Raj Khosla was a talented director and he made some excellent thriller films in his prime, such as Mera Saaya and Woh Kaun Thi. Anita is one of them, and it is indeed a highly enjoyable movie filled with mystery and suspense. The movie starts on a rather light romantic note and it is later when things start looking unpredictable and confusing, slowly creating a twisted, chilling tale. One thing about those classic thriller movies I like is the fact that the suspense never came at the expense of other Hindi movie ingredients, and yet they always were successfully thrilling and interesting, never losing their effect.
The movie stars the beautiful Sadhana in the title role of Anita, and she effectively plays her role even though the story is not even seen through her perspective. Manoj Kumar here is like Sunil Dutt in Mera Saaya, playing a young tormented and stubborn man who suffers the loss of his beloved. Anita's background score is fantastic, and it has some wonderful songs by Laxmikant-Pyarelal. Just go and listen to that magic number "Samne Mere Saawariya" - a melodious tune, beautifully shot with Sadhana walking the hills, and perfectly sung by Lata Mangeshkar, whose voice is as divine as ever.
Anita is a film I like a lot and I like revisiting it from time to time. The movie is not without flaws, and in fact it took quite some time until the story started arousing real curiosity. In the middle I found myself a bit uninterested. Having said that, it is a successful movie and once it enters its suspense track, it works well and is even disturbing at points. The ending is as expected a sugarcoated one but I actually liked it because there wasn't any other way around. Anita is classic stuff after all - technically well made for the time, generally well acted and written, and the music is very good. I recommend.
