This post first appeared on Totally Filmi on May 16, 2019.
I haven’t participated in a blogathon in a while, but when I saw that there was one dedicated to celebrating National Classic Movie Day, I really wanted to dust off the blog and share something. The idea is to share five favourite films from the 1950s — almost an impossible task! There are so many films from this era that I love, and my list just kept getting longer and longer the more I thought about it.
But then I realized that for some of the people who might find themselves reading this, it might be their first exposure to Indian cinema, and what is the use of whetting someone’s interest without giving them a chance to see any of the films?
Fortunately, there has been, recently, an increasing number of older Indian films being added to the catalogues of various streaming services — so for the purposes of this post, I decided to choose five films that are readily available on more mainstream services (all with English subtitles). Let’s begin!
1. Mayabazar (director K.V. Reddy, Telugu, 1957)
Director K.V. Reddy’s 1957 film Mayabazar (“Market of Illusions”) is based on Sasirekha Parinayam, a folktale inspired by, but not part of, the grand Indian epic the Mahabharata, and tells the story of the marriage of Sasirekha, the daughter of Balarama, to Abhimanyu, the son of Arjuna. It was the first mythological film from Vijaya Vauhini Studios, and was renowned for its technological and cinematic brilliance. I do think it is helpful to have a bit of understanding of the general background of the Mahabharata — in particular the situation involving the game of dice that led to the downfall of the Pandavas that serves as the backdrop to this story, but the film does a good job of setting it all up so that we understand why the marriage of Sasirekha and Abhimanyu ends up thwarted, at least until the god Krishna and Ghatotkacha (another important character in the great epic) team up to make sure that the young couple can be wed.
I love so much about this film, but one of my favourite things is the box that Krishna brings as a gift for Sasirekha– essentially, the person who opens it will see the thing that is dearest to them. In the case of Sasirekha, she opens the box to see Abhimanyu singing the song “Neeve Naa” (“Is It You?”) to her: “Is it you who thought about me? Is it you who asked for me? Is it you who lives in my heart and stirs it up?”
Unfortunately, the only decent video of this song is from a recent restoration of the film, at which time it was colourized. I’m not a fan of this type of restoration (and I have read that there are plans to restore the film once more, this time without the colourization process), but this will give you a taste of how grand this film is.
Mayabazar is available to stream in its original Telugu version (B&W), as well as in its Tamil language dubbed version (restored and colourized) on Amazon Prime.
2. Mr. & Mrs. 55 (director Guru Dutt, Hindi, 1955)
I know. I know. If you were going to choose any film by the great Guru Dutt to be on a five best films of the 1950s, normally the first to come to mind is his wonderful 1957 film Pyaasa (Thirst). And I highly recommend it. But I also love that Dutt — widely renowned for his work on serious films like Pyaasa and Kaagaz Ke Phool (Paper Flowers) — also made what is a delightful screwball comedy, starring himself and the exquisite actress Madhubala. In Mr. & Mrs. 55, Madhubala plays Anita Verma, a wealthy heiress who lives with her aunt Seeta Devi (Lalita Pawar). Anita’s father’s will states that she will only retain her fortune if she marries within a month of turning twenty-one. Seeta Devi, an avowed feminist who is suspicious of men, plans to set Anita up in a sham marriage so that she can later divorce, thereby allowing her to both inherit under the rules of the will, and then allowing her to have her freedom back. Seeta Devi hires a struggling cartoonist named Preetam (Guru Dutt) to participate in her plan, unaware that Anita and Preetam have already met.
There are so many reasons to watch this film (currently available on Amazon Prime), but perhaps the best one is the chance to acquaint yourself with the lovely Madhubala — and if you fall under her spell, I highly recommend heading over to Netflix to watch her in K. Asif’s grand epic film from 1960, Mughal-e-Azam.
3. Tumsa Nahin Dekha (director Nasir Hussain, Hindi, 1957)
Gopal (B.M. Vyas) kills a man after a gambling game gone wrong, and flees to Assam, where he transforms himself into Sardar Rajpal. Twenty years later, he’s the wealthy owner of a tea plantation, living with his adopted daughter Meena (Ameeta). But he longs to find his wife and their son, Shankar, so one day he places two ads in the newspaper: the first, advertising for two employees; the second, a carefully worded one that he hopes his wife will see. But the ad is not carefully worded enough: his enemies (who want to bring him to justice for the murder of their brother/uncle) see the ad and put two and two together, sending the nephew (Pran) to pretend to be Shankar. At the same time, the real Shankar (Shammi Kapoor) decides to apply for one of the jobs. His mother has seen both ads, and, realizing that Sardar Rajpal is Shankar’s father, sends a letter to him telling him that Shankar is their son. But when two Shankars arrive (each with a letter written by the mother, as the real Shankar lost his and had it replaced, and the fake Shankar found the original), Sardar Rajpal and Meena must figure out which one is real, and which is the imposter.
Tumsa Nahin Dekha (“I’ve Not Seen Anything Like You”), was, apparently, designed as a star vehicle for Ameeta, though, perhaps, the irony of this is that Ameeta never managed to achieve the kind of stardom her studio hoped for. Instead, it was her co-star, Shammi Kapoor, who had been struggling as an actor (despite being part of the Kapoor clan of actors and directors that included his brothers Raj Kapoor and Shashi Kapoor), that shot to stardom as a result of the film. I’m an absolute Shammi fan — but I think to appreciate Shammi, you have to go for peak Shammi of the 1960s in films like Junglee and Bluffmaster. That said, Tumsa Nahin Dekha allows us to see what Shammi would become with his matinee idol looks and charming persona — we even get a hint of the “Yahoo!” that would become a marker of the film Junglee.
Tumsa Nahin Dekha is also available on Amazon Prime.
4. The Apu Trilogy (director Satyajit Ray, Bengali)
Ah, see what I did there? That’s my chance to sneak three films in for the price of one, all under the guise of them being connected as a trilogy, the three films serving as a “coming of age” story of the titular Apu. I’ll admit that there are moments when I get a little frustrated that Western interest in and knowledge of Indian cinema gets reduced to Ray’s trilogy — and yet, at the same time, I have to acknowledge that these three films, Pather Panchali (1955), Aparajito (1956), and Apur Sansar (1959), are absolutely and utterly glorious in every way. What I hope is that people come for Apu, and then decide that they want to expand their Indian cinema viewing, because there is much more to cinema than Ray. There is much gold beyond Ray’s cinema, in many of India’s film industries (because, of course, there are films in a wide array of Indian languages, each suited to their audience and their tastes and interests).
The Apu Trilogy was recently restored and is currently available for viewing on the newly minted Criterion Channel. And if you made me choose just one of these films, I’d probably always end up with the last one in the trilogy, Apur Sansar (“The World of Apu”), because, well, Soumitra Chatterjee and Sharmila Tagore:
5. Parasakthi (directors Krishnan-Panju, Tamil, 1952)
Well. I have saved what is probably the most complicated of the films for the last of my fab fave five. Parasakthi (“The Goddess”) is a grand, sweeping tale of tragedy and redemption, of families separated and reunited, of the state of the world, and the state of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Set during World War 2, we find Kalyani (Sriranjani) and her father living in Madurai, whilst her three brothers and the wife of one of the brothers are living in Burma. The film opens with happy news — Kalyani’s wedding is about to take place, and her brothers are excited to return home to attend her wedding. But because of the war only a limited number of boat tickets are available, and the brothers find they can only get one. They decide to send Gunasekaran (Sivaji Ganesan) — but his boat ends up stuck at sea for months because of the bombardments, and when he finally arrives in Tamil Nadu, his sister has not only been married, she’s had a baby, and both her husband and father have died, leaving her and her child destitute. Kalyani moves from the family’s grand house to a small hut where she sells idlis in order to make ends meet — but her life is marked by a series of setbacks involving men who wish to take advantage of her precarious state.
Gunasekaran, too, is beset by problems — no sooner does he arrive in Tamil Nadu when he’s targetted by a woman who is part of a gang that will set him up and steal all of his money and belongings. With no way to pay for even a ticket to his hometown, he finds himself a beggar — and when he realizes that the only people given any forgiveness on the streets are madmen, he pretends to be one, eventually finding his sister, but not revealing his identity, simply looking out for her from afar.
The song “Desam Gnanam” allows Gunasekaran to explain his decision to pretend to be mad: the only thing that matters in the world is money, he sings. Knowledge of the world, education, even religion, even pretty women — money comes before all of them.
This is only the briefest of nutshells about what is an incredibly rich and complex film — I think Parasakthi would make an interesting companion piece to Raj Kapoor’s 1955 film Shree 420, each of them using a marginalized figure (Raj Kapoor’s Chaplin-esque tramp, Sivaji Ganesan’s madman) to highlight social issues of India in the Partition and post-Partition era. And Parasakhti is an excellent introduction to Tamil actor Sivaji Ganesan — his debut role, we can already see glimpses of the man who would become one of Tamil cinema (and, indeed, Indian cinema)’s finest actors.
And, of course, currently Parasakthi is available for viewing on Amazon Prime.
The “5 Favourite Films of the ’50s” Blogathon, in honour of National Classic Movie Day, has been hosted by Classic Film and TV Cafe . Be sure to visit the website and check out the other entries!