CHHAILA BABU - 1977

CHHAILA BABU - 1977

There are only two things which give me *good* nostalgia for the 70s: ABBA music and Hindi movies. I spent the latter half of that decade wearing hideously patterned Qiana shirts, sporting feathered hair and fighting the tendency of my stomach to overhang hip-hugger bellbottoms, all the while living in rural Indiana and wishing I were dead, so that is actually saying something.
I suppose if I had cable television and thus access to reruns of the original “Starsky & Hutch” television shows that might do it too, but I don’t. I love Laxmikant Pyarelal’s music in this film, though, especially the opening title and background music (although the songs are fab too). It’s funkadelic 1970s, all the way, and reminds me of the opening themes to those 1970s cop shows.
Check it out!
Additionally, this film offers Rajesh Khanna in multiple avatars matching wits with gorgeous Zeenat Aman plus a host of my favorite villains, all doing their best with a completely wacked-out script—it’s a fine way to spend a Sunday afternoon, my friends, especially when you lack cable television.
Nattily-attired bad guys have been assembled for a meeting. Their mysterious host: an infamous gangster called “Scorpion” who has looted and murdered his way across India.

He is enlisting their help to pull off an 80-lakh bank robbery, and assigns each of them a task. It falls to Pratap (Ravindra Kapoor) to deliver the money to Scorpion’s man (Yusuf Khan) at the end of the heist. (It’s ridiculously easy to rob and kill the poor Southern Bank truck driver and his guards so I won’t dwell on it in any detail). Pratap is in love with Lily (Padma Khanna) and so plans to use the cash to set up a new life for them outside of India. Sadly for him, Lily is sleeping with Ranjit too and betrays him (note the requisite villain fish tank above the bed!).

Naturally the rest of the gang and Scorpion feel cheated, and Pratap is shot down at the airport when he tries to make a run for it. As he lies dying in a policeman’s arms, he gasps out that the money from the robbery is with his daughter Rita, and the code is 77203—the rest is drowned out by a plane taking off. The police and the gang are soon on Rita’s trail: she’s in Kashmir.
In Kashmir, Rita (Zeenat Aman) is a ski champion (although in the skiing shots she looks suspiciously like a stunt man). She has several fans cheering her on in remarkably unenthusiastic strangely-accented monotones.

A warning sign on the slopes is chopped down by an unseen person, and Rita skis blithely on into danger. She’s rescued by a local ski guide, who shows up again minutes later as a carriage driver.

When she asks him who he really is, he responds with a song: “Main Chhaila Babu” (translated as “Cool Guy” in the subtitles). It’s so fun, a horse-carriage ride through deep snow. The chemistry between Zeenat and Rajesh that I noticed in Ajanabee is fizzing away here too! And despite his very very bad hair (who was responsible for RK’s hair in the mid-late 70s? They should be shot!) he is very charming.
When he drops her off at her hostel, a CBI Inspector (Om Shivpuri) is waiting for her. He tells her about her father’s murder and asks her about the money. She’s distraught but knows nothing, and he asks her to return to Bombay to help the CBI in their investigation. At the airport observing her arrival are the gang and—Chhaila Babu, wearing a medal around his neck.

Cut to a night-time police chase, with a thief—Chhaila Babu again!—escaping into Rita’s stupendously decorated pad.

A yellow shag-carpeted ledge, the perfect hiding place! After the police leave empty-handed, he watches Rita change clothes (”Baap re!”); then Macmohan and his sidekick break in. They want the money, and they think Rita knows where it is.

Naturally, Chhaila Babu steps in to save her. I will say that his action skills are not even close to his romantic skills, but Rita helps him out by kicking some ass. Macmohan sees his Scorpion medal, and both men flee. Chhaila Babu tenderly administers to Rita’s wounds and kisses her; it’s to-die-for romantic despite his Prince Valiant hair.

He tells her that he loves her and wants to marry her, and if she hands over the robbery money he’ll take it to the police for her—otherwise he’s afraid she’ll be killed for it. Suspicious, Rita sees a diamond necklace hanging out of one of his pockets, and tells him furiously to get out. He tells her that society has made him a thief; that it robbed him of his family and left him with nothing to live for except vengeance, but she’s unsympathetic. After he leaves, though, she cries.
He’s not giving up and the next day he shows up again, this time as a taxi driver. He tells her that her words the night before have changed him.

She melts, of course! So do I. Later, he tells her about his past: that he lost his father and mother, and all he has left is his harmonica which his mother had inscribed with “Chhaila Babu”—her nickname for him when he was little. This morphs into a song, where we see flashbacks from his childhood combined with an old woman begging and looking for her son—his mother (Achala Sachdev) is still alive, and still looking for him!

Mera chhaila babu, mera dil! The humanity! I love this plot twist. She runs into Chhaila Babu and Rita shortly afterwards, and they discuss her lost son and his lost Ma, but fail to make the connection. Meanwhile, the police and the CBI Inspector are pretty sure that Chhaila Babu is Scorpion, but they need evidence.
The CBI Inspector decides to rope in Rita to help them get evidence. To that end, he takes her to a nightclub where she sees Chhaila Babu flirting with Lily, and then playing the drums when she dances to a great tune called “Kal Raat.” It’s a crazy number—worthy of Helen at her finest—Padma does it justice too.

The club happens to belong to Ranjit, and Macmohan is there too; he recognizes Chhaila Babu as Scorpion. As he tells Ranjit who Chhaila Babu really is, someone throws a knife into his chest and he’s killed.

Rita, now jealous, decides to help the CBI to catch Scorpion. What will happen? Will the gang catch him first? Who is Chhaila Babu? Is he really Scorpion? Can Rita betray him? Will he ever find his Ma? Does he really love Rita or is he just using her? And where is the 80 lakhs rupees from the Southern Bank robbery?

Watch Chhaila Babu to find out, and for the sizzling chemistry between Rajesh and Zeenat, the fabulous music, the mod 70s ambiance and the crazed script. It’s not great art—but it’s solid entertainment.

REVIEWED BY MEMSAAB STORY:

Kindly visit her great writings on Chhaila Babu at:

http://memsaabstory.wordpress.com/2008/10/21/chhaila-babu-1977/

Shehzada - 1972 (Review - 1)

SHEHZADA - 1972

Oh oh oh I love this movie! Beautiful Rakhee, yummy Rajesh, imperious Veena, nuanced characters, an interesting story, plot twists, humor, lovely RD Burman songs, and plenty of squishy dil™ (ppcc)! The melodrama was saved for the very end, when it was welcome, because by then I cared so much about everybody and everything turning out okay. The film is also beautifully shot—a visual feast, with sumptuous sets and lovely hilly scenery, and interesting camera angles. And beautiful Rakhee and yummy Rajesh!
Wealthy Rajlaxmi (Veena) rules her palatial home and her company with a steely perfectionism. Her son Ratan (Karan Dewan) is an invalid who is pining for his wife and son.

He’s a spineless sad-sack; Rajlaxmi long ago had forced him to choose between her and his wife Janki, and to his everlasting regret he chose to stay with his mother. For her part, Rajlaxmi loves him and supplies him with the best doctors, nurses and medicine, but he longs for his wife and son who now live in poverty—although he is too much of a coward to leave home.
His son Rajesh—called Raji—(Rajesh Khanna) has grown up to become a truck driver, and he has an ongoing flirtation with a lovely shopkeeper named Chanda (Rakhee).

Chanda has an abusive uncle (Madan Puri) who takes all her earnings and spends it on booze. Raji can’t stand him and hates to see Chanda cry. He cheers her up with a song (”Ho Tere Athroo Chun”) and his bare chest.

It’s so sweet that it makes my heart hurt. Raji is away from home sometimes for days at a time, and his mother sends him a letter asking him to come see her. He finds Janki (Pandri Bai) chopping wood and chastises her for not buying it; after all, he says, he gave her 60 bucks last month. She teases him.

They also have a sweet relationship: she clearly dotes on him and he on her. It bothers her though to see him working so hard to earn money when he could live like a “prince.” She points out that his grandmother hates her, not him, and would welcome her grandson home with open arms.

Janki in true good Indian biwi style still loves and worries about her husband too, but Raji is immovable on the subject and refuses to discuss it further. It strikes me that he strongly resembles his grandmother in his implacable obstinacy!
Meanwhile, Chanda’s uncle is selling her off in marriage to an older man for a bottle of liquor.

Raji’s friend Nandu (Mohan Choti) is in the bar and overhears the transaction, and hurries to tell Raji about it. The next day, Chanda’s pleas are falling on deaf ears but Raji and Nandu arrive in the nick of time to stop the wedding. After a great deal of very athletic fighting with long sticks (what kind of fighting is this stick fighting? I just saw it in another film as well), he carts her off.
When he asks where she wants to go, she says pitifully that she has nobody, only her tears and poverty. His response is funny: “Wah, wah.” He doesn’t tolerate her teary self-pity for even a minute–but is affectionate about it. They sing a sweet duet, “Na Jaiyo Na Jaiyo Chhod Ke Na Jaiyo Meri Rani” which I wish I understood—but Eros doesn’t believe in subtitling songs (what’s wrong with them?)…

He takes her home to Janki, who welcomes her with open arms.
Meanwhile, Ratan thinks that he hasn’t long to live, and he wants to see Janki and Raji. To that end, he tries to enlist the help of his mother’s right-hand man Nekiram (Sunder), who points out that Rajlaxmi has eyes “behind her head” and that even the walls have ears.

Sure enough, Rajlaxmi calls Nekiram into her office—and has a recording of the entire conversation.

Poor Ratan has no chance of getting help from anyone in the household. Back at home, Raji continues to tease Chanda.

Their romance continues apace with my favorite song in the film, “Rim Jhim Rim Jhim Dekho”:

Janki has a bad dream about Ratan and tells Chanda the reason for her mother-in-law’s enmity. Janki’s father was a freedom fighter, but Rajlaxmi’s husband was a DIG working for the British who supported them and helped wage war on the men fighting for India’s independence. This ideological clash ended in Janki’s father shooting and killing Ratan’s father.

Rajlaxmi (naturally enough) could not bear to have her husband’s killer’s daughter living in her house (Janki’s father was hanged for the murder), and booted her out with her infant son, giving Ratan the option to stay or go; as we know by now, he stayed with his mother. I wonder briefly why Rajlaxmi with her wealth and resources didn’t force Janki to give up her son too, but if she had there would be no Shehzada for me to enjoy and I let it go.
Janki’s dream has worried her, and she’s determined to visit Ratan. Raji refuses to let her go, and goes instead to fetch his father. Ratan is overjoyed to see him, but afraid to go with him until his mother goes out of town on business later that evening. Alas, her trip is canceled and she catches them as they are about to drive away. She invites Raji to come in.

She shows him the room she’s kept as his, stocked with the clothes and toys she bought in trips abroad when he was a child. When she asks him to come live with her and Ratan, he says he’ll be glad to—when she apologizes to his mother. Her response is predictable!

He returns home to his mother, and tells her that his father is fine. She’s overjoyed that Rajlaxmi welcomed him, but he repeats that until his grandmother welcomes his mother too, he’s not interested. She’s not pleased with that, though she has bigger things to worry about soon.

Raji manages to fight off Chanda’s uncle and his array of colorfully-turbaned goons, but not before her uncle threatens revenge. Janki points out that the only way to really protect Chanda from her uncle is for Raji to marry her, and he does so the very next day. All I can say is—it’s about time!

Post-marriage, Raji discovers that his grandmother has bought out his employer Bandhu Transport and promoted him to manager, but he tells Rajlaxmi to eff off with another song (I think, although of course I have no real clue what he’s saying) called “Thokar Mein Hai Meri.”
Then Chanda’s uncle strikes again. He hires a girl to entrap Raji by falling in the road in front of his truck and then screaming “Rape!” when he jumps out to help her. Raji refuses the expensive lawyer sent by Rajlaxmi, and is sentenced to two years in jail. At the same time Chanda discovers that she is pregnant; she and Janki go to see Raji in his cell where Chanda shyly has trouble telling him why she’s not feeling well.

He is overjoyed to hear about his impending fatherhood, although obviously it’s tempered by sorrow that he’s behind bars. Still, he makes Chanda promise that she won’t let his mother go to Rajlaxmi and Ratan to ask them for help getting him freed. She does, reluctantly and also very literally.

When Raji is finally let out of jail, though, he discovers that Chanda and their son are living in luxury with Rajlaxmi and the ailing Ratan, while his mother still lives in her hut. What has happened in the interim? Was Chanda lured by Rajlaxmi’s wealth? Can he ever forgive her? Will the family ever be united?
This film is just so good. The characters are three-dimensional and believable: as proud and unbending as Rajlaxmi is, she also really loves her son and grandson. Raji is a lot like her, which makes their conflict all the more poignant, and his relationships with his mother and Chanda are so sweet. Chanda and Janki could easily have devolved into groan-inducing weepy sacrificing female stereotypes, but don’t thanks to good performances from Pandri Bai and Rakhee. Raji too is complex: stubborn, teasing and a bit aloof, but warm-hearted and loving too. Rajesh Khanna is at his most charming and endearing here. (Veena does overact a bit, but I think it’s a generational thing: she always did in her early films too. But I love her!)
I also kept waiting with some trepidation for the plot to come unraveled as so often happens in the second half of Hindi movies, but it never did! I was engaged and entertained from beginning to end. This one is going on the shelf of films that I never get tired of. I can (and will) watch it over and over again!


Shehzada is reviewed and beautifully written by Memsaabstory:

Kindly visit at :

http://memsaabstory.wordpress.com/2008/10/26/shehzada-1972/