Gumnaam

Gumnaam review :

Loosely inspired from Agatha Christie's novel 'And Then There Were None', Raja Nawathe's Gumnaam was a well executed suspense thriller with right blend of other bollywood elements like comedy and songs. A group of people are stranded on an island and discover a mansion there which has a comic butler (Mehmood) who is already aware about them. One by one, the guys are bumped off and they keep suspecting each other till only two remain...

Manoj Kumar played an air purser who gets stranded with this ill fated group. Nanda as his love interest is supposedly the film's heroine but the lady who stole the show was Helen looking drop dead gorgeous as Kitty who quite a few men take fancy to. Note her sizzling 'Kitty Kelly' song on the beach. Pran was great as her alcoholic suitor while Manmohan was his usual slimy self.

Gumnaam is more famous for Shankar Jaikishen's music particularly the 'Hum Kaale Hain Toh Kya Hua Dilwale Hain' picturised on the legendary Mehmood Saahab in his Hyderabadi avatar. Mehmood literally owned the character with his typical mannerisms and it became a rage so much than even Amitabh Bachchan emulated it in Manmohan Desai's Desh Premee (1982). No doubt, Mehmood hogged the limelight in every scene he appeared and there were rumors that lead actor Manoj Kumar was not too happy with it and even tried convincing Raja Nawathe to delete the "Hum Kaale hain.." song from the film..

Another super hit song by Shankar Jaikishen 'Jaan Pehchaan Ho Jeena Aasan Ho" is my personal favorite despite its Beatles hangover.

Interestingly, the films climax makes use of Russian roulette game a decade before Salim Javed immortalized it in Sholay (1975).

Gumnaam makes for a good one time watch with family. Incidentally, I saw it first with my parivaar in mid 80s on DD National. The film still retains its charm like before..

Regards, Sumeet Nadkarni

About ten years ago, my brother and I were sick with the flu and surfing the endless satalite channels when we came across this movie and could not change the channel. We laughed all day and days to come: imitating the dance with the masked men and the lady in the obnoxious gold dress. And I was laughing again when I saw it again a few months ago in Ghost World. You think the abstract direction of the sixties was bazaare and silly- check out what was going on in India.

Gumnaam (1965) : Brief Review -

Christie's novel "And Then There Were None" was brought to full screen in American cinema in 1945, and after 2 decades, Bollywood woke up with the idea of making it a commercial blockbuster. Yes, we did it. Raja Nawathe gathered an ensemble cast of Manoj Kumar, Nanda, Mehmood, Pran, Helen, Madan Puri, Tarun Bose, Dhumal, and Manmohan. The script remains mostly unchanged, with a few changes here and there. In the novel, the 10 people are invited together, while here they are brought there by a conspiracy. The murder spree is the same, but Gumnaam powers itself with a proper commercial angle and some great musical numbers. "Gumnaam Hai Koi" is an iconic song, and it runs for like throughout the film. "Hum Kaale Hai To" is an evergreen chartbuster, and what a freaking grand setup it has. We have Mehmood nailing his characters and steps, and we have Helen nailing her looks and dance moves in the same song. What a great art design and fantastic choreography! Helen adds her sex appeal to the film, especially in "Gham Chhodke Manaao Rang" and that drunk song, which I didn't like much. Nanda is as gorgeous as ever, and her chemistry with Manoj Kumar is indeed beautiful. How sexy she looks in that rain song! These are the things that Hollywood couldn't have. That's the only way Bollywood got ahead of Hollywood, and I'm glad that we did. However, Gumnaam isn't as pacy as the American adaptation of the novel. Still, we have some great moments here. Who would have imagined that an eerie murder mystery could have been transformed into an audience friendly box office hit? Raja Nawathe and team Gunmaan did it. Today's filmmakers need to learn from old Bollywood how to make Hollywood adaptations in Hindi cinema.

RATING - 7/10*

By - #samthebestest.

HOW could anyone not love GUMNAAM? The most sensational dance number ever to open a serial killer movie "Jan Pennechaan Ho" and the fabulous Glomesh Ganesh in a gold Lame dress, Zorro boys and India's answer to Little Richard kick start GUMNAAM off to a musical start start unmatched in movie history. There even seems to be the wives and aunties of the producers as chorus girls, all out of step in their purple frilly dresses - and Zorro masks. Not even the superb 1955 plaster nightclub decor (made in 1965) or the (laughing bird) Kookaburra sounds (often heard in Tarzan films) clutter this most exuberant of nightclub dance numbers. The lead singer even throws himself on the floor and convulses - all in tune! The "Anything Goes" opening of INDIANA JONES TEMPLE OF DOOM can't even match this for 'out of your seat' shocko bizarro, because from then on GUMNAAM busies itself with a literally 'and then there were none' plot. There is a haunted mansion, ghosts and nooses from nowhere. The Mantan Moreland style kitchen hand Mamood, has the other major dance number, a tiki-himialyan Esther Williams inspired heavenly fantasy of meeting dancing virgins atop a spearmint plaster stairway held up with dancing plaster fish. All to tikka tikka boo bongo music Just beyond belief. What about the Two drunk girls who decide to sing about how funny it is to be drunk in a haunted house with a killer on the loose! Imagine THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT meets 'TEN LITTLE INDIANS' via MURDER ON THE ORIENT-NILE-GANGES and you might get slightly close. Find GUMNAAM. Show it to all your friends. IF only Hollywood was this much fun. Well it was, once wasn't it. This gets a 10 out of 10 just for the two dance numbers alone. The other 145 minutes are a bonus.

It's rather unusual seeing a Bollywood musical that features a thriller story in it. On the one hand it's also a real ridicules movies but it does work out in its own kind of way. It manages to create a likable, light, atmosphere, with a mystery story weaved into it, that keeps things going at all time.

I'm not even a big fan of 'normal' musical, let alone Bollywood musicals. However the songs in this movie are actually quite good to listen to and besides, some of them actually do serve a purpose for the movie its story.

It's a movie with a pretty good premise in it, that I'm sure some big Hollywood producers would had been jealous off. Thriller and mystery wise it really is a great concept, even though the movie really always doesn't put that much emphasize on its thriller and mystery elements.

Also in the end, the story itself really doesn't make much sense. It leaves far too many questions and the concept suddenly actually seems pretty far fetched. Besides, even though this is a mystery movie, I can't really say that the movie has lots of surprises in it. It was pretty obvious who the killer was from the start on, due to the incredible unconvincing 'disguise' that he is wearing. The only mystery of the movie is why the other characters in this didn't noticed this.

It's also quite ridicules how all of the characters aren't busy trying to find the killer, even though they know the are all going to get killed one by one, or try to find a way of the island. No. they are all just to busy swimming, eating, falling in love and singing and dancing to songs. But when you watch a Bollywood movie you know that you have to take all these things for granted. I did just that and was quite taken by the overall movie experience.

Once you surrender yourself to this movie, you'll find it a quite pleasant movie experience. Its basically a great mixture of some cheerful fun and a bit of a darker story. But did it really needed to be so long? None of these Bollywood movies should be so long really but that is what happens when you show a reaction shot of every character every time that something happened. And there are 9 main characters in this movies...

Yes, it really is a quite clumsily made movie at times, with its directing, camera-work and editing but also this does quite often add to the charm and movie experience of this movie. So even the bad things about this movie can work out as something positive, which says something about the effective this movie has on you while you are watching it. I think it's fair to say that you really don't have to be into Bollywood movies to watch and enjoy this one.

It's also a movie that uses some nice settings. It's in no way a cheap looking movie, with fake looking sets in it, even though the movie probably didn't cost an awful lot to make. It shows that is pays off to shoot your movie mostly on location, rather than somewhere on the back of a studio lot.

Despite of all my criticism, I really did surprisingly enjoy this movie!

8/10

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