Amanush

1974 165’[B]/153’[H] col Bengali/Hindi? d/p/co-sc Shakti Samanta pc Shakti Films st/co-sc Shaktipada Rajguru dial Prabhat Roy[B], Kamleshwar[H] lyr Gouriprasanna Majumdar[B], Indivar[H] c Aloke Dasgupta m Shyamal Mitra lp Uttam Kumar, Sharmila Tagore, Utpal Dutt, Abhi Bhattacharya, Anil Chatterjee, Prema Narayan, Manmohan, Asit Sen

Samanta’s hit with an all-Bengali star cast reconnects with the Bengali-Hindi bilinguals and signifies to some extent the powerful Bombay production sector’s cultural takeover of the Bengali cinema. In the village of Dhaniakhali, the new police chief Bhuvan Sen finds corruption and decay personified by the dissolute Madhusudhan Roy Choudhury (Kumar), the zamindar’s son. However, the cause of the rot is not the persistence feudalism in the village but the presence of the sophisticated and mild-mannered Mahim Babu, cast as the villain who turns the head of Madhusudhan’s girlfriend Lekha (Tagore). The policeman eventually restores the old feudal power relations, rehabilitates the hero and restores Lekha to him. This reactionary parable was celebrated for the performance of Bengali megastar Uttam Kumar. The Hindi version has the hit song Dil aisa kisine mera toda, sung by Kishore Kumar.

Film