50s Cinema | Shree 420
Is it weird that all the scenes of degeneracy and decadence, and moral bankruptcy in some of these 50s Hindi films are the ones I find most enjoyable?
Raj Kapoor’s Shree 420, or perhaps really Khwaja Ahmad Abbas’ Shree 420 (the writing is incredibly mature and stands the test of time) breaks into action not with “Mera Joota Hai Japani” but with “Mud Mud Ke Na Dekh.” The scene, which is the pivot around which the film turns and so does Raj’s character — called Raj — turn, is the night of Diwali in Bombay’s Taj, glowing with maya and lakshmi. Raj terms it his replacement for a temple that night, as all the high priests of wealth and lakshmi are in the Taj.
His date for the night, Nargis who plays Vidya, rushes out from the decadence as she realizes what her humble beloved Raj has become. And so the escape of vidya gives way to lakshmi. I’m not making metaphors you are.
While Vidya wallows, the party in the Taj is one I wish I were there to experience. And who dances with Raj at the party but Maya, one of the many rich who gamble with Raj’s smarts for the cards. But it’s all maya, and Ahmad Abbas’ metaphors and name-cases become as Dickensian at this moment as possible.
As a little aside, Raj Kapoor cannot act drunk, which is odd considering he is a Kapoor. Some things are best left to Johny Walker who is not in this film. And to Nargis who is there and saves the film with the immense amount of intelligence she brings to Raj Kapoor’s lurching clumsy Raj.
The politics of the film is positively Cold War Romanian, or I just like Comrade Detective too much. Everyone who is in Bombay to make money hates everyone who makes money. Everyone has aspirations but not at the cost of their soul. Or Nargis-Vidya does at least. The film makes a great case for wealth redistribution in the Nehruvian era. Every remotely wealthy person is carefully engineered with sound which is not even ambivalent about how evil they are. Real people can’t be that evil. Or they can be but not as performative. All of 1950s were more representational than real. I love it.
Hasrat Jaipuri and Shailendra write poetry which Shankar-Jaikishan turn into some of the best use of song in the 50s. The music is much better than CID and almost as good as O.P. Nayyar’s work in Mr. & Mrs. ’55. It’s odd to see a Raj Kapoor film where Raj Kapoor is not even close to the best thing about the film. But it’s fun.
