Shammi's shocked by his Punjabi-nessIf we all lived in Bollywood land, then my lover boy would be the gorgeous Shammi Kapoor, he's just so chirpy, dances like Elvis, has a flick in his hair, and darn it he's just soo Kapoor-y. He has the simpleton face charms like Raj, the masalaness of Shashi and the generally jumpyness of his personality.
Kashmir Ki Kali was my first Shammi film at 10 years old, I saw it on the great Zee Cinema channel which I wish I had now! At first I thought who is this idiot, I was 10 though, now at 17/18(next month yaaay) I find him to be the cutest buffoon/guy there is in my favorite era of Indian films the 60's. After seeing clips of Junglee, and watching Shammi's dance of bopping up and down, arms flailing here and there, and just an aura of fun about him, I immediately fell in pyar!
This movie is in my "Shammi Danced in my Dil" series of the 60's movies, that I recently bought, here he is Rajivlal, a businessman who is not interested in it that much and is looking for his dreamgirl either me or Memsaab or in this case Sharmila Tagore. He shirks his impending marraige proposals and runs off to Kashmir, with his best friend Anoop Kumar. He has a mansion out there and masquerades as Rajiv's driver, Rajiv is now Anoop who falls in love with 3 (not so gorgeous girls) who rent the house from Bholaram(Dhumal) Along the way Rajiv falls in love with Champa(Sharmila Tagore) a local flower girl, who has a blind dad(Nasir Hussain) with a secret.
Gorgeous SharmilaNasir Hussein always reminds me of the lion from the movie "The Wizard of Oz" and here even more so because he has a very silly beard and mad urchin wig.
The movie also contains a masala element of supposed orphans and lost parents, this is in both Champa's and Rajiv's life. This brings me back to why I love Shammi's movies, because he is so fun, and he always has to have a dress-up scene, in this movie he pretends he's a Patthan burqa-clad wife to hop on the bus Champa is on, and next he turns into a Punjabi dancer. In that song he does some funny Giddha(Punjabi dancing) which made me laugh out loud because he looked like a drunken uncle at a wedding!
Shammi and Sharmila have such sexy and smart chemistry, she always is a perfect foil for his general over the top-ness, because she's so down-to-earth while he is jumping stomping and skipping through the fields.
Pran is also here is as the usual villain, he adapts the rustic character well though he did annoy me with his pronounciation of anything s would turn into sh in his mouth. And the way he smokes his cigarrette through his fist but i did like his cackly laughter!
Now back to Shammi, as professor Lutgendorf noticed in a book that some writer thought Shammi used his body as a "you know what" I do see that in some places. However overtly sexual or silly he is in some ways makes him just as cute. I just see him as an Indian Elvis, not Elvis even more a rockabilly Beatle of India, or just a funkadelic guy jumping around! And he is sooooo persistent in his love, he follows her around, perhaps he invented the stalker-boy that came back in 90's movies. If I had a boyfriend in Bollywood land he would be as persistent and urgent as Shammi, as sweet as Raj, as funky as Shashi, as Spunky as Randhir, as dancey as Rishi, as awkward as Rajiv, as regal as Prithviraj, and as lean as Ranbir! (There named all the Kapoor men in this post)
I love Shammi, his deep voice and general tall ness, and not forgetting his cute double-chin cute itis as I mentioned in the Blobby Raj Kapoor Post! Don't forget his swanky teddy-suits, neckerchiefs, puffy hair with a flick coming down, and his lovely pouty lips!
Vaah, How cute is he?
12 comments:
Oh Shammi! Sharmila! All those lovely songs! and Kashmir!!!!
such a lovely movie- immensely watchable over and again :)
I lumme some Shammi, mannequin-paleness and all! His Elvis dancing makes me wanna get up and shake along. :-D
LOL @ mad urchin wig :-)
Thank you for including me as one of Shammi's dream girls. If only he knew we were alive!
Oh crap- I logged in via my husband's account in error- so "Sunil"'s comment is really mine :B
sunil/shweta : completely fine to adopt your husbands alter-ego! i love this movie its soo sweet and shammi-filled!
ajnabi - i know, he's so powdwered in this movie, as when they did a humungo close-up his sweat on the side was an Indian colour of tan!! he's sooo infectious in his cute dancing, even in his drunken song he bopped about making it cool to dance like a penguin when drunk and depressed!
memsaab - no prob, you're the original Shammi girl, then came me, then all the rest! My london neighbour rita might be going to mumbai she might pop over and see Shashi, so i'll tell to tell him that "memsaab loves Shammi and Shashi!"
Bollywoodfan - i don't know about aamir's comment as he does like to say something paradoxical or news-worthy, but i see the similarities between the 2 as they both romanced the girls by dancing, bopping and emoting!
Oh yes, please tell her to pass along love from the memsaab! :-)
But she won't tell him about the rest of us who love him? How mean.
awww of course i'll tell her all your names!
Usually I try not to resort to whining, but desperate times call for desperate measures. ;)
Why do you need anything else in a boyfriend but the Shammi on screen character (to be differentiated from the real life actor who is different). I think that one person has it all. Innocense, guilelessness, joie de vivre and the idea of what true romance is. I mean Nasir Hussein must have read a woman's mind when he made films that showed true romance.
I would never like to compare Elvis and Shammi ji because growing up with Elvis on tv, he is not Shammi ji. First of all Elvis is a singer first and barely an actor. He had an idea to dance a little risque which Shammi does not do. I have never Seen Shammi ji do a pelvic thrust the way Elvis does, though I have not seen all his movies. I also saw Shammi ji for the first time as a child.
Now I am rediscovered his films and finding they really hit the emotional nail on the head. Nothing modern movies with their "full of themselves" looking modern actors can do. Really.
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