Her performance here is akin to playing minesweeper. But Nanda, clever, lissom Nanda, goes for the complex. If she underplays, she destroys the deception. If she protests too much, she draws attention. Draped in delicate blue chiffon, a few shades lighte r than the one Sridevi heaved under for her erotic song in Mr India, Nand a provides Ittefaq with its calm, clues and chemistry. ĭid I say composed? T hat's what Ittefaq's leading lady Nanda is all about. Be it the courtroom scene against the play of shadows, Khanna's l ong walk in the lamp-lit corridor or pinhole moments characteristic of the mystery genre, he creates stylishly composed scenes. Instead the focus is immediately shifted on a spectacular escape sequence in heavy rainfall.Īlso, its night-time narrative lends the screenplay an added edge whereas cinematographer Kay Gee (who worked on nearly all of Chopra's important films - Daag, Deewar, Kabhi Kabhie, Trishul, Kaala Patthar, Silsila after this) grabs all the opportunity to play with light and angles. Intriguing and taut (edited by another Chopra regular, Pran Mehra), Ittefaq doesn't dwell too long in theorising the myth and truths of his persona. Swinging between ' paagal' and ' qatil,' he's a subject of both - curiosity and puzzlement to the psychiatrist (Gajanan Jagirdar), cop (Sujit Kumar) and public prosecutor (Madan Puri) as established in one of its earlier scenes where they wonder (in Akhtar-ul-Iman's nimbly written dialogues), ' Kabhi aisa lagta hai paagal woh nahi main hoon.' Image: Rajesh Khanna in Ittefaq Although he does seem to be in visible need of anger management, Ittefaq prefers to treat him like a misunderstood genius with sympathy and benefit of doubt. The law and order believing he's mentally unstable admit Dilip into an asylum facility. His hysterical claims of not guilty fall on deaf ears leading to another vile demonstration of uncontrolled rage. It all begins with an effectively staged scene,wherein a hand held camera ambles towards the venue of crime filled with spectators andinvestigators.Ĭut to a dead woman lying on the bed, a horrified Rajesh Khanna, an accusing Bindu (beautiful and understated) and a brief flashback that reveals Khanna's Dilip Roy, a painter, got into a ugly spat with his wife (Alka) leading him to strangulate her and walk out in a huff. Ittefaq, shot at a start-to-finish schedule of 20 days, sans any of the Yash Chopra speciality - songs and dance - rolls out events that take place over one stormy night.
And that's what makes Ittefaq an exciting experience even though you know WHO DID IT. But, when done well, the route to realisation is as spellbinding as the realisation itself. One would think such subjects could never enjoy enduring glory.
In essence, whodunits rely on the aspect of suspense and surprise to make its first real impact. Image: Rajesh Khanna and Nanda in Ittefaq Little did he realise what a difference it would make to his career. Dhoomas, also a dapted from Monte Doyle's English play Signpost to M urder ( which was also made into a film in 1964 ), is the story of a runa way convict and the one night he takes refuge in a bungalow inhabited by a lone woman and secrets darker than his disorderly life.Īnd right then Yash Chopra knew he had fo und the subject of his stopgap arrangement - Ittefaq. This posed a dilemma for the director since he was obliged to use the delay constructively.Īround that time, he reveals in a widely-covered interview to Shah Rukh Khan, he watched a G ujarati play named Dhoomas by famous playwright Praveen Joshi featuring his brother, Arvind (also father of actor Sharman Joshi) and wife Sarita. It wasn't possible to do so with immediate effect since his leading lady was receiving treatment in London and wouldn't return for the next few months. Still to launch his independent banner Yash Raj Films, he was working on his fourth project under elder brother, Baldev Raj' s flourishing production house (B R Films) when dis sa tisfied with the overall results of Aadmi Aur Insaan (Dharmendra, Feroz Khan, Saira Banu), a mid-30s Chopra felt the need to reshoot some portions. More than 30 years ago, filmmaker Yash Chopra f ound himself in a similar situation. We all know what a huge hit that spooky tale with a sinister twist turned out to be. Like the time, Hollywood director Robert Zemeckis used his spare time betw een the filming of Cast Away to whip up a quick supernatural mystery, What Lies Beneath with Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer while Tom Hanks lost weight for his Oscar-nominated turn. Tracing the history behind a film often leads to interesting revelations and why it got made appears as fascinating as how.
ITTEFAQ RAJESH KHANNA MOVIE SERIES
In our special series re-visiting great Hindi film classics, we look back at Rajesh Khanna-Nanda starrer Ittefaq (1969).