Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi

1958 173’ b&w Hindi d Satyen Bose pc K.H. Pics dial Ramesh Pant, Gobind Moonis lyr Majrooh Sultanpuri c Aloke Dasgupta m S.D. Burman lp Kishore Kumar, Ashok Kumar, Anoop Kumar, Madhubala, Sajjan, K.N. Singh, Veena, Sahira, Helen, Cuckoo, Mohan Choti, S.N. Bannerjee

Following on from Bandi (1957), Bose made this crazy comedy with the brothers Kumar which became their best-known ensemble production. The eldest brother (Ashok Kumar) is a misogynist; the second one, Jaggu (Anoop Kumar) is the bumbler and the youngest, Mannu (Kishore Kumar), is the romantic. Together they run a garage. Mannu meets Renu (Madhubala) when she arrives in the dead of night to get her car repaired and they fall in love. With the help of the other brothers, they have fight off a gang led by Raja Hardayal Singh (K.N. Singh) and his son Kumar Pradeep (Sajjan) before they can live happily ever after. The film resorts to silent Hollywood comedy techniques like speeded up action and back projection (e.g. the race won by the trio in their ancient 1928 Chevrolet which gives the film its title), and freely digresses into scenes only tenuously related to the narrative (the great- lovers-in-history number, Paanch rupaiya bara anna). It features several of Kishore Kumar’s jazzy numbers, such as Babu samjho ishare, horn pukare, Hum the woh thi woh thi hum the. Very soon after it starts, the film signals its disregard for chronological consistency.

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