Chori Chori

An earlier Raj-Kapoor-Nargis film, Awaara (1951), directed by Kapoor himself, had enjoyed an enormous success in Russia and the Middle East, where the social themes invoked had a particular resonance at this period. When Raj and Nargis toured Russia in triumph, they were treated amongst other things to a spectacular puppet-show where the puppets were replicas of themselves. One of the most memorable scenes in Chori Chori is that where the two central characters are watching a country puppet-show and Kammo (Nargis) imagines herself and Sagar (Raj) as the puppets. The duet that follows, with the two actually playing out this fantasy, is one of the best things in the film (and owes nothing to the Capra original). Although Kapoor is not himself the director of Chori Chori, the pair responsible for the music, Shankar and Jaikishan, had also worked on Awaara (and were for that matter a Kapoor discovery). It seems likely that the Russian puppet-show on the post-Awaara tour provided the inspiration for this scene.