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All posts for the month June, 2009
This version cuts off the end, but you get a nice beginning!
Mohammed Rafi/Bharat Bhushan, a radio, and Madhubala in Barsaat Ki Raat (1960)
K.L. Saigal, a radio, and Kanan Devi in Street Singer (1938)
Regarding the second clip below, I know I must have posted it three times already and at least once in the past few months. I haven’t forgotten, I haven’t “lost it” that much yet. But I’m posting it again because so many people have said they like “that dancer,” the woman dancing on the footpath, but few people seem to remember her name. Well, I found out her name, and she’s been in quite a few good dance scenes, so here are three of them…
I hope that by the time I finally get this movie, I haven’t burnt out on this song already from playing it hundreds of times…
Another instance of finding a clip to replace one that was removed from a year+-old post … I thought of simply putting this in the old post of early June 2008, but I had a bunch of explanation there (about where I found it, etc.) that no longer applies. So here it is again, for the present:
Apparently, I reminded Tommydan1 to put together his Sai-Subbulaxmi playlist. (Although he uses “and” instead of a hyphen. I don’t know if “and” is needed, but maybe the hyphen isn’t either and I should be writing their name the way I normally write Shankar Jaikishan (which is also spelled a few different ways). Well, as long as everyone knows who we’re talking about – and not enough people do!) So, go over there if you want to see a few more of the great filmi dances that they did between 1955 and 1963 (and wonder whatever happened to them since).
This isn’t usually the blog where you’ll see Bollywood fashion comments (there are other places for that). However, I thought I’d delve a little into this area for a moment…
A brief discussion occurred earlier about how Meena Kumari rode horses at the beginning of Azaad (but for some reason, never did in the film later on)… And I said that for some reason, I thought Vyjayanthimala was more convincing in her horseback riding roles. Now I realize that the main reason I had that impression was because of her tendency in the early movies to wear big horseback riding pants. Although I suspect that this was also a popular fashion at the time…
Her first appearance in the big horseback riding pants was in Bahar…
Then Vyjayanthi wore the great pants again in the opening scene of Sangham (1953) (as well as in the other versions of this movie, Ladki and Penn), which begins with her actually riding a horse (though unfortunately, you’re going to have to get through three minutes of mostly Telugu credits before seeing that):
Now, when Vyjayanthimala wore the big horseback riding pants, I think that was supposed to have a cute-little-girl kind of effect (because, basically, at the time, she was a cute little girl).
But the big horseback riding pants can also be worn to entirely different effect (and by the way, despite the first picture you see here, I am not referring to Dilip Kumar):
In my opinion, nobody could match Nadira in big horseback riding pants!
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P.S. Beautiful singing by Shamshad Begum through much of the above (though that’s P. Susheela in Sangham). Beautiful singing by Mohammed Rafi (in addition to Shamshad Begum) in Aan. Nice music by S.D. Burman in Bahar and S. Rajeswara Rao in Sangham, but really wonderful music by Naushad in Aan. (Very soon, I will have to see Aan!)
Happy birthday, Padmini! I planned my Padmini birthday post more last year, but on this blog these days, almost every day is Padmini’s birthday, or at least she seems to have one every week or two. I’ve been a bit busy, actually (with non-blog-related writing projects), but I had to take a moment out to celebrate Padmini Day anyway. And everyone else should do the same… (Watch a Padmini movie, do some bharatanatyam in your living room…)
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P.S. Yes, the subs are somewhat ridiculous. They might add to the amusement, but they might also be too distracting, especially during that great dance by Padmini and Ragini. But you can also turn them off when the video is running – just click the little red box two rows above the arrow on the right.
Dances on the Footpath 