Guru Dutt

Two links to one article on different sites:
https://www.filmcompanion.in/features/fc-flashback-why-you-should-watch-guru-dutts-mr-and-mrs-55

http://jaiarjun.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-flashback-series-why-you-should.html?m=1

Only just now realized that Rehman is a different person from Waheeda Rehman. At first I thought it was just her being billed under a mononym like Alida Valli in The Third Man, but in fact it is the handsome fellow who is in most of these movies and plays the villain in Pyaasa.

Mira Nair refers to Guru Dutt in Mr & Mrs. ‘55 as playing a “Cukor-esque character,” which the subtitler failed to understand.

Seems like more than one of the Guru Dutt Team, including Rehman and Guru Dutt himself, died of various alcohol-related situations. But not Johnny Walker, of course.

Mira Nair again: “Paper Flowers” is kind of like a Fellini’s 8½, made with a different sense of soul and despair.”

Aargh at extra double quote

She mentioned Cukor for Mr. & Mrs. ‘55 but maybe more like Sturges without the pratfalls.

I plan to watch Pyaasa this week. I watched the first few minutes and I'm thinking I will have trouble with it -- I am not familiar with Indian cinema of the time, and it seems to be notable for how it differed from other movies of its time. Indian cinema is one of my biggest blind spots.

Pyaasa is great. Haven't watched anything else.

Paper Flowers is the other must-see.

But Mr. & Mrs. '55, which immediately preceded those two, is shaping up to be really good. Think the two afterwards that he didn't officially direct, are of similar quality.

Apparently Guru Dutt gave Johnny Walker his head to do pretty much whatever he wanted, which drove V.K. Murthy and the rest of the crew crazy with regard to blocking and such.

He was a bus conductor who would entertain passengers with his antics until he was spotted by a member of the team who sent him to a studio where filming was going on, where Guru Dutt discovered him and gave him his stage name as he did his drunkard's walk act and tripped all over the set.

Guru Dutt himself is an incredible screen presence, although it seems he was kind of insecure about his acting.

Lots of great scenes where is standing in the middle by himself in the back of the frame and all (or some) eyes are drawn to him.

How long will the raw mango hide in the folds of the leaves?

https://theprint.in/theprint-profile/cinema-writer-with-a-golden-touch-abrar-alvi-was-lost-in-guru-dutts-shadow/321696/

Here’s a blog that rates several his films very highly and is named after another: https://mrandmrs55.com/2014/03/04/the-top-30-greatest-classic-bollywood-films-of-all-time/

Here’s a longer piece on their number one film: https://mrandmrs55.com/2012/01/08/guru-dutt-and-the-struggle-to-break-free-of-conventional-hindi-cinema/

Sometimes GD would want songs to written to be reminiscent of certain Western tunes so in Aar Paar there is one tune that is supposed to sound like “Sing, Sing, Sing” and another that sounds like “Quizás, Quizás, Quizás” heard here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3jS7pLnXis

The date of Anita’s marriage to Prateem in Mr. & Mrs. ‘55 is October 25th, one day before the date of the crime in Decision to Leave.

Preetam

Now onto Chaudhvin Ka Chand, which seems to be an example of a kind of film known in India by the curious term of Muslim social.

Apparently the first spark of serious Guru Dutt revival as well as Western interest was in 1975 when a Frenchman named Henri Micciolo who worked at the Alliance Française in Bombay, I think, and spoke no Hindi saw some unsubtitled films but liked them enough to write and publish a monograph that I see mentioned many places but can’t find a copy of.

I did find a capsule review of the last Guru Dutt film here.

Last notable film, I should say.

One of the songs in C.I.D. sounds like “My Darling Clementine.”

Just came across a sly reference to Paper Flowers/Kaagaz Ke Phool in another film, Marco Ferreri’s The Flesh.