Baazi

Baazi (1951) - 100%

A Landmark Film From Maverick Director & Actor Guru Dutt... "Baazi" Is Remembered As The Flick Which Made Dev Anand An Overnight Sensation, But That's Only A Part Of It's Mammoth Achievements... It Introduced A New Genre Called "Bombay Noir" Which Became Quite Popular In The 1950s... It Also Launched The Careers Of Singer Geeta Dutt, Actors Geeta Bali, Kalpana Kartik & Johnny Walker & Screenplay Writer Balraj Sahni Who Later Went On To Become An Acclaimed Artist As Well... The Most Interesting Part Is, The Movie's Still Fresh & Highly Entertaining Even After 70+ Years Of Release & I Would Give The Credit To Its Making Which Is Truly World Class.

This was Navketan's second production, after "Afsar". Dev Anand, the Producer, gave chance to Guru Dutt to make his directorial debut. The story of an urban unemployed youth taking to crime because of circumstances, has excellent performance from Geeta Bali and equally unforgettable music by S. D. Burman, who experimented with the Ghazal format, in its orchestration, for the first time with the song "Tadbeer se bigdi hui taqdeer bana le". With this film Dev Anand picked up his style, which were to keep him on top, alongwith Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor, for decades to come.

It's a fascinating Indian take on Gilda also borrowing bits from Destry Rides Again and Casablanca among others. The print is in a wobbly condition after all these years and even looks at times like it might have been close to combustion, but the poetry and the poetry of the music by S. D. Burman shines through. I don't do gambling, so I'm glad that even with the title of The Gamble there wasn't much gambling – but I'd still bet most people on the planet will never watch this. It was the first film Guru Dutt directed – he even gave himself a bit part smoking away at the start of the picture.

The previous post gives it nearly all away, but Dev Anand plays a basically honest young buck prone to gambling employed by dodgy boss of dingy nightclub to entice in and then fleece rich suckers. He does this to make sure he has enough money to pay for his sisters' recovery from TB, simultaneously he falls in love with a lady doctor (Kalpana Kartik, his real-life future wife) with a rather dodgy and forbidding father. I found the playful performance of Geeta Bali portraying prostitute Nina delightful – she danced well to some superb tunes - made both by the lovely music and the honourable emotions aroused within her by Anand. Years ago I used to smoke 30 a day but never blew cigarette smoke so forcibly into other people's faces as do a lot of the characters a lot of the time in here! The police inspector was no sluggard either, he was almost too noble to be true. Was this skinny Johnny Walker's first film ever? Geeta Dutt did most of the singing, my favourite of course being the philosophical Tadbir Se Bigdi Hui Taqdeer Bana Le – such a perfect jolly fusion of East & West pop. Also nice and jolly was Dekh Ke Akeli Mohe Barkha Sataaye. Wheeee, talk about catchy tunes!

All in all, a lovely little film with a lot of interesting musical and dramatic scenes, cheaply churned out but still entertaining all these years later.

The film is notable for two reasons:first, being the directorial debut of Guru Dutt and second, it was the film which inspired many urban crime thrillers in the fifties.

The story basically revolves in the shady part of the city with a morally ambiguous hero played to perfection by Dev Anand(this film also marked the coming of Devanand as a superstar), supported well by Kalpana Kartik and Geeta Bali. The songs are a treat to listen, each one of them being a gem.

A fine piece of filmmaking from Guru Dutt, who would later go on to make even bigger classics. Recommended to watch.

Baazi (1951) : Brief Review -

This fake remake of Gilda (1946) is far better than the mediocre Hollywood noir. A landmark! Guru Dutt was a genius before people started realising it. I don't know from where it came that this film was inspired by Charles Vidor's Gilda, starring Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth. I have seen the film, and I never understood the hype around it. It's so mediocre and tepid, man. When I came to know that it was remade in Bollywood, I said to myself, "Why? Why remake a mediocre film?" I started imagining Dev Anand as Ford and Geeta Bali as Rita. I had them imagined right in the first 15-20 minutes, and then I realised that this is not a remake of Gilda. Who the hell said that? Whoever said it and put it on Wikipedia is either mad or hasn't seen both films. So, this FAKE REMAKE of Gilda actually manages to come out better than the original film. It's a fascination for contemporary Indian cinema in the crime-noir genre. Like I said, Guru Dutt was a genius. He knew to create sympathy for the character who was doing so many wrong things. Hollywood had never thought about that with their crime noirs. They were comfortable with the negative character and message because their society was ready to accept them. In India, it would have never worked, and I don't think it would work even today. Baazi is a pioneer of many theories in this genre, where you know the main protagonist has done a few wrong things but never did them happily. He was forced by the situation. You have two heroines, one from a rich family and one from a filthy world, but they both turn out to be good for the hero. That's trademark writing. Dev Anand, Geeta Bali, and Kalpana Kartik are fine. Dutt's direction was a major change in the filmmaking style of that era. We actually moved from regular humdrum techniques to dark and intense atmospheric brilliance with this one. How those shadow frames, closeups, and music work, I can't tell you. Watch it and experience it.

RATING - 7/10*

By - #samthebestest.