more dilip kumar. this time in colour in the really distorted hindi version of ‘wuthering heights’- ‘dil diya dard liya’. childhood romance between him and waheeda rehman goes sour and he is thrown out as the servant of the house until he . he turns out to be the heir of millowners and returns as raja sahib to make her suffer. tons of unnecessary melodrama and high pitched wails. dilip kumar offsets it all by staying almost still and mumbling almost incoherently in a deep bass to giving his presence gravitas in the potboiler. the song of the film- mohammed rafi and ‘koi sagar dil ko behlataa nahin’. sometimes it is only about the music. otherwise ‘barsaat ki raat’ has nothing really to redeem itself as a story- what with ridiculous coincidences, swooning women, irate parents and bharat bhushan. his face has but one dumbfounded expression but when he opens his mouth in front of the mike there is mohammed rafi’s voice. the title track has always been one of my favorites and the rainy sequence which inspires it is lovely. but the film is most fun when the tiresome melodrama just stops somewhat half way thorugh the movie and instead we get three qawallis non stop. each one is fabulous especially ‘yeh ishq ishq hain’. in ‘baiju bawra’ the real hero is the music. not so much the ‘ganga ki mauj’ or even the strident ‘duniya ke rakhwale’ but for me the bhajan ‘man tarpat hari’ where the music makes a lame man walk; and ‘mohe bhool gaye saawariya’. she had the sweetest voice then without a glimpse of the sharpness of some of the later songs. in the film the music can do anything- make stone idols cry and make stone dissolve and explode in water.ragas even appear in the sky as meena kumari as apsara. and besides lata and rafi there is also amir khan and dv paluskar to make excess of plenty. banno says she cant get kishore kumar humor and i cant agree with her more. ‘mr x in bombay’ stretched one gag into a film. so- he is invisible and slaps people around. also cars fly around on marine drive and head straight into rajabhai tower. good special effects for its time, i guess. but if i begin to use the ‘for its time’ to be able to appreciate a film then it means i am trying too hard. cool scenes no 1. when at the end of ‘mere mehboob qayamat’ sung at the gateway of india he disappears (for the cinema city map); and no 2: the high hopping act in front of shireen gandhi’s kekkee manzil. pushpamala also jumped off it in a much later avatar as phantom lady.
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