Skip to main content

Dev Anand: The Oldman Who Kept Keeps On Driving

I have to confess that Dev Anand was the first oldie star whose movies I truly enjoyed watching. As, I grew older and Dev Anand grew into “evergreen” oldman, his newer movies grew unbearable. Many years ago, I read an essay by film critic Maithili Rao. This is what she had to say about Dev Anand:

After the early straight dramatic roles, Dev Anand’s debonair narcissism degenerated into the Noddy land of toothy smiles and a body balanced at an acute, gravity – defying angle.


It’s true at times he is indefensible (aren’t we all), and at times he needs no defense. Either you accept him, or you don’t. Where is the need for an 84/85 old filmmaker to defend his movies(altleast he knows that the minds of remake directors are bankrupt), choice of actress (people forget that Tabu got her first big break with him) and even personal life? (I am saying this after reading the review of his book Romancing With Life: An Autobiography in Hindustan Times dated 30th September, 2007 )

I have even seen a lot of his later year movies too. They didn’t seem as bad at that time because I saw them in the 90s; those were the time when every second movie was a bad movie. He movie were still different…not the best at the production level. But then, at that time only Yash Raj and some other houses had the production standards and terms like that. I don’t know about marketing, but with right kind of people around, he could have certainly made better movies. When old production houses like RK Studios were making Aa Ab Laut Chalen with Aishwarya Rai, Dev Anand was making Main Solah Baras Ki with unknown actress like Shaista Usta . Frankly, I don’t see the difference between the two.
When younger people like Mansoor Khan, (who incidentally wasn’t making movies based on any original idea) got disillusioned with the process of making a Hindi movie and quit because of the toll it took on personal; when people like Mahesh Bhatt decided to stop making movies and proclaim that people weren’t ready for his kind of cinema. Older Dev Anand seems to be the only one having real passion for cinema.

Just enjoy his old classic movies and hope that at the age of 80, you are half as much passionate about something, as Dev Anand is about making movies.

—0—
Image: Dev Anand in the movie Taxi Driver(1954)
Courtesy: Wikimedia
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

I always like to hear back :)
However, irrelevant comments and irrelevant links will not be published. Needless to say, same goes for abusive comment and spam. Leaving back links related to the topic is encouraged. I know it can be tempting but try not to leave your email ids, phone nos and CVs in the comment.

Popular posts from this blog

Famous Old Faces of Doordarshan

Some people recall the faces and some people recall the names. Here are images of some of the famous readers and presenters of Doordarshan down the years. If you recognize any of them, leave a comment. [ Update 1 : Most of the faces now have names thanks to helpful comments by olio-gallimaufry ] [ Update 2 : Included image of one of the earliest presenters, Gopal Kaul. Send in generously from personal collection by son, Ashutosh Kaul. Sept, 2010.] [ Major Update 3: Got a tip-off about a documentary about the famous faces of Doordarshan from the makers   of     “The Golden Trail , DD@50 :Special feature on Golden Jubilee of Doordarshan ” from which these caps were taken. I managed to catch the incredible documentary and am adding some more faces/name and part of the docu here. New ones can be found after the image of  Narotam Puri. 30th Oct, 2010]  Pratima Puri. Believed to be the first Doordarshan reader.
176 comments
Read more

Indian Cigarette Vintage Ads

He put a cigarette in his mouth and, as a matter of silent routine, offered one to Gwyn, who said ‘No thanks.”Richard looked at him.”I packed it in.”"You what?”"I stopped. Three days ago. Cold. That’s it. You just make the life choice.” Richard looked up and inhaled needfully. He gazed at his cigarette. He didn’t really want to smoke it. He wanted to eat it. Almost the only thing that he still liked about Gwyn was that he still smoked…Paradoxically, he no longer wanted to give up smoking: what he wanted to do was take up smoking. Not so much to fill the little gaps between cigarettes with cigarettes (there wouldn’t be time, anyway) or to smoke two cigarettes at once. It was more that he felt the desire to smoke a cigarette even when he was smoking a cigarette. The need was and wasn’t being met… While it would always be true and fair to say that Richard felt like a cigarette, it would now be doubly true and fair to say it. He felt like a cigarette. And he felt like a cig
21 comments
Read more

Kishore Kumar, Yodel-ay-ee-oooo Songs, A List

*Updated with corrections pointed out by Bart Plantenga , author of some incredible book on Yodeling including Yodel-Ay-Ee-Oooo: The Secret History of Yodeling Around the World. -0- Kishore Kumar 's brother Anoop Kumar, who we basically know for the line ' O manu tera toh hua ab mera kya hoga ', used to own lots of Austrian music records. And from these records, Kishore Kumar picked up the art of Yodel singing, an art perfected in bathroom and then introduced by him to the world of Hindi film music. According to his biography 'Kishore Kumar: method in madness‎ ' by Derek Bose, "Kishore was a fan of the Swiss singer Tex Norton [* Tex Morton, an Australian cowboy born in New Zealand who sang  in the gene autry / Jimmie Rodgers style ] and the Australian Jimmy Rogers [* Jimmie Rodgers , perhaps the most American and one of the most famous yodelers in the world, famous for his blue yodels ] as well." Although most of these songs by Kishore Kumar are t
18 comments
Read more