Jadoo (1951) :
Brief Review -
Another unwanted remake of Rita Hayworth's femme fatale romance turned into a solid Indian drama. Charles Vidor's filmography never impressed me, and A. R. Kardar's Jadoo is a Hindi remake of Vidor's The Loves of Carmen (1948), starring Rita Hayworth. Coincidentally, Hindi cinema has another remake/adaptation of another Rita Hayworth film, Gilda (1946), titled Baazi, starring Dev Anand. Fortunately, both remakes filtered many things as per Indian audiences' notions, and that's why I feel that these two Hindi remakes are much better than the original Hollywood flicks. Believe me, I have rarely said this for a Hindi remake of a Hollywood film, and I tell you, I have seen close to a thousand of them. Jadoo isn't about the femme fatale effect, which makes it more stable and adorable than Carmen's story. In the original flick, Carmen and Jose keep fighting, and Carmen becomes a lover of someone else (her third love overall). But Jadoo sees Sundari becoming a dancer to pay for Pritam's life. This erases the Femme Fatale touch completely, and we have a certain misogynist touch coming from Pritam's character, who becomes overly possessive about Sundari becoming a dancer. At the end, Kardar has added a nice touch of notion/superstition of Black Cat cutting the path, which is a very popular myth in India. You already start believing that something bad is going to happen, and the way it happens makes the love story look better than what it looked like in the original Hollywood film. Suresh has done well in the lead role, but Nalini Jaywant is the real show-stealer here. Her dance numbers, glamour, and that "Aaahh" she does every time-everything is so cute. Naushad's music is strictly situational, and Kardar's direction is much better than that of Charles Vidor. I would have never wanted Bollywood to remake this film, but what a major victory it turned out to be for us.
RATING - 7/10*
By - #samthebestest.
