Bandie (1978) – Rekha’s Sousaphone

Bandie appears to have been the previous in a trio of bilingual movies that, beginning with Amanush (1975), were intended to promote Uttam Kumar as a Hindi film hero. In contrast to Amanush or to Anand Ashram (1977), it’s a significantly extra earnest attempt to transplant a Bengali star into the narrative and stylistic world of massy mid-‘70s Bollywood. What outcomes is a messy, meandering film—but it is surely an fascinating failure. Bandie was created by F. C. Mehra for Eagle Movies and directed by Alo Sircar from a screenplay by Sircar, Jainendra Jain, and Ashok Ghosal.

Following thieving some house loan income back again from the local seth (Manek Dutt), Bhola (Uttam Kumar) is compelled to flee his village to the neighboring kingdom of Bharatpur. He awakes from a refreshing nap on a hillside to discover himself politely but quite insistently apprehended—not by the policemen the seth had established on his tail, but by Bharatpur’s senpati Raghuveer (Iftekhar). Raja Brajbhan Singh (Satyendra Kappu) possessing just lately expired, Raghuveer and the kingdom’s diwan (Madan Puri) are retaining the house fires burning until these time as they can relocate the missing yuvraaj Uday Singh. Their doing the job theory is that Uday has been kidnapped or probably outright murdered by Brajbhan’s scummy brother Vikram (Utpal Dutt) or Vikram’s scummier son Kanchan (Amjad Khan—they use matching ruffle-fronted shirts). Provided that his most urgent priority is locking Vikram and Co. out of political electricity, and that Uday is portrayed in flashbacks by Uttam Kumar, Raghuveer is keen to exploit Bhola’s prospective as an impersonator. Bhola is confident that he’ll continue to be the reluctant cost of bodyguard Chandravadan (Tarun Ghosh) for only as extensive as it will take to dig up the genuine Uday—surely sometime right before Uday’s prepared wedding to raajkumari Radha of Rampur (Sulakshana Pandit). Chandravadan or no Chandravadan, Bhola manages to heist himself out of the palace. He then voluntarily returns just after stumbling throughout a cabin in the surrounding jungle. Bhola decides he can afford to stay in Bharatpur and cooperate with Raghuveer’s designs when investigating the cabin and its obvious relationship with the very long-in the past murder of his mom (Indrani Mukherjee).

The earlier mentioned paragraph provides an deliberately conservative accounting of the named characters whom an aspiring Bandie viewer is obligated to keep track of. Besides the 50 percent a dozen or so who are significant gamers in the prologue only to retire before the primary action, there’s also Sujan Singh, king of Rampur (Amar Nath) Brajbhan Singh’s 2nd spouse, the chhoti raani (Nandita Thakur) Vikram’s recent spymistress/henchguy matched established, Bimla and Anand (Bindu and Amrish Puri) his previous spymistress and henchguy, Sundari and Zalim Singh (Padma Khanna and a man I really don’t understand) and Radha’s lovely, portentously named lady’s maid Krishna (Prema Narayan)—each of whom has a thing of moment to do. It’s not even a specially extensive movie! The print I noticed weighed in at under two and a 50 percent several hours, of which no niggardly part is reserved for comedy business, attractive dishoomery, and other plot-ancillary endeavors. At the very least in some regards, this narrative maximalism should undoubtedly be a deliberate preference. Certainly substantially of the movie progresses with a curious sense of double eyesight, possibly meant to enhance the brace of Uttam Kumars guiding held captive by distinctive factions in Bharatpur. Other than the fateful cabin, there is a pair of fateful temples. 2 times Bhola arrives at the cabin so quickly soon after the past occupant departed that he finds a candle wick nonetheless smoking. His mother’s murderer drops two major objects and is identifiable by two distinctive scars. Kanchan entrusts Amrish with two various assassinations, which unfold through two distinct songs. Radha escapes by using horseback from two undesired engagements! Unfortunately, this muchness permits the tale to unfold only in spastic, wandering methods. When something is never ever not going on, notably after interval, quite a few of the developments sense pointless. With figures so conveniently offed and plots so simply foiled, I commenced to have sunk-expense-fallacy-style feelings about them.

Lousy Uttam Kumar is saddled with some regrettable comedic episodes that suit him pretty badly in the early areas of the film. I discovered him rather far more appealing in the function of Uday somewhat than as Bhola even although the previous will get a great deal significantly less screentime, he has to provide a quite complicated personal arc. With the paths of its key characters so meandering, there is generally much more pleasure to be observed amongst the scaled-down players. Utpal Dutt, Bindu, and Amrish Puri all transform in interesting performances as antagonists. Bindu’s character of Bimla had, to my shock, the most engaging tale out of any of them. With a suppressed but not inactive conscience, she is capable to keep a near psychological bead on her employer Vikram, obviously informed that her existence relies upon from second to instant on the fantastic mood of an inherently unwell-tempered male. Though typically in it for the money, she continue to fosters some real friendship for him—as perfectly as affections for other get-togethers, for whose sake she attempts to thrust her honeypot gig as far as she maybe can before cutting and running. The melodrama also sits far more comfortably on Bindu than most of the other actors included she is not humiliated to be broad. Even though the efficiency is most likely significantly less effective, I also enjoyed Sulakshana as Radha. We learn early on that her father raised her to worth her own ethical sense and independence. When he or many others, pressured by political embarrassments, desire her cooperation in several machinations, she does not be reluctant to assail that hypocrisy. Undoubtedly her arc ends on a delightful very little button.

I had genuinely only acknowledged Shyamal Mitra from his scores for Amanush and Anand Ashram, each individual of which I like. It was as a result a disappointment to discover the songs of Bandie so unfortunately mid, though there are at the very least a handful of that are interestingly realized. In this movie replete with assassination plots, I did not think it also spoilerish to point out previously mentioned that there are two tunes that have attempted murders in them. In “Honth Bhale Inkar Kare,” Anand virtually has the misfortune to accidentally whack Helen mid-qawwali! (Don’t fret she escapes unscathed to dance a different working day.) Under contemplation, it looks obvious that some ambitious filmi assassin should to use the visible confusion of a Holi song as deal with for a hit, but “Range Na Mann Rang Mein Agar” is the only case in point I can recall having at any time witnessed. There are also a couple of picturizations that enjoy interestingly with the conventions of “heard” and “unheard” tracks. Bhola, disappointed with getting to stay in disguise as Uday, presses Radha to think of points from an regular person’s point of view for as soon as. Whilst she imagines an normal everyday living (and an normal romance) for herself in “Jise Yaar Ka Sachha Pyar Mile,” time is also passing back again in the genuine earth she comes back again out of the music to find that Bhola is gone and her space is once more unlocked. Just one of the film’s several time jumps actually occurs midway by way of a tune. In “Dil Usse Dungi,” Vikram is nodding off in his chair whilst Bimla dances for Uday’s gain down the hall. Starting with the next antara, what we listen to and see is 1 of Vikram’s dreamt reminiscences of Sundari—and the movie proceeds in that previously timeline for various minutes just after the music has concluded. We finally soar back to the “present” when Bimla tucks a blanket above the fitfully napping contemporary Vikram. Have to have I point out that, in addition to supplying an inventive transition amongst timelines, this technique also permits two product quantities for the price of just one? In contrast to Vikram, we viewers can have our Bindu and our Padma Khanna, also.

I would be interested to know the complete tale powering the creating and reception of this film, about which I have been capable to uncover minimal details. Amanush and Anand Ashram experienced each been produced in parallel Hindi and Bengali versions, the latter motion picture flopping terribly. One would by natural means presume that filming the exact tale two times would produce supplemental costs in conditions of manhours, if absolutely nothing else. Just about every secondary source that I can locate describes Bandi as straight-up a Hindi movie. In the study course of searching up the tunes on YouTube, having said that, I stumbled throughout Bengali versions of some of them and was eventually able to dig up a variant of the comprehensive movie with a Bengali censor’s ticket. (Look for the title “বন্দি.”) Based on my inexpert examination—keeping in mind that I know practically not a term of Bengali—I consider that edition is “parallel” relatively than getting a dub. At any price, if it is, it is an awfully superior dub, and though certain other features of Bandie are exciting, enjoyable, or satisfactory, I wouldn’t phrase any of them “awfully good.” In limited, it appears as even though there were being a few of these parallel Bengali–Hindi jobs in a row—not two as generally documented.

If these films represented some variety of concentrated make-Uttam-a-Hindi-hero cottage industry, it was leeching talent by the time Bandie came together. As in Amanush and Anand Ashram, Utpal Dutt however seems in the key detrimental role, but fairly than Sharmila Tagore as the heroine, Bandie had to settle for Sulakshana at a time when she was nevertheless transitioning from playback singer to actress. Shakti Samanta had directed and developed the two of the previously parallel Hindi–Bengali tasks. Bandie was alternatively generated by F. C. Mehra (a really common determine to supporters of ‘70s Bolly) and has as its director some fellow named Alo Sircar, whose only prior credit score was Chhoti Si Mulaqat—the Agni Pariksha adaptation that experienced been Uttam Kumar’s to start with catastrophic endeavor to crack into the Hindi sector all the way back again in 1967. Most influentially of all, although, the credits of Bandie invoke only the trustworthy “Eagle Films Story Office.”1 Amanush, by contrast, experienced been adapted from a Shaktipada Rajguru novel, whilst the story of Anand Ashram is credited to veteran Bengali screenwriter Shailajananda Mukhopadhyay. It is story and screenplay more than everything else that give Bandie a various taste than the earlier Hindi–Bengali parallel projects. Whether the change away from literary types and to the Eagle Movies writers’ room was an intentional choice or a single necessitated by the failure of Anand Ashram, it makes Bandie really feel far additional totally a creature of the Bombay industry.

1 A digression: any one who, like me, used their childhood hiding within of nineteenth-century novels will figure out the fundamental shape of Anthony Hope’s Prisoner of Zenda in this plot setup. Saradindu Bandyopadhyay wrote an unauthorized adaptation of the novel called Jhinder Bandi, which experienced been built into an Uttam Kumar movie in 1961. To go by the plot summaries furnished by Sharmi, Madhu, and Beth, it appears as even though Jhinder Bandi and Bandie share one main reorientation of the Zenda model although differing on most other details. Without having obtaining the chance to observe Jhinder Bandi, it is presently unclear to me what connection Bandie may have experienced either to that film or to Bandyopadhyay’s novel, if any.