Review of Uttam Kumar's Kuhak.

Review of Uttam Kumar’s Kuhak.

Uttam Kumar was considered to be the greatest romantic actor to have been born in Indian soil in the golden age, that is 40s, 50s, and 60s. But after giving legendary romantic films with Suchitra Sen (both of them acted in 30 films), Uttam Kumar tried to change his image in some of the films.

In Goli Theke Rajpoth he was involved in unlawful activities, in Abak Prithibi, he was a thief who was reformed by a small child, and in Kuhak he was a thief again. He broke his image in Kuhak directed by Agradoot.

In Kuhak, the film opened with a scene in the jail where Uttam Kumar met Tarun Kumar. Uttam Kumar spoke about his activities relating to theft. Tarun Kumar disclosed about his capabilities relating to opening any lock in any almirah or cupboard and he was imprisoned for those activities.

Uttam Kumar after being released from jail came to the same village where Tarun Kumar lived with his two sons and sister played by Sabitri Chatterji. Uttam Kumar was a singer and with the team of Premangshu Bose used to perform in the role of Chaitanyadev in village plays (jatras).

Most of the villagers started thinking that Uttam Kumar was actual Chaitanyadeb. Tarn Kumar told Uttam Kumar that he stole Rs 30000 from a locker in a nearby house, but when he tried to escape from the police, he was fired by the police and died. He showed the place where he kept the money to his son. Both Uttam Kumar and Premangshu Bose stayed back in the village to take that money that was kept by Tarun Kumar.

Uttam Kumar fell sorry for Sabitri Chatterjee, the sister of Tarun Kumar and fell in love with her. The last part of the film showed the fight between Uttam Kumar and Premangshu Bose in extracting the stolen money.

The music of the film was impressive, with Uttam Kumar giving brilliant lips in Hemant Kumar’s song “bishnupriya go”. There were many other songs sung by Hemant Kumar for Uttam Kumar and the character of Uttam Kumar being a singer was bolstered with the music.

The film should be restored for the young generation to show them that director Agradoot had the skills of making crime thrillers with the background of stories based on village life of Bengal.

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Review of Bhanu's Personal Assistant.

Review of Bhanu’s Personal Assistant.

Bhanu Banerjee used to be considered the greatest comic hero to have born in Indian films in the 50s and 60s. Personal Assistant was one of his biggest blockbusters during the black and white era. Chitrakar directed the film and Nochiketa Ghosh gave the brilliant music.

In that film Tarun Kumar, the friend of Bhanu Banerjee introduced him to many employers as he was jobless. He lost the job in a shop used for repairing radios. Then he applied in a firm named Gargi and Sons owned by Ruma Guhathakurta. Ruma only wanted female candidates in the post of personal assistant. But as Bhanu’s name was Rama Gupta, she thought it was a female name and called him for interview. He was both BSC, BCom. So qualified in the interview and got the job.

The terms of the company was that if the employee left the job within 5 years of appointment he had to return all his salary. If the employer sacked him he was supposed to pay the entire salary for the 5 years. Bhanu was a poet and asked Tarun Kumar to consult Tulshi Chakravarty, a Publisher who published written works of renowned writers. Tarun Kumar told a lie to Tusi Chakravarty that the poems were written by Minoti Mitra (Bhanu) who admired Tulsi Chakravarty. He agreed to publish his poems.

In the mean time Renuka, a rich lady appointed Bhanu Banerjee to play piano that she bought for her own liking. Bhanu tried to teach her to play the piano, but she failed. She organized a show where Bhanu was supposed to actually play the piano from the backstage and she was supposed to do playacting in front with another piano. Bhanu agreed to do it with the consideration of Rs 1000, the amount he had to return back to Ruma as he wanted to leave the job.

The entire drama ended in a mess, when Tulsi Chakravarty came to Bhanu’s house to give the Book of Poems, when Tarun Kumar told him that Minoti Mitra had died. A public gathering was organized where Tarun Kumar declared before the people that Bhanu was the poet who wrote with the petname Minoti Mitra.

All the comedy sequences ended up with romantic relationship between Bhanu and Ruma Guha Thakurta. The music of Nochiketa Ghosh was excellent with hit songs of Hemant Kumar and others like “k choleche kolkatae”, “tomade notun kuri”, “srichoronkomoleshu noi”, “ei besh bhalo”, etc. Bhanu gave excellent lips in those songs.

All the artists in the film including Ruma Guha Thakurta, Tarun Kumar, Tulsi Chakravarty, Mita Chatterji, Pahari Sanyal, Renuka were sublime and the film ended up being super hit. It is still considered as a black and white classic. New directors should learn to create comedy pictures without any cheap sequence or vulgarity.

The film and the songs stand out as a landmark of Bengali film industry of 1959 and for those reasons should be preserved and restored.

Review of Bengali film Deya Neya.

Review of Bengali film Deya Neya.

Deya Neya stands out as Uttam Kumar’s one of the biggest hit films in his career. The film was released in 1963. The story was related to the life of a talented singer whose father, being an industrialist never wanted his son to pursue his musical career.

Kamal Mitra played the role of the father of Uttam Kumar in the film. Uttam Kumar left his father’s home in Lucknow and returned to Kolkata. He was known by the outside world with the identity Abhijit Choudhury, a successful singer. He came to Kolkata and worked as driver cum mechanic in Pahari Sanyal’s house. Tanuja was the relative of Pahari Sanyal and interacted with Uttam Kumar in relation to the cars they had.

Although Uttam Kumar was known with the identity Abhijit Choudhury, he never performed in public function, so his face was unknown to the listeners. Tanuja and her friend Sumita Sanyal were also fans of Abhijit Choudhury, but both of them could not recognize Uttam Kumar. Uttam Kumar took shelter in Tarun Kumar’s house, a friend of him and Lili Chakravarty, his wife attended Uttam Kumar like his own brother’s wife.

As the lyricist of Uttam Kumar’s songs played by Premangshu, was suffering from serious sickness, Uttam Kumar organized a musical program at the end of the film and appeared before the crowd in a charity show. His identity was revealed and Kamal Mitra, his father took him back after marrying Tanuja.

The music of the film was extraordinary. Shyamal Mitra’ s composition touched the hearts of millions of music lovers all across the country. Shaymal Mitra’s own songs “jiban khatar proti patay”, “ami cheye cheye dekhi saradin”, “ganer bhubon bhariye debo”, made the viewers speechless. The duet song “dole dodul dole jhulona” sung by Manobendra Mukherjee and Shyamal Mitra stands out as one of the greatest duet songs of the last 50 years.
Deya Neya was remade in hindi with the title Anurodh. Rajesh Khanna, Vinod Mehra and Simple Kapadia had the lead roles. But they miserably failed to level the standard of excellence attained by Uttam Kumar in Deya Neya.

Deya Neya should be preserved for the young generations who had not seen the romantic andaz of Uttam Kumar during the golden age of Bengali cinema, that is the 50s and 60s.

Review of Chupi Chupi Ashe.

Review of Chupi Chupi Ashe.

Premendo Mitra, the renowned writer of Bengali literature contributed a lot as director of innovative films also in the mid-50s. His successful films included Hanabari, Chupi Chupi Ashe and others. In Chupi Chupi Ashe he maintained the suspense all along the film just way Alfred Hitchcock used to maintain in the suspense thrillers of the 50s.

In Chupi Chupi Ashe, Robin Mojumdar and Tapati were shown as the owners of a hotel in a place sme distance away from Kolkata. The hotel was known as fooding and lodging centre and tourists used to take shelter in the hotel. On one of the days a number of persons occupied the different rooms in the hotel. It included a sick person played by Chabi Biswas, Jahar Ganguly, Prabir Kumar, a school teacher and others.

All of a sudden, heavy rain led to flood, and the hotel got cut off from the rest of the city. Tarun Kumar (the brother of superstar Uttam Kumar) entered the hotel as an inspector and told the story of a young man being tortured in school, the orphanage and other places and took revenge recently by killing one of the administrators of the school where he studied. He told everyone that he had been sent by the local police station for security of the residents of the hotel. He also informed them that no one should try to leave the hotel before the flood water subsided and there was sever power cut in the place.

The tourists in the hotel got scared after they knew that there was neither electric connection nor telephone connection, which could help them for communication purposes. On one of the nights, the lady teacher who taught school children got murdered. A musical tape was heard by all the persons but the murdered could not be identified. At that moment, Chabi Biswas, the detective in disguise, with his assistant went and arrested the killer Tarun Kumar before who tried to kill Tapati and related persons in the hotel.

Chabi Biswas briefed the persons, that Tarun Kumar was the person who was tortured by the school teacher and other members of the orphanage when he was young and for those reasons he killed the wrongdoers one after the other. Tarun Kumar disguised himself as an inspector so that no one could suspect him.

The film was off-beat in nature with only one song sung by Sandhya Mukherjee titled “se je chupi chupi asche” which was the title of the film. Due to the powerful direction of Premendra Mitra and innovative acting of Chabi Biswas, Jahar Ganguly, Tarun Kumar, Robin Majumdar, the film caught the attention of the viewers and became successful in the late 50s. The film should be restored and preserved.