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Baazi (Old) Image

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4.33 

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Baazi (Old) Reviews

Dharmendra-Waheeda starrer suspense-thriller
Oct 05, 2011 05:19 PM5884 Views

There have been many Bollywood movies made under the title - Baazi. The most famous one among them is Dev Anand-Geeta Bali starrer film which was released in 1951 and directed by Guru Dutt. However today I am reviewing a lesser known Baazi starring Dharmendra and Waheeda Rehman which is a suspense-thriller and which was released in 1968.


Baazi (bet) is the story of the mysterious death of Mr. D' Silva whose niece - Liz (Waheeda Rehman) is a money-minded girl. Liz calls her beau, Ajay (Dharmendra) who is a responsible police officer, for her help when she gets the news of her uncle's death. When Ajay reaches there, he is told by the attending physician that Liz is not in her senses and he had better do the needful for the cremation of Mr. D' Silva. Ajay does everything with the help of the priest of a nearby church. Pall-bearers are called, coffin is arranged and Mr. D' Silva is peacefully buried in a nearby Christian graveyard. The thing which catches Ajay's attention is that a stranger, standing behind all the people present at the time of the burial, is found to be weeping all alone. Upon Liz's coming to her senses, Ajay consoles her and decides to live in her house for a couple of days. However in the darkness and calmness of the night, he finds a stranger woman also weeping on the grave of Mr. D' Silva. He gets suspicious. He also finds that not much grief has occurred to Liz upon her uncle's demise and she is in a hurry to occupy her father's inheritance which, according to his will, would be hers only upon either her marriage or her uncle's death who was supposed to be her guardian. Now since the uncle is dead, Liz gets not only his life-insurance money but also becomes the heiress of her father's wealth. Instead of grief, Ajay finds her in a delightful mood.


The twist in the tale comes when an old villager reaches the police station with the grievance of his son, Prakash's going missing. When Ajay sees the photo of the missing man, he is stunned to find that the same person whose name is being told to him by the complaint-lodger as Prakash, was buried by him as Mr. D' Silva. The mystery deepens with a couple of murders and the fact that when the grave is dug to verify the identity of the dead person, the coffin is found to be empty. Now Liz is the prime suspect in the eyes of Ajay and he arrests her. However his senior police officer releases her on bail and asks Ajay to keep a watch on her. The mystery is resolved in the climax.


Well, I won't be surprised if any reader of this review tells me that the story is an adaptation of (or inspiration from) an Agatha Christie work. In fact, I was taken aback in the climax when the mystery got resolved and the identity of the real culprit was exposed. The revelation made me feel like reading the climax of a work of fiction by Agatha Christie.


Director Moni Bhattacharjee has handled the suspense story pretty well and though the suspense takes some time in building up, the plot of the movie starts taking shape right from the very first scene. The curiosity is maintained throughout and a couple of scenes would have been spine-chilling for the viewers who had watched the movie in theatre when it was released. Guessing the culprit may prove to be difficult even for those who read (or watch) mysteries quite regularly.


The flip side consists of the regular Bollywood formulae and some superficial characters (and scenes). Actually, prior to the multiplex culture, an Indian filmmaker was bound to stretch the movie to around two and a half hours because then only the traditional audience was supposed to find it to be its money's worth. That's why undue comic and romantic scenes were inserted in the movies to fill the time-duration. This movie is around 2.15 hours long but it could have been shortened by 20-25 minutes by omitting the character of an insurance company detective (Johnny Walker) and his comic encounters with two Christian ladies (Shammi and Helen). Johnny Walker has been given a second persona of Liz's so-called cousin arriving from London but despite giving him adequate footage, nothing is revealed about that character in the climax (though the audience can make its own guess).


Kalyanji Anandji's music is just okay. Neither memorable, nor bad. Only Aa Mere Gale Lag Ja (by Lata Mangeshkar) remains in memory after the movie is over. A song picturized on Waheeda, Helen and others in the beginning reels of the movie (in the form of a play on the stage) is entertaining. In fact, the movie could have been trimmed by omitting a couple of songs too.


Art direction, cinematography and production value aspects are satisfactory.


Performance-wise talking, Waheeda Rehman has acted in many good suspense-thrillers, however Baazi is a low-profile movie when compared to her much talked-about suspense movies. Her character in the movie seems to be containing some gray shades and she has impressed like always. However, the heart-conquerer is Dharmendra, the dashing and smart hero who performs quite naturally. All others have supported the lead-pair properly.


This long forgotten movie is not a classic but a thoroughly interesting suspense-thriller and a decent one-time watch. The mystery-fans will definitely like it.


WHEN GURU TOOK HIS FIRST BOW
Sep 11, 2006 05:56 PM3687 Views

Guru Dutt stepped into filmland as assistant choreographer to P. L. Santoshi for Prabhat Studios in Pune, however multitasking as we see today also existed in days of yore for Guru Dutt was also pressed in to stand for bit roles besides assist director Vishram Bedekar. Later he also assisted director Babu Rao Pai.


It was at Prabhat that Guru formed friendship with Dev Anand and Rehman. Their friendship had led to a pack between friends to help each other further their career and thus Dev who got an early break pulled in Guru Dutt to direct Baazi when the time was ripe.


Thus Guru Dutt made his directorial debut with Baazi. Dev Anand and Guru Dutt were very westernized in their thoughts and hence we find Baazi to be highly influenced by the Hollywood flicks of that period (mob films). Various elements in Baazi represent the classic clichés we have come to see in Indian films of yore. The hero being an anti-hero leading a life of crime because of the suppressing situations before him (in this case an ailing sister); a goody good heroine from a well off and influential background goes ga ga over him, she is all bent on reforming him; a sexy moll who loves him and dies for him during the climax. Add to this the villain… surprise surprise, not really… is none other than our lovely heroines father who leads a decent respectable life as a front but soaks to his socks into the world of crime. But while viewing Baazi we have to remember it was the first of its type. In fact Baazi set the ball rolling for the spate of urban crime films that were to come out of Bollywood thereafter.


Baazi had a resounding success and became a landmark movie setting a trend in Bollywood for such movies. Besides its script that was scripted by noted actor Balraj Sahani, Baazi also introduced Zohra Sehgal as a choreographer and introduced Johnny Walker who walked away with many comic roles thereafter and Kalpana Kartik as the main lead. The movie was truly Guru Dutt, for he himself followed the trend he set here - Two heroines in movie, where in one is a moll/lesser woman with shades of gray, immoral and untrustworthy.


On the technical aspect, Guru Dutt used close-up shots with a 100mm lens – there are over 14 in Baazi – these shot were thereafter christened as ‘Guru Dutt shot’ in Bollywood lingo. Another first was introduction of the concept of integrating songs within the script of the movie whereby the movie narration was not broken up by the songs rather it was furthered. The entire scene where the moll warns the hero he is going to be killed is done through a club dance 'Suno gajar kyagaaye…' A ghazal 'Tadbir se, bigdi hui taqdeer…' was set to a hip western beat as the moll tries to seduce the hero. The experiment worked and how ! Composed by S. D. Burman the songs of the movie were instant hit with the masses and even today relates and caters to an entire different generation.


Performance wise, Dev Anand excelled in the Baazi as the anit-hero while Kalpana Kartik was average as the goody good heroine. Geeta Bali as the vicious moll who takes the bullet and dies in the hero’s arms gave one hell of a good performance played through her eyes effectively.


Over all Baazi is a landmark classic that is worth a watch both by the classic movie buffs as well as students of cinema.


Available on Shemaroo VCDs & DVD


At https://shemaroo.com


The old baazi
Mar 31, 2005 04:09 AM5076 Views

Before I begin there are lot of movies called baazi. I think there are bout 6 of them, but I am writing the review on the first one, starring dev anand, geeta bali, kalpana kartik. This is a black white movie made in the 1950. This movie gave dev anand a another good image, this is where most of career started into the movies. guru dutt had directed the movie. Baazi set tone for the spate of urban crime films that were to come out of bollywood in the 1950's and 1960's.


Madan(dev anand) is small time gambler forced into joining the owner of the star hotel, a mysterious and shadowy criminal, to pay for his sisters medical expenses. HIs sister is treated by doctor rajani ( kalpana kartik) who loves madan and he loves her. But a cop ramesh ( k dhawan) also loves rajani.


The cabaret dancer (geeta baali) at the club is in love with madan. When madan wants out from the life of crime, the boss orders him to be bumped off. The dancer dies saving him and madan is framed for her murder. He is condemned to death but is saved by ramesh who lays a trap to catch a the villain.


Baazi was showed a criminal hero with tough as nails exterior but of course with a heart of gold. The film took dev anand to dramatic start status. He was the ideal actor for the crime wave films played in a number of them (jaal), (pocketmaar) (dushman), ( kala bazar) ( jaali note) ( c.i.d) to name some. Baazi promoted a lot of talent several of whom went on to make a quite a name for themselves. comedian johnny walker, actress kalpana kartik. The screenplay was well writen by a well known actor balraj sahni.


The music was by s.d. burman. There were couple of good songs suno gaja kya gaaye and a ghazal tadbir se bigdi hui taqdeer were pretty good.



Performance wise the whole movie belonged to dev anand, he gave great performance probably his best at this, people say he was the best in the movie guide, but I didn't find that movie quite that interesting, but dev anand acting was good. Geeta bali was allright in the movie. Kalapana kartik does a nice job as the doctor.


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