Filmmaker Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay is a respected vintage. There were books written on it and cinema’s main stars have cited it because the movie that impressed them against arc lighting as youngsters. Its all-star forged and team — Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra, Hema Malini, Sanjeev Kumar, Amjad Khan, Rames Sippy and Salim-Javed — stay legends. Alternatively, other folks hardly communicate of Sippy’s movie Seeta Aur Geeta, a true-blue masala Bollywood entertainer that had me guffawing right through.
Seeta Aur Geeta (1972), with an ensemble forged — Hema Malini, Dharmendra, Sanjeev Kumar, Manorama, Asrani (particular look) — maximum of whom made it to Sholay, has all of the elements of a normal Bollywood movie because it gives comedy, melodrama, motion, romance, track and dance in beneath 2.5 hours.
It starts with the preferred trope of equivalent twins getting separated at start, with the coy one (Seeta) rising up in a wealthy family however with merciless kin. The feisty one (Geeta) grows up at the streets however beneath the care of a loving girl and an expensive good friend. Regardless that the primary part hour of the movie made me have a look at it like a Hindi TV serial the place the heroine (Seeta) is a damsel-in-distress with a depraved, abusive ‘Chachi’ treating her as a housemaid, Sippy didn’t disappoint when he introduces Geeta.
A full of life, motor-mouth lady in her colourful-gypsy garments, she catches grasp of the ceiling fan within the police station, as she’s being chased through a plump ‘Chachi’, who errors her for Seeta, with the ‘Elephant March’ enjoying within the background. I don’t bear in mind guffawing up to I did at the scene in any of the Bollywood comedies just lately. In hindsight, I will be able to’t bear in mind looking at even mildly humorous, honest-to-god Bollywood comedy within the closing decade, however that’s for once more.
Seeta Aur Geeta unfolds as a comedy of mistakes, the place lots of the laughter is on account of confusion brought about through a case of unsuitable identities. And, Sippy made it some degree that the confusion simplest makes the characters scratch their collective heads and no longer the audience. The movie’s writers, Salim-Javed, had been impressed through Dilip Kumar’s 1967 movie Ram Aur Shyam, however no longer having watched it, for me, Seeta Aur Geeta has change into my favorite equivalent twins film. It’s adopted through Sridevi’s Chaalbaaz (1989) that drew closely from Seeta Aur Geeta. Regardless that those motion pictures resulted in an technology of such motion pictures (Kishen Kanhaiya, Judwaa, Kuch Khatti Kuch Meethi), none may just depart an have an effect on like this.
Hema Malini and Manorama in a nonetheless from Seeta Aur Geeta. (Picture: Categorical Archives)
Hema Malini, who I had simplest identified both as a talkative Basanti (Sholay) or the best mom (Baghban), illustrated how she earned the name of ‘Dream Woman’ within the 70s. Her finesse as an actor is relatively visual right here as she aces each the portions, that of tormented, orphaned Seeta and of the feisty Geeta. It was once a deal with to look at her educate a lesson to her evil ‘chachi’ (Manorma) and her brother Ranjeet (Roopesh Kumar).
But even so her, actors Dharmendra and Sanjeev Kumar, have performed an ideal activity in supporting roles of Raaka and Ravi. Whilst Raaka is a rugged guy who wears leather-based jackets and an earring, Ravi is a candy physician who interacts most commonly thru his smile. Manorma as evil ‘chachi’ Kaushalya held her act until the very finish and complemented Malini’s efficiency.
Hema Malini and Dharmendra in Seeta Aur Geeta. (Categorical archive photograph)
Sippy provides a cherry on best with a chaotic but humorous climax. Our heroine Geeta will get to perform a little fist-fighting with the goons who kidnap Seeta. Accompanying her are the 2 primary males, Raaka and Ravi, who carry comedian reduction within the emotional second of ‘bachpan mein bichdi hui behenon ka milan’.
The only factor that makes Seeta Aur Geeta easiest for me is its simplicity. In occasions when racy thrillers, motion pictures with a social message, nationalistic dramas, biopics and darkish comedies are being thrown at me from Bollywood, I don’t thoughts looking at some silliness which brings some happiness and delight with it.