Nov 10, 2006 06:44 PM
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Erstwhile Bimal Roy is known and respected in Hindi cinema for his serious and earthy movies. Every time his name crops up, a shot of black and white scratchy print showing a pair of running feets on a Culcutta (now Kolkatta) road, and as the camera pans a sweating Balraj Sahni as rickshaw puller appears before me. This scene from Do Bigha Zameen is synonymous with the name of Bimal Roy, if not for others, at least for me. His other great works comes in the form of Sairabanu and Dharmendra starring Chaitali, but associating Bimal Da with a comedy flick…
Not directed by him, however this comedy flick, Do Dooni Char, was produced by Bimal Roy in 1968 and was directed by Debu Sen. The film stared Kishore Kumar and Asit Sen along with Tanuja, Sudha Rani, Surekha and Rashid Khan. The film was a hit of the time.
This comedy flick is based on Shakespeare’s popular play, ‘Comedy of Errors’ and thus the plot has Sandeep, a young timber merchant who lives with his mother and his servant who has grown up with him. Sandeep and Sevak take a business trip to a small town Shikarpur and are astounded when people of Shikarpur greet them by their names, despite this being their first visit. The mystery deepens as they move around the town and are accosted by Suman and Pyari who claim to be their wives. Our Sandeep is smitten by Suman’s sister Anju and things get worse. Things get clear to the duo that in Shikarpur there lives another Sandeep and Sevak who look like them.
On the other side, the other pair also gets aware of the existence of their look-alikes though the people of the town and the respective spouses remain unaware. What follows thereafter is a series of misunderstanding and grotesque situations, confusion replete with hilarity and matters taking a very complicated turn until at the end the truth is revealed and the erring parties and the whole family is re-united.
Directionally Debu Sen has done a fair job. Kishore Kumar as Sandeep in the double role brings in the major tickles supported ably by the roly-poly Asit Sen in the double role of Sevak. The other cast has given a fair performance livening up the movie.
The film has music by noted singer-composer Hemant Kumar on lyrics of illustrious Gulzar. Hawao pe likh do hawao ke naam, hum anjane pardesiyo ka salam.... and Ab to muskaraye, muskaraye jara, aapki shararate gul khila chuki....are a couple of gems from the team.
Needless to say that this hit movie so inspired Gulzar that he directed its remake for producer Jai Singh’s Angoor in 1982. This one starred Sanjeev Kumar and Devan Verma.
Do Dooni Char is available on UltraDVD for Rs. 299/- .
