#guru dutt

I forgot to send this time for the mustache poll but on the Bollywood end, I always thought Guru Dutt had a great stache..

Madhubala in Mr. & Mrs. '55 (1955)

1. Disco Dancer (1982) - 10/10 viewing experience. who needs cocaine when you have this movie. ICONIC music.

2. Boxer (1984)- 7/10, enjoyable sports drama, even if it gets melodramatic towards the end. pretty realistic injuries by 80’s standards.

3. Pyaar Jhukta Nahi (1985) - 6/10. enjoyable first half, decent chemistry, but i was mad at how they let the dad off the hook so easily at the end.

4. Agneepath (1990) - 2/10. idc if this is a classic, mithun’s character annoyed the shit out of me. his tamil was atrocious.

5. Prem Vivaah (1979) - 5/10. i actually really liked the first half. second half was a big letdown.

6. Hum Paanch (1980) - 6.5/10. interesting concept, but gets rushed towards the end. really liked the songs.

7. Hum Intezaar Karenge (1989) - 5/10. not bad, not good. a solid meh.

8. C.I.D (1956) - 4/10. whoever advertised this to me as a crime thriller is a big, fat liar. dev anand does actual investigative work for maybe 10 minutes. iconic songs though. waheeda rehman was also great.

9. Paying Guest (1957) - 6/10. all over the place like C.I.D, but i kinda liked it. liked dev anand’s comic timing. didn’t like his stalker-ish tendencies.

10. Taxi Driver (1954) - 5/10. kalpana kartik is a gem and has mad chemistry with her husband. pacing was weird. wished the second female lead had more screentime.

11. Nau Do Gyarah (1957) - 6/10. really, really liked the idea (i think it would make an interesting thriller even today). as usual, let down by execution. second movie i saw in which kalpana kartik dresses up as a boy.

12. Tamasha (1952) - 7/10. enjoyed this one, even if the ending was rushed. shout out to kishore kumar - he was in the movie just to be an agent of chaos.

13. Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi (1958) - 8.5/10. i really, really liked this movie. cohesive story, fleshed-out characters, good score - this one had it all. madhubala is so charming and props to kishore kumar for matching her energy. if i had to choose one movie to remake, it would be this one.

14. Mr. and Mrs. 55 (1955) - 3/10. this was problematic af. weakest guru dutt movie i’ve seen so far for sure, and makes me really not like him if this was his worldview. also, he was completely outshined by madhubala, who again, was a treat.

15. Pyaasa (1957) - 6/10. this was hyped up so much so i did have some expectations…some which were met and some which were not. the main lead just came across as a misanthrope to me. i did feel bad for him at times but i was also like “dude just get a job”. his treatment of women is confusing. the ending is also confusing - i wasn’t sure if they were going to just run away together or if they were both going to k*ll themselves. the movie is beautifully shot for its time though, and has some really nice poetry sequences. idk i have a lot of thoughts about this one - it could spawn a whole other post.

additional observations (mostly about the 50’s and 60’s):

1. women’s roles were painfully one-dimensional. they’re almost always there as props for the main leads. also, i found it interesting that quite a few muslims (madhubala, meena kumari, johnny walker) changed their original muslim names. don’t really know why this was a thing.

2. on a positive side, there was a lot more diversity amongst female actresses with respect to body types. there was suraiya and meena kumari who were curvy, kalpana kartik who was skinny and madhubala who was somewhere in the middle. however, fat women and dark-skinned women have been painfully underrepresented. dev anand literally uses “buffalo-like, black woman” as an insult. sad that current bollywood is also still like this.

3. movies back then were sooo damn slowww. i’m not just talking about runtimes (which are honestly not better or worse than now) but the pacing of these movies is just awful. there are multiple movies which start off slow and then rush their climaxes. but yk, i’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. maybe this generation is just too inattentive.

4. there was a surprising lack of mythological/historical fiction movies. the only one i’ve heard of so far is mirza ghalib. this was pretty surprising to me because early tamil cinema (which i grew up with) has many of these (karnan, maya bazaar, tenali raman etc.) bollywood was making a lot more movies about society at the time. this seems to have changed now, with there being barely any mythical tamil movies (yeah ik PS exists but it’s an outlier), while bollywood is obsessed with re-telling the ramayana in 50 different forms.