At The Edge

from The Indian Express dated December 9, 1942

The Street light Scene The sheer weirdness of that street light scene redeems Jennifer Lynch's Hisss of all its iniquities. A Nagin  missing her snake-lover roams around the city in the dead of night. On seeing a moth-ridden street light, she climbs up and sheds some tears for her lost love. A path breaking take on shama-parwana  motif of old Hindi cinema and basic urdu poetry. The scene could have well gone into David Lynch territory if the viewer got to see the well-attired Nagin of Reena Roy climb up that pole and not Nagin of Mallika Sherawat in buff.

The Wife (Vijayalakshmi) A wife tries to win the love of her husband back from the 'other' woman using a magic potion but unknowingly ends up seducing a Cobra who fathers her child. The original story comes from Kannada folk tale. The story was recounted by A. K. Ramanujan to Girish Karnad who went on to write a play based on the tale (in 1988). Less than a decade later a film was made on the story. There are many points of divergence between the play and the film. Karnad's Nagamandala starts with another Kannada folktale, a playwright cursed with death for making people fall asleep with his productions. To escape death he has to stay awake all-night on a particular day of the month and to help him stay awake 'story' comes. This is the story of a Cobra who falls in love with a woman. The blind old woman (B. Jayashree in a wonderful performance) Appanna marries Rani but actually loves his mistress. When he goes out to meet with his mistress, Appann

A Surf bath! from song 'Masti aur Jawani' in film Dil Daulat Duniya (1972) 

video link

Interesting use of blaxploitation by "Institute of Human Dynamics". One half of Mr. Black Belt Jones is hand drawn and the other is actually from a poster. Poor Jim Kelly! A Gunda from Balandarpur. found in an issue of Filmfare dated1976

Wasn't he the perfect choice for a tonic ad. Vinkola-12 Ad from 1976 -0-

Probably from the 60s. Definitely early 70s. (Check Update) 'Some complexions just never grow up! Pears keeps your skin young, innocent. Pears...the original glycerine Soap. '  Agency: Lintas -0- Update: At the start of 2010 The Indian Express did a story on bloggers archiving vintage Indian ads and my blog was one of that blogs that got mentioned (bringing tears of joy to my eyes without application of glycerine) along with a picture of the ad that you see above. Now, from The Indian Express archives available thanks to Google I know the definitive date of that Ad and I give two more ads from the same 'Motherly' series that Pears still seems to follow. Some more from 1942 and 1943. Noticeable change of theme and proprietor. 1942 1942 1943 -0-

Found it in an old magazine from 1975. Shashi  Kapoor, Dharmendra and Feroz Khan together in a rare moment of male bonhomie at a party. Fan count of these three taken together should cover the entire fan base of Indian cinema in one hell of a Venn Diagram

Jana Yudh was one of the three films produced by Maoists of Nepal in around year 2007 as they paused, gaining significant political ground, after waging a more than decade-long civil war against the Nepalese Royalty and its functionaries. The other two films, with equally liberating names, were Lal Salaam (Red Salute) and Awaaz (Voice). [Check news link for more info. here ] The film  is kind of a tribute to the Maoist fighters. It is a propaganda film, that is obvious, but it does offers us an interesting take on the State, revolution and bad cinema. Let us not bother with the story it is the same old rap: State and its men wreck havoc on citizenry, they kill, maim, rape, laugh they horrible laughter and then citizens take up guns, train in forest, they kill back, maim, hold public trials and shed tears over the innocent dead. We will look at what the two sides, the State and the Maoists, do in a film produced by Maoist. State tries to pound grains of the humble chest of citi