FilmIndia (1948)

f March, 1948 HLMINDlA *ve, and Raja, the cleaner, we see a romance of the touch-and-go variety in which neither the man nor the woman look long at the rainbow of love. A studio storm holds up the bus and the director uses the opportunity for showing the drunkenness and sex-perverision of the bus driver and Raja's character and martyrdom. A little later the theme strays into a jungle and the local Robin Hood, Yishwas, takes everyone a prisoner to his treasure island where we see Mohan, a girl with a man's name and quite a few wild men under Robin Hood who dresses like a king manufactured by Maganlal Dresswalla. Raja's parentage is thus drawn near, with both the father and the mother within shooting range. A quarrel between Randhir, the jungle giant and Raja, the travelling lothario, brings on the climax in which Randhir is thrown down a valley and is followed by Mohan, the woman with a man's name and Raja is prepared for the same fate judicially. Raja's parentage is however established before he is pushed down — now by his own father— but in the last split second come Randhir and Mohan the rubber lovers, who bounced up alive from the 1000-feet depth of the valley. Death had evidently taken a holiday that day and all alive through the picture except the unfortunate director who reached his ultimate destination long before his artistes could do so. ' I The production values of the picture are erratic. Dewan Sharer's dialogue and lyrics could have saved the story had they been properly pronounced and tuned. The music is rotten and the technical work is bad — just too bad for Rajkamal. Baburao Pendharkar's costume as Robin Hood needs a special title and explanation. The guy does look funny as he was supposed to be a rebel against anything rich, prosperous and feudal. Probably Maganla! Dresswalla insisted on advertising the feudal costume in lieu of his hills. Nayantara's acting hardly dewvea any mention. Recruit J. Prakash, (F.Y.C,) co College of Commerce, Wardha, C. P. has a keen desire to join films. He claims Hindi as his mother tongue. Pratimadevi plays Kalindi and looks old and anaemic from youth to old age. It is rather a tall order to accept Yakub as a young ster just out of teens but if we forget this age bar, Yakub does his usual best in the role of 'Raja'. Dixit gives an excellent performance as the religious hypocrite with an eye on women. His very appearance entertains people. Baburao Pendharkar looks funny as the modern Robin Hood and does nothing of note. Shanta Rin adds sex-appeal to the picture which is crowded by half-a-dozen old women and quite a few doubtful young ones. Ximbalkar does not look and speak like a bus driver on the Benares route. He claims the Satara-Kolhapur route. The whole affair is, in short, too frivolous and inconsequential for Rajkamal which boasts of producing progressive pictures always. At best "Jeevan Yatra" is an idiotic picture and as such too risky an adventure for careful exhibitors. 5l