Afsar

1950 121’ b&w Hindi d/s Chetan Anand pc Navketan st N. Gogol’s The Inspector General lyr Vishwamitter Adil, Narendra Sharma c V. Ratra m S.D. Burman lp Dev Anand, Suraiya, Ruma Devi, Kanhaiyalal, Rashid, Mohan Segal, Krishna Dhawan, Anand Pal, Zohra Segal, Manmohan Krishna

Chetan Anand’s 2nd film (after Neecha Nagar, 1946), launching Navketan, continues his engagement with classic Soviet literature, although a Filmindia review suggested the film was based on the Henry Koster-Danny Kaye version (1949) of Gogol’s play. The journalist Kapur (Dev Anand) comes to a village run by corrupt politicians led by the village tehsildar (Kanhaiyalal). They mistake him for a government inspector and treat him like a VIP. The expose of rural politics is intercut with a love story between Kapur and the tehsildar’s sister Bimala (Suraiya). The film substantially determined the style, and the key unit, characteristic of Navketan’s 50s productions.

Film