Apologies to any Dilip or Meena fans who might be offended… I love Dilip and (especially) Meena too. But there are a few films to see them together in, even another light-hearted film, Kohinoor, which is far better too (more cohesive, more involving, etc. – as Antarra correctly pointed out a few months ago). But how many films give a real role to Sai-Subbulaxmi (or Sayee & Subbulakshmi, etc.)? They are real characters in this film, hanging around here and there (and being very cute) before they do their fantastic dances.
They were the original reason I wanted to find this movie too, but I thought maybe my focus would change once I saw the whole film, especially since I had become more aware of the Dilip-Meena duo. But no, that didn’t change; I still like this film mainly for Sai-Subbulaxmi.
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P.S. As I’ve said when I’ve talked about these scenes before (long before I had a chance to see the movie), there are also nice Tamil versions of their dances up on YouTube. The Tamil versions are the first ones, actually. Malaikallan came out a year earlier, starring MGR and P. Bhanumathi. I wonder… If I watched Malaikallan, would I still feel that the real stars were Sai-Subbulaxmi?
horses! or rather, meena kumari on a horse… thats what I remember of azaad..will have to rewatch it now
Hmm, maybe you fell asleep after the first five mintues. :) In the first scene, we see that Meena’s character likes to go horseback riding and considers herself something of an expert at it… And then we never see her on a horse again throughout the entire film!!
And for some reason, I’m much more convinced when Vyjayanthimala shows her horseback riding skills at the beginning of Ladki/Sangham…
I am not a fan of Dilip Kumar, but I liked him a lot here, and young Meena Kumari is always a treat. I love the songs and find the dances lovely, but some of them could so easily be chopped off without affecting the movie at all – the Appalam chappalam number, for example. So, on re-watches I usually land up forwarding the songs so I can get back to the story! (I do re-watch just the songs as well, since they are all so uniformly lovely.)
Maybe you like Dilip a bit more here because he is less grim than in other places? :)
Anyway, i agree about the songs/dances not being all that connected to the film. With the obvious comparison, Kohinoor, they are inseparable. Kumkum is the great dancer in Kohinoor, and her great dancing is an important part of the plot (as is the great singing and sitar playing picturized on Dilip). Sai-Subbulaxmi are in the plot here (which was probably unusual for them), but no, they’re not really important to it.
There are sweet moments with Dilip and Meena here, but generally, I just couldn’t take to this convoluted plot. The movie also seemed to have a lot of pieces that could be dropped out easily, from wild animal fights (which looked to me like stuff lifted from some old nature documentary) to the (far too many) skits with the bumbling policeman. So, if I go for another viewing, I think I’m much more likely to fast-forward through the film to get to the songs and dances.
By the way, Bollyviewer, the day after I watched this, I watched the 1966 Afsana. I think I liked that a little more than you did, though I would agree that it wasn’t all that deep or memorable.