Dimple Kapadia in Bobby (1973)

Although Raj Kapoor is now best remembered for the films he made with Nargis in the 1940s and 50s, such as Awaara and Shree 420, this late film is justifiably regarded as key to his oeuvre. After the box-office failure of Mera naam joker (MNJ) (1969), it seemed that Raj Kapoor’s long career as star, producer and director was over. Having decided that he no longer wanted to act, he came up with the idea of making a teenage love story with his middle son, Rishi, who had already appeared in MNJ. Rishi was still a teenager, and Raj Kapoor presented a new heroine, Dimple Kapadia, who bore more than a passing resemblance to Nargis.

Raj (Rishi Kapoor) has just finished school and returned to his rich but unloving parents. He meets Bobby (Dimple Kapadia), the granddaughter of his wet-nurse, Mrs Braganza (Durga Khote), and falls in love with her but his parents forbid the relationship …

K. A. Abbas, who had earlier worked with Raj Kapoor, wrote the Romeo and Juliet story, but with the addition of a happy ending to avoid the risk of box-office failure. Laxmikant-Pyarelal, with the lyricist Anand Bakshi, composed many hit songs, including among others an Ashkenazy wedding waltz (‘Main shair to nahin’), a qawwali (Sufi- inspired devotional song), a Goan folk song (‘Jhooth bole kauwa khaate’) and the suggestive ‘Hum tum ek kamre mein’. The young couple, in their outrageously fashionable clothes, ranging from hotpants, bikinis and miniskirts to leather suits and goggles, set a trend for all youngsters and sparked a host of teenage romances from Love Story (1981) to those of the 1990s.

Rishi Kapoor assumed the role of major romantic hero for the next twenty years, beginning his career during the reign of Amitabh Bachchan, and ending as the new generation of Khans dominated the box office in the early 1990s. Dimple, aged about sixteen when she made this film, married the reigning superstar, Rajesh Khanna, during the shooting of the film (the henna of her wedding decorations can be seen on her hand during the song ‘Mujhe kuch kehna hai’) and she was pregnant with Twinkle before the premier. Her comeback was with Rishi in 1985′s Saagar, after which she became an iconic figure in the film industry, appearing in films such as Farhan Akhtar’s Dil chahta hai.

One scene in particular stands out: when Raj visits Bobby’s house, she is making pakodas and wipes the batter into her hair, as Nargis was said to have done when Raj Kapoor visited her house. Her line, ‘Mujhse dosti karoge? Will you be my friend?’, has inspired a generation of younger film-makers to emphasise love as friendship, from Sooraj Barjatya, whose Maine pyar kiya quoted several scenes from Bobby, to Karan Johar’s Kuch kuch hota hai, where the teacher is called Miss Braganza (Bobby’s surname), to Kunal Kohli’s film Mujhse dosti karoge (2002) – Rachel Dwyer

Cast and Production Credits

Year – 1973, Genre – Drama, Country – India, Language – Hindi, Producer –Raj Kapoor, Director – Raj Kapoor, Music Director – Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Cast - Rishi Kapoor, Dimple Kapadia, Pran, Premnath, Sonia Sahni, Durga Khote, Aruna Irani, Farida Jalal, Piloo Wadia, Prem Chopra, Sashi Kiran, Jagdish Raaj, Narendra Chanchal

Premnath

He was the scariest screen villain because he could look completely amoral. An ex-army man, Premnath’s energetic performance as a callous philanderer in brother-in-law, Raj Kapoor’s Barsaat (’49) made him a star. Charged by success, the teetotaller, vegetarian, non-smoker, was engulfed with “a desire to indulge in vices”. Soon he had made a career out of projecting vices onscreen. He worked as a hero with the biggest of heroines like Madhubala (whom he loved and lost) and Bina Rai (whom he loved and married), but he was most famous for his mean-minded characters like the cruel prince in Aan (’52).

He was almost forgotten in the 60s till director Vijay Anand offered him Johnny Mera Naam (’70). When he saw Premnath kissing his own image while watching a film on his home-projector, Anand specially created the role of the debauched Rai saab. Premnath made a tremendous impact as the psychotic pervert who mauls the moll (Padma Khanna), forcing her to do a striptease in exchange of her boyfriend’s life, only to doublecross her after she capitulates.

Premnath was the highest paid villain in the early 70s. He could look like somebody straight out of one of the lower circles of Dante’s hell and be equally effective as the sputtering Samaritan in Roti Kapda Aur Makaan or the large- hearted, cuss word spewing Goan fisherman in Bobby. He fuelled his eccentric screen image with catatonic behaviour offscreen. Even his aide was called Bond!

In the 80s, Premnath suffered from neuritis which sapped him of his energy. His devoted wife, Bina Rai, nursed him till the last. Nadira, who did her debut film, Aan, with ‘Daddy’ Premnath, fondly states, “If he were mad, there should have been more like him.”

Teesri Manzil (1966)

Cast: Shammi Kapoor, Asha Parekh, Premnath, Helen

Director: Vijay Anand

Music: R.D. Burman

Lyrics: Majrooh Sultanpuri

Capsule Review: Blending producer Nasir  Husain’s trademark formula of frolic and romancewith director Vijay Anand’s penchant for using song, dance and drama as extensions of the characters’ inner world, Teesri Manzil created a storm at the box office. The plot is a murder mystery about a girl befriending a musician at a hill station to find out the identity of her sister’s killer. Much of the plot seems an excuse for Burman’s rousing songs rendered with glorious gusto by Mohammad Rafi and Asha Bhosle. In his first major tryst with the hit parade, Burman created smash-hit tracks like 0 mere sona re, 0 haseena zulfon wall, Aaja aaja main hoon pyar tera and the uncharacteristically sober Rafi solo Tumne mujhe dekha which was filmed immediately after the leading man’s wife Geeta Bali passed away. One of the lead pair’s biggest hits, Kapoor and Parekh somehow failed to click together in subsequent projects like Jawan Mohabbat and Pagla Kahin Ka.