FilmIndia (1946)

July, 1946 FILMINDIA Kanu Roy seems to like Shobha the way he handles her m "Safar", a social story of Filmistan. day of her marriage, assures Prakash that he will have the blood of his father on his hands and tells another mug that he will have police manacles on his wrists. It was intended to frame up Niranjan at this party. When the police arrive, however, the real mischief-monger is caught in place of Niranjan due to the courtesy of a waiter. So the Sanyasi's forecasts start taking shape from this incident onwards. Prakash is bleeding the Rai Saheb and chasing Jyoti. Jyoti falls in love with Prakash and agrees to marry him but Prakash backs out when he hears of Rai Saheb's intentions to withhold the gold from the wedding ring. The story now travels through the usual escapades till Niranjan marries Jyoti under a tree in a jungle and is struck by lightning the very next instant making Jyoti a widow. That lightning must have been in close conspiracy with the sanyasi. After a little weeping and wailing, you find Niranjan very much alive attended by Swami Anand and other bearded sanyasis. Now we come to the classic love situation which we find in the stories of "Laila-Majnu", "ShirinFarhad" etc. The heroine, Jyoti, looking like a Japanese Geisha, comes under the tree where she lost Niranjan and starts singing for him. Some distance away the hero wakes up and walks towards her also singing. Both walk towards each other, ihey look at each other, they sing at each other but stick to their own spots till the song is finished and then rush towards each other. Marvellous direction! At the other end Rai Saheb Jagdish grows a conscience and starts fiddling with a poison bottle for a painfully long time, till Ullhas, his crazy son arrives home to throw a book at the glass in the nick of time. While poisoning himself, Rai Saheb seems to have taken note of the crowded conveyances in these times, which were likely to delay the arrival of Ullhas. Prakash is also an improved person by now through the miracle of the Sanyasi. The drama comes to an end with all the characters staring at us and the sanyasi revealing himself as the longlost Raja Ganesh Prasad. Thus ends a stupid yarn written by Prabhulal Dwivedi, a wellknown stage writer of Bombay. WELL-FRAMED PICTURE, BUT — As a technical production, parts of "Bindiya" are beautiful to see. Photography is strikingly beautiful at places and the songs are weli-sung and well-recorded though the tunes and compositions are not attractive. Chimanlal Luhar has failed in his direction once again by not being able to express the story in emotional terms of the screen. From the players, E. Billimoria gives a good performance as a typical Indian screen villain, doing the typical things which villains have been doing for thirty years. Amar gives an improved performance as Niranjan. Leela Misra plays Prakash's wife and does so with feeling and emotion. Incidentally, she is the only one who has done some emotional work in the picture. Ragini with her geisha-like appearance plays Jyoti, the heroine and in doing so blows her nostrils in and out throughout the picture. Ragini looks sweet in parts but cannot act at all, may be because of the skin on her face being too tightly drawn for motion picture purposes. Leela Pawar plays a minor role and in doing so looks much older now than before and certainly less attractive. In short, "Bindiya" is a boring affair, given by a director who has bored us consistently not only with his motion picture intelligence, but with his University degree of B.Sc. Recruit Surendra Vora c]o M. B. Mazumdar of All India General Insurance, Fort, Bombay, is 28 and has had amateur stage experience. 53