Genre:Drama
Year: 1974
Released in May 1974,IMITHAN features one of Vinod Khanna's best performances.Its a pity he didn't get more roles like this to play and played tough guy macho roles in most of his movies.I am sure if he had done(or got) more roles like these he would have been a much popular actor than he actually ended up being.This movie came at a time when Khanna was making a transition from playing villians and supporting roles to leading man in movies and some of the films he got to play the hero in are timeless classics,Mere Apne and Achanak readily come to mind and truly showcases his real talent.In all these movies he got to play sensitive roles.
In Imtihan Khanna plays Professor Pramod Sharma who leaves his father's wealth behind to stand on his own feet.Needless to say he is an idealist.Pramod gets a job of professor in a prestigious college where he had applied for the job.Although prestigious,the college has its share of bad seeds like         (Abhijeet Sen),a college bully who is in involved in every possible negative activity and Rita(Bindu) a semi nympho arrogant girl who immediately develops a crush on Pramod.Pramod with his positive attitude quickly gains the respect of students but at the same time he has to quell Rita's advances.Besides this he has to handle other student related activities like student groups and their rivalries,cheating in exams,intimidation from Rakesh etc.
One day Pramod visit's the house of  Principal Shastri(Abhi Bhattachariya) and neets Madhu(Tanuja).Madhu is a very sad girl who also walks with a limp.Pramod asks Shastri the reason for her sadness.He tells Pramod that Madhu was once a fun loving bubbly and cheerful girl and a great student of arts and painting.She was in love with an Airforce pilot but when she got the the news of his sudden death she went into a shock and fell from the college stairs and injure herself.From that day she is in a state of mourning.Shastri also tells Pramod that physically Madhu is fine and her limp is due to psychological reasons.Pramod feels sorry for her and decides to help her get out of this present stae of hers.He asks for Shastri's permission who agrees.
Pramod slowly starts helping Madhu who is at first reluctant to take his help but later agrees.Madhu begins to show improvement and her behaviour and outlook towards life becomes positive.She also starts going out to the college to meet Pramod.This makes Rita jealous and one day during a picnic Rita directly confronts Madhu and insults her.She also tells Madhu to stay away from Pramod.Madhu is shattered and the depression again takes over.She confines herself to her home and doesn't tell Pramod the reason for the resurgence of her sadness(during the picnic Pramod had been with the boys and had no idea what had happened between Rita and Madhu).In between all this Pramod breaks a nude college girl photos ring being run by      .
It is during these days that the college arranges an educational tour to         for the students.Pramod asks Madhu to come with him but she refuses.The students go to      and have a campfire with dancing and singing.The movie then cuts back to the college where students are protesting and asking for Pramod's removal from the college.All this is happening because Rita accuses Pramod of trying to rape her at    .Pramod denies it but nobody believes him.Dejected he decides to leacve the college but Madhu comes forward and persuades him to stay in the area and clear his name.She also tells Pramod that she loves him.Pramod stays back and in the end manages to clear the name.What actually happened that end?Well you have got to watch the movie to find out.
Imtihan is a terrific entertainer with superb performances by the entire cast.The story is different and the dialogues are crisp which means that the screenplay is compact.The songs are a mixed bag.Half of them are good and the other half not so good.But overall its a very entertaining movie although the main villian is annoying and with a dreadful fashion sense!
Rating:7/10

KHUBSOORAT

Stars:Ashok Kumar,Rekha and Rakesh Roshan
Genre: Family drama
Year: 1980

Khubsoorat is another beautiful film by Hrishikesh Mukherjee.He is known for making some of the best family films in Bollywood from the 50's right upto to the mid-eighties.This movie came out when he was at the peak of his career.Just the prevous year he had scored a big hit with Gol Maal(which is still popular amongst cinegoers) and Naram Garam was to follow the next year.Khubsoorat,itself was a box office success.
The story is a simple family based affair.The film starts with scenes from the Gupta household which includes Mr.Dwarka Prasad Gupta(Ashok Kumar),his wife Nirmala Gupta(Dina Pathak),their 4 sons(Amarnath,Vijay Kishore,Rakesh Roshan and Ranjit Chaudhary).The eldest son is married and the second one is about to be married.The household is very conservative and is ruled with an iron fist by Nirmala Gupta.She has stiff rules for everything and every family member.The eldest son runs his own business,the second one is a lawyer,the third a doctor and the youngest is in school.
Nirmala is looking for a girl for his second son for marriage.A family friend suggests the elder daughter of Mr Ram Dayal.The younger daughter is Manju(Rekha).
The Gupta family goes to see the girl and are some what shocked to see the easy going behaviour of the Dayal family.They are the complete opposite of the Guptas.But they like the girl and the marriage date is arranged.At this occasion both the hero and heroine also meet for the first time.Both are trying to one-up the other,hence there is tension between them.
The marriage takes place and the story then picks up six months later with the Dayal family still saddened by Anju's departure.Manju is very close to her sister thats why she is more sad than the others.Their servant suggests that they go visit Anju but Mr Dayal refuses to go but agrees to sending Manju their.
Manju arrives at the Gupta's house unannounced.This perturbs Mrs Gupta but she says nothing directly to Manju.But from the moment manju arrives at the house,the lives of all the members of the Gupta household are turned ipside down.She touches the lives of each member of the family and teaches them small things to remain happy in life and spread that happiness amongst each other.The family members of Mrs Gupta are all nice and good people but they are too afraid of Mrs Gupta to fully express their feelings.But Manju changes all that.During her stay she falls in love with Inder(Rakesh Roshan),the third son.
One day while Mrs Gupta is away on a personal visit,Manju arranges a tableau for the entire family on the rooftop of the house.But they are caught doing that when Mrs Gupta returns before her scheduled return.She gets furious at all the family members.The family apologizes but she doesn't listen.She also asks Manju to leave.The next day the family has to leave for another city to attend a family wedding.Only Mr and Mrs Gupta alongwith Manju stayback.Mr Gupta tries to persuade Mrs Gupta to forgive Manju but she is adamant.During their argument Mr Gupta suffers a heart attack and this sends Mrs Gupta into panic.Manju takes control of the situation and immediately calls a doctor.After the doctor leaves,Manju takes care of Mr Gupta.During this time Mrs Gupta also softens up and she really start to like Manju.After a couple of days the family arrives but Manju leaves immediately without saying goodbye to anyone.
But just as she is about to board the train for her hometown,Mrs Gupta alongwith Inder arrive at the station and stop her from going.
The movie cuts to a happy household where Manju is now married to Inder and the movie ends with the entire Gupta family enjoying a nice evening together.
The acting in the movie by all the actors is brilliant.Rekha shines in her lead role but Ashok Kumar  and Shashikala(in a rare positive role) are also terrific.The script,dialogue and story are virtually flawless.They are bound to be flawless when the dialogues are written by Gulzar sahab.I guess the only weakness of the movie are its songs.Apart from this weakness their is nothing wrong with the movie.Rekha won the filmfare award for best lead actress for this movie.It was her first win.The movie itself won the filmfare award for best picture of 1980.Khoobsurat is a great family entertainer not to be missed.Watch it if you haven't seen it as yet.You won't be disappointed.
Rating:7.5/10

PARWANA

Stars:Navin Nischol,Yogita Bali,Shatrughan Sinha and Amitabh Bachchan
Genre:Love story/Mystery
Year: 1971
This little known Big B movie features his first role as a villian.He did not play a villian for another 31years.Aankhen released in 2002 was his second movie as a villian.Since then he has played the bad guy in half a dozen movies.No one really knew Amitabh Bachchan back in 1971.He was only of the new batch of actors to enter the movies at that time and he was not considered as a future talent.Vinod Khanna,Shatrughan Sinha,Navin Nischol,Anil Dhawan(brother of famous director David Dhawan),Vijay Arora and some 4-5 other actors entered Bollywood at the same time.It is hard to imagine now but Nischol,Arora and Dhawan were being touted as future stars wheras Khanna,Sinha and Big B were regarded as least likely to succeed.Infact Big B was labeled a failed actor at that time.How wrong were they...
Now about the movie.The movie is basically a love triangle cum thriller.Kumar Sen(Bachchan) is a painter and sculptor whose is in love with his childhood friend Asha(Bali) but he is too shy to express his feelings to her.She lives with her uncle Ashok Varma(Om Prakash).On a vacation trip she falls in lovce with Rajeshwar(Navin Nischol).On her return she first shares this news with her friend Kumar.Kumar is heartbroken and pours her heart to Asha.Asha is shocked but tells him that nothing can be done now but she still thinks of him as one of her best friend.When Rajeshwar visits Mumbai,Sen is engulfed with jealousy.He goes to meet Asha's uncle to remind him of the promise he has made to Sen to hand Asha's hand to him.But the uncle says that he never promised anything and tells Sen to forget about Asha.Sen leaves the place furious.
The next day the uncle's dead body is found and from that point the movie turns into a mystery movie.Who really is the killer forms the second half of the story.Although Rajeshwar is arrested for the murder we soon find out that Sen is the real killer.What forms the second part of the movie is to how Sen plans the murder and then tries to cover his tracks.
Shatrughan Sinha makes a guest appearance as a public prosecutor.
This is a Big B movie all the way.Although he is the villian,he is the main character of the movie.His performance is chilling albeit a bit rough around the edges.The rest of the cast ably do their parts.A very young Vikram Ghokhale makes an appearance as a police inspector.He is the guy who played the Police commisioner opposite Big B in the cult movie Agneepath,released 19 years after Parwana.
It is not the best movie you will ever see but its a decent timepass movie.
Rating:5/10 

GUDDI

Stars:Dharmendra,Jaya Bachchan and Utpal Dutt
Genre:Drama
Year:1971
The film marked the movie debut of Jaya Bachchan.She plays Kusum, a school girl crazy about movies and madly in love with filmstar Dharmendra.Kusum lives with her dad(A.k Hangal),elder brother Vijay Kishore and Bhahbi Sumita Sanyal.Her family members know about her craze for movies but they don't know anything about her crush on Dharmendra(he playts himself in the movie).Her cousin Navin(Sumit Bhanja) is interested in her but cannot express his feelings for her.He comes to visit them and tries to spend time with Guddi but she only talks about movies.During her vacations she comes to Mumbai to stay with her uncle Professor Gupta(Utpal Dutt in a delightful role).Mr Gupta and her bhabhi talk about marrying Kusum to Navin.It is then that she tells Navin that she cannot marry him as she is in love with Dharmendra.Navin tells this to Prof Gupta who comes up with a plan to get rid of Kusum's craze for movies.He uses his connections and meets Dharmendra in person.He tells him the entire story and asks for his help.Dharmendra is reluctant at first but finally agrees to help the Prof.They arrange for Kusum to come to the studio to watch the shootings.Kusum is over the moon at first and is very excited to meet Dharmendra and watch the shootings also.But as she watches more and more shootings she begins to realise how fake ,sad and empty the film world is.Her thinking begins to change.She begins to develop feelings for Navin.This is exactly what Prof.Gupta and Dharmendra had planned in the first place.The movie ends with a happy note when Kusum finally expresses her love for Navin.
The movie is directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee.His films always carried some message and this one deals with an issue which is still very come that is developing crushes on filmstars.But he also tries to get across the point that behind all the glitter of cinema there is a lot of pain and sorrow.Jaya Bachchan in her debut is superb.She captures the innocence of a star struck girl perfectly.The support players including the late Bengali actor Samir Bhanja does terrific jobs with their roles.But the movie really belongs to Dharmendra and Utpal Dutt who play the matchmakers in the movie.The movie also includes cameos by topstars of the era.Infact they appear in shots from films that were really being made at the the time and subsequently came out during that time.Amitabh Bachchan,Dilip Kumar,Vinod Khanna,Rajesh Khanna and many other prominent stars make appearances.The story,screenplay and dialogues by Hrishida,Gulzar sahib and DN Mujherjee are superb.The songs are bit forgetable but all in all it is top notch entertainment.
Rating:6/10

ANITA

Stars:Manoj Kumar,Sadhana and I.S Johar
Genre:Mystery/Suspense
Year:1967
Anita is the Bollywood version of the classic Hollywood movie Laura.This was Manoj Kumar and Sadhana's second mystery movie.The first one was Woh Kaun Thi?,which was remade in 1977 as Ab Kya Hoga with Shatrughan Sinha and Neetu Singh(now Neetu Kapoor) in lead roles.Both movies were directed by Raj Khosla who also made Mera Saaya(1966) which was another mystery movie also starring Sadhana.All three were hits.Manoj Kumar,during the 60's worked in a series of successful mystery movies.Apart from Woh Kaun Thi?and Anita,he also had success with Gumnaam(1965) and Sajan(1969).Since this is a mystery movie i will not delve into much detail.I will just focus on the basic outline of the plot.
The movie starts with the disappearance of Anita(Sadhana).No one knows where she has vanished.Her
 father(Sajjan),her boyfriend Neeraj(Manoj Kumar) and all her friends are worried about her.We are told through flashbacks that Neeraj and Anita were in love and planned to marry.But her father opposed the marriage insisting instead to marry her to a business tycoon Anil Sharma(Kishen Mehta).Its at this point that Anita disppears.A while later it is found that Anita committed suicide.Neeraj doesn't believe this and starts 'seeing' her everywhere.The only problem is that no one else sees her.Neeraj's friends,worried that he might be losing his sanity persuade him to take a vacation.On vacation he again sees her in the guise of a jogan(holy lady).But the jogan tells him that her name is Maya.But thn she too disappears.When Neeraj tries to find her he is shocked to find out that Maya jogan died 20 years ago.By now,Neeraj also begins to question his sanity.But the sightings do not end.They continue.Desperate,Neeraj hires detectives to find out the truth.
Neeraj and the detectives find out the truth in the end but like i mentioned earlier in the review that i don't want to give away the main twists of the plots,this being a mystery movie.
The movie is a terrific,if somewhat dated entertainer.Like he did in Woh Kaun Thi?,Raj Khosla creates a mysterious and foggy atmosphere.At times some scenes become contrived and some what labored but on the whole the movie is solid enterainment.One more problem with the movie(which i guess is the case with all mystery suspense movies) is that there is no re-watch value.Once you know the main mystery it becomes a tad boring to watch the movie  again.The songs ae good and so are the dialogues.The screenplay is also solid.As for the performances,Manoj Kumar in the central role gives a fantastic performance.Sadhana is uneven,she is good in some parts and not so good in others.Kishen Mehta as always is boring but the rest of the support actors are good in their bits.If you are a Bollywood mystery movie bluff then definitely watch out.Even if you are not a fan of mystery movies iwould highly recommed this movie.
Rating:7/10

BAWARCHI

Stars: Rajesh Khanna,Jaya Bachchan and Asrani
Year:1972
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Hrishikesh Mukherjee was the greatest bollywood director of all time.This is my presonal opinion.His films were very different from the usual bollywood fares.They had a soft,laid back and comfortable feel to them.His films varied from serious dramas like Anand and Abhimaan to light comedies like Chupke Chupke,Golmaal and Rang Birangi.The thing i like about his movies is that no matter how many times i watch his movies i nevetr seem to get bored.He worked with all the top stars of the time.Most of his movies were with Dharamendra,Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan.This is one of his best.For the second time Rajesh Khanna plays a single hero in this movie.It means that there is no romantic lead in the movie.
The movie centers around the Sharma family.It is headed by Dadaji.He has two married sons,Ramnath(A.KHangal) the elder son and Kashi(Kalinath Banerjee).They are married to sisters,Seeta(Durga Khote) to elder one and the younger sister Shobha(Usha Kiran) to the younger one.Both have a younger unmarried brother,Vishwanath(Asrani) who is a music film composer.Ramnath and Seeta have a spoilt young daughter and Kashi and Shobha have  a little son.They had a sister who died in an accident leaving their orphaned daughter Krishna(Jaya Bachchan) to live with the.
Them always fights with eachother over little things.There is disharmony in the house and it is very sad place to live.No servant stays there for more than a couple of days because they get tired of the fighting.The Sharmas decide to look for a new cook(Bawarchi).One morning a Bawarchi walks upto their house.His name is Raghu(Rajesh Khanna) and with his friendly nature convinces the family to hire him.Raghu changes their lives forever.He teaches them the values and benefits of happiness and sharing that happiness amongst each other.He teaches a valuable lesson to each family member in a different way.
In the end when he thinks his job is done he leaves.It is then found out that he is a very educated man and after getting tired with his style of living,sets out to find the true meaning of life.He finds that meaning in making others happy.There is a twist at the end which i would not give away in this review.But this is a beautiful clean family movie which carries an important message for everyone.The performances of the entire cast are superb.But you would expect this from a Hrishida movie.He had the ability to bring out the best from his actors.I highly recommend this movie.
Rating:8.5/10