Those who swear by old Hindi cinema would surely do a re-think after seeing this clunky, stagey and truly bizzare film. One can only wonder what was going on in the writer’s mind as this weird mix of a film was cooked up. The film, made in 1947, appears to have been made much, much before, looking that much more creaky, tacky and stilted. It makes for unbearable viewing today as the totally implausible screenplay looks at the efforts of Madhubala’s father (with help from the family munshi) to stop her from marrying Raj Kapoor, a poet, with whom she falls in love at the first meeting itself. The film is full of moments that truly leave you speechless. The poet drops his cigarette on the heroine’s sari causing it to burn and so she has to wear his pajamas; eating sweets gives him a toothache so the plan is to get him to eat sweets at the engagement party so that his tooth hurts, people laugh at him in his agony and the heroine gets embarrassed and insulted with him, refuses to talk to him.

If this sounds highly moronic, to make things worse, this is exactly what happens in the film! Next thing the poet’s buddy too declares his love for the heroine and asks the poet to sacrifice his love by acting as if he is mad in front of the heroine and yes, again this is again what happens…The poet calling the heroine ‘chit chor’ repeatedly through the film also pans after a while.

The performances too are laughable and have not held up well at all. In particular, Shyam Sunder’s comedy is plain irritating. But one supposes it is amusing to see Raj Kapoor at 23 and Madhubala at 14 still a long way from developing their screen personas and looking so raw and acting likewise as well. Perhaps the only redeeming feature is the song O Duniya ke Rehnewaale Kahaan Gaya Chit Chor sung by the poet, in fact, sung by Raj Kapoor . And even that, not the poet’s version but the version that follows in the film immediately after, as the film goes out of the studio on location through various locales of Bombay where different classes of people, both rich and poor, sing the song!

An interesting idea for the time to show the popularity of the song, even if tackily executed. Otherwise, there is nothing to write about SD Burman’s music either, though for historians and collectors, there are two early Geeta Dutt solos - Bigdi Hui Taqdeer Meri Aake Banaa de and Kyon Baalam Humse Rooth Gaye on Madhubala but admittedly not having much impact as the singer is in her raw, early career and the actress too looks nothing like the beauty she blossomed into. For those interested in this singer-actress combo, stick to Guru Dutt’s Mr and Mrs 55 (1955)!

All in all, Dil ki Rani is a film only meant for the most desperate and ardent admirer of old Hindi cinema and it is likely to test even his patience to its limits.

Video Source: DVD
Host: Rapidshare
Chapters: 4

part 1
part 2
part 3
part 4

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