Scenes From My Father’s Films

As I have mentioned in the About page, I always wanted to have a site dedicated to my father. Way back in the past I wasn’t sure about the form the site would take, but one thing I was sure about and that was I would have a section on scenes from his films. I therefore started collecting DVDs of his films, so that my brother could edit the scenes and upload them. Initially in the first few posts my brother did just that, but those of you who are regular readers may have noticed that I now use a new tool TubeChop. This has made life easier, there is now no need to edit the scenes, all I have to do is directly chop the videos from You Tube and either embed them or link to the chopped scene.

As Tube Chop does not provide you with an option of a suitable thumbnail, I decided to publish the screen caps from the chosen scenes and provide links to the chopped scene instead of embedding them.

I have already  featured few scenes in my initial posts, in this post I will feature scenes from those films that have been recently uploaded on You Tube. Some of these scenes are my favourites. 

Shama

When I began  writing this blog, Shama was not available on You Tube, it was available on another site, now that someone has been kind enough to upload it, I would like to feature two of my favourite scenes from this film. I just loved my father's performance in this film.

Shama with Suraiya

In the first clip (to watch scene click here), my father the villain, is up to mischief.  

Shama ( A repentant Dilawar (my father) being berated by his sister (Suraiya)

The second scene comes towards the end of the film. If you decide to see the film then it would be better not to watch this scene. However if you have no wish to  to see the film, please go ahead and watch this scene (click here). I love this scene because my father shows a range of emotions in this scene and I find his performance excellent.

Devar

Devar

When  I began writing this blog Devar was not available on You Tube. Thankfully now it is available on You Tube. It was made around the same time as Anupama with almost the same cast. It was based on a Bengali novel Naa written by Tara Shankar Banarjee. The film was a pretty messed up version of the novel, in the film the director introduced elements that were not there in the novel. My father who played Sharmila Tagore’s elder brother gave a wonderful performance despite the shortcomings of the script.

Devar with Dharmendra

There is one scene that I really like. My father had to deliver a monologue in this scene, logically the scene itself is a bit unbelievable, because if you to talk to someone and that someone whose back is turned towards you does not respond, you are bound to stop mid-sentence, wondering why the person is not responding. However, in this scene my father is shown delivering his dialogue without any problem, even though he receives no response from the person he thinks he is addressing. Anyway logical or not my father does a wonderful job of delivering the dialogue. For me it is a wonderful lesson in how to pronounce Hindi and Urdu words. (Click here to watch the scene)

Mujhe Jeene Do

Mujhe Jeene Do with Sunil Dutt

I do not need to describe this scene, I have already discussed this at length in my post on Mujhe Jeene Do.  This scene would definitely make it to one of my most favourite scenes list. I like the way my father grits his teeth while delivering his dialogue. (Click here)

Umeed

My father played the polished villain in this Ashok Kumar - Joy Mukherjee - Nanda - Leela Naidu starrer. Recently I noticed that this film has been uploaded on You Tube. Although the picture quality is not so good I have chosen a fight scene between my father and Joy Mukherjee.

Joy Mukherjee strangling my father in Umeed

Joy Mukherjee got so carried away that he nearly strangled my father.  My father was struggling trying to signal to the director to cut the scene, but the director (Nitin Bose) thought that my father was giving a realistic performance (click here to watch the scene). When  the director finally called cut,  he realized that my father wasn’t acting, he had been really struggling. My father was in a terrible shape, my mother was horrified to see his condition when he came home late in the night. This incident reminds me of what one director once told Marlon Brando, who in his bid to perform realistically did something that left him totally exhausted. The director told him, “Why don’t you try acting for a change.”  I read it long ago, so I have forgotten the details of the incident.  

Gunah Aur Kanoon

Gunah Aur Kanoon was a low budget film produced by comedian Johnny Whisky. It starred Sanjeev Kumar and Kumkum. Sanjeev Kumar had yet to make it big.

My father with Sanjeev Kumar in Gunah Aur Kanoon

I saw this film but I do not remember much of it, but my father’s get up is what I remember very well, the villain with sunglasses and he wore a wig with side parting, that was a rarity for my father. In films he seldom had a parting and in real life he never did part his hair. Here is a scene from the film.

Chand Aur Suraj

In this film Ashok Kumar, Nirupa Roy and my father formed a love triangle. Dharmendra who plays Ashok Kumar's younger brother believes that his widowed sister-in-law Nirupa Roy is having an illicit affair with my father. He later realizes that his sister-in-law was meeting her husband and not my father.

Chand Aur Suraj

In this scene my father is defending Dharmendra. After shooting this scene, director Dulal Guha who was also the film’s producer wanted to shoot a scene showing Dharmendra apologizing to my father for believing that my father was having an affair with his sister-in-law. Guha, however, ran out of money, he therefore had to drop the scene. The film ended with Dharmendra not apologizing to my father.

Dharti Kahe Pukar Ke

Dulal Guha regretted the fact that he was unable to shoot that scene so much that when he again worked with my father in Dharti Kahe Pukar Ke, he decided to introduce a similar scene at the end.

My father with Sanjeev Kumar and Leela Mishra in Dharti Kahe Pukar Ke.

He told my father, “What I was unable to do in Chand Aur Suraj, I am going to do in this film”. In this scene  you see Sanjeev Kumar defeating his father-in-law (my father) in court. He later apologizes to my father for defeating him.  

Pyaar Mohabbat

This was a flop film, but for me it is special for my father shared screen space with my favourite hero Dev Anand.

Pyaar Mohabbat

If you notice I have used the word hero and not actor, because I never took him seriously as an actor, what I liked about Devanand was his charming demeanour. Here is a scene featuring my father and Dev Anand.

Choti Bahu
I have discussed Choti Bahu in one of my earlier posts. At that point the film had not been uploaded on You Tube, so I had to make do with screen shots from the film's DVD, now I would like to draw attention to one scene.

My father with Rajesh Khanna and Nirupa Roy in Choti Bahu

In this scene although the dialogues are not all that good, they are a very bad translation of writer Sarat Chandra Chaterjee's Bengali dialogues, I felt my father gave his heart and soul to this scene.

Maharaja

This Sanjay Khan- Nutan starrer did not see the light of day in Bombay.  From what I remember Nutan went to court as she had not received her entire fee. The film, however, did release in the rest of the country.  As we had not seen the film’s trial, I had no clue about the film. All I knew was that my father played Sanjay’s father (he had not yet added Khan to his screen name then). Some of my father’s fans wrote to him praising him for his performance in the film. Needless to mention I was keen to see the film, I finally saw it on television some years after my father passed away. The film was the usual Hindi film. My father’s role was an important role. He abandons his wife (Nirupa Roy) although he loves her,  all because of the problem of what else? Khandaan ki izzat.

He is stunned when he realizes that the man whom he has taken to be a murderer is none other than his own son. Here is a scene from the film.

 

 

For the moment this is my last post and with this I complete a beautiful and rewarding journey. The response to this blog has been far beyond my expectations. I will be busy for the next couple of months. Later I may feature some of his obituaries that appeared in the press after he passed away. Some of the journalists had written beautiful obituaries. I along with my brother will redesign this blog, with appropriate tabs and index. It will remain in cyberspace as a website on my father for lovers of Hindi cinema. As I sign off below is a picture of my father receiving an award from (if I am not mistaken)  the then Governor of Maharashtra.