Gumnaam

The movie starts out simple enough. A man stands at a balcony and smokes a cigarette while watching a drunk man (coming out of a nightclub/bar) getting run over with a car. This is all intentional. The man on the balcony goes inside, pays someone for the death of the man on the street and then proceeds to call a whole bunch of people to let them know the man has died. In the middle of the phone call to the dead man's niece, a strange man in a trench coat, hat and gloves comes in and shoots the man.

After this we get the most famous scene of this movie : the dance scene that was shown in Ghost World. Its a crazy 60's rock n' roll dance number, complete with a girl dressed in a gold dress with frills, male dancers dressed in black suits with white frill shirts, female backup dancers in pink dresses with frills and a lounge singer dressed in a white suit with black tie. They are all wearing black masks. The song is quite catchy and makes you wanna get up and dance (or if you prefer, dance in your seat).

After the dance number (for the silver anniversary of the club), seven people are "randomly" chosen to go on an exclusive holiday abroad. On the way to the location, the plane has to land for repairs (it lands in the middle of a field somewhere). When the plane unexpectedly leaves, the seven "castaways" (8 if you count the Ray Romano looking steward) look around. They discover a mansion in the middle of nowhere, where a butler/cook awaits their arrival (and knows all theirs names except for the steward).

I would classify this movie as a Bollywood version of an Agatha Christie type suspense mystery. In typical Bollywood fashion this would include several dance and musical numbers. This is a very enjoyable twist on the whole mystery genre. It is true that the music and dancing does distract one from the mystery and reduces the tension. At the same time, I was enjoying the dance/musical numbers too much too care. By far my favorite dance/musical number (other than the opening one) would be the drunken singing scene between Miss Kitty and Nanda. I also loved the product placement of the movie. It is quite evident how much "Hollywood" items are used as items of social stature in other cultures. For example, the Cool cigarettes and the Long John whiskey. It is also quite comical to witness the amount of tobacco smoked in this movie (several black lung's worth). This is a very enjoyable movie and the 180 minutes rush by. I highly recommend this movie.

-Celluloid Rehab

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.

Interested in all things related to Ghost World after seeing that great unhyped movie last summer, I recently stumbled across Gumnaam which was available via Indiaweekly.com at a very reasonable price. It arrived yesterday, and I had intended to pop it in the DVD player just to check it out for a minute or two -- instead I was drawn in, and watched the entire 2 1/2 hours straight through.

This colorful movie is basically a routine thriller in which each member of a group of strangers is mysteriously murdered, one after another, until we find out who is ultimately responsible and why. What makes this movie stand out are the very unusual musical numbers, especially the first one entitled "Jaan Pehechaan Ho" which was featured prominently in the opening sequence of Ghost World. I can't recommend this movie overall, but that one particular bizarre Sixties Hindu rock dance number is worthy of praise. Thank you, Ghost World!

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.

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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