Nov 21, 2013 11:42 PM
2200 Views
Right from the first frame of Vijay Anand, Nasir Hussain team’s “Teesri Manzil” you know you’re going to witness something special. The terrific opening credits, blends a hitchcockian kind of diabolical theme music and couple of tilting French camera angles focusing on a harrowing mishap, which started off as a fatal car stunt on the side of a road and ends up on the third floor of a residential building with one lady victim is seen jumping from the top of it as if to indicate a suicide, hence the name “Teesri Manzil”.
Shammi Kapoor stars as “Rocky” a drum player who masquerades in the name “Anil Kumar” after witnessing the suspicious death of this lady “Roopa” –( an item dancer who used to work in his band) - with the intent of befriending her sister Sunita, who comes to the city in-order to find out Roopa’s assassinator “Rocky” and single out what his motives actually were. Rocky woos Sunita using his alter name “Anil” and the two eventually fall in the web of love, with the latter not-knowing the former’s identity & the former clueless regarding the latter’s intentions.
The central conflict of the film lies in Shammi Kapoor’s character “Rocky”. Rocky believes he is somehow or the other, responsible for Roopa’s suicide and is caught up in the dilemma of loving her own sister and at the same time, has a herculean task of proving/convincing his innocence - to a kind of women who is actually out there to find him out and cut his head off if possible( It’s like kissing an exotic+ venomous African snake - you know the snake has venom but still you’re stimulated to kiss her) .
Is Rocky the real culprit behind Roopa’s death.? Will Sunita take revenge on rocky.? Or is it all part of a con game.? Watch Teesri Manzil to get the answer.
Vijay Anand, the director of that cult classic Dev Anand starrer “Guide” & “Jewel Thief”, have successfully blended a genuinely exciting and bittersweet, hitchcockian film noir with the kind of musical numbers that we came to love & appreciate especially in B-town.
R D Burman’s music is both iconic as well as timeless with the likes of “Oh Hasina Sulfon Wali”, “Aaja Aaja Mein hoon pyar hain tera” and my favorite “Tumne Mujhe Dekha Ho Kar” which is wonderfully performed by Shammi Kapoor and brilliantly choreographed by Devraj Peter.
However, the real strength of this film lies on Nasir Husain saab’s sublime writing. It would have been a tough ask for any writer to combine such polarizing genres, i.e, love & mystery( & more-so a film-noir), even on the Javed Akthar era; but Husain here doesn’t even miss a single beat. People often give the credit to Anand for Teesri Manzil but its Husain who actually decided to put in those spooky & enigmatic Mumbai nightclubs which, let’s face it, proved to be a perfect, no-nonsense setting for things like – sexual seduction, double-dealings, fudging, jealousy & ego and most importantly “MURDER” - to unravel.
Unlike most thrillers, his movie doesn’t spend too much time on elaborated flashbacks or unnecessarily long character set-ups but it just rolls along by the tide and invites, we, the audience to roll along with it thereby succumbing to all of its whimsicality & mischievousness in the process - with a huge smile plastered on our faces.
It’s unfortunate only that we didn’t get a restoration of this film because had if that happened I would have been able to enjoy it even on a more sophisticated & escalated level, the classic studio photography/lightings reminiscent of the then-famous “Mehboob Studio’s” and the no-nonsense stucco art-design, which the makers have unabashedly boasted of in this film and shrouds it along with.
There are couple of specific shots in Teesri Manzil, in which the Hitchcockian reference seems blatantly obvious. One is the opening credits scene where we get to see a tilting French camera angle, which is, a clone-like representation of Hitchcock’s from “Notorious”. Then there is that hotel-room exchange between sunita & her friend Meena, where Anand have seemingly decorated the background with some kind of green garment in a smart parallel to Hitchcock’s infamous hotel scene from “Vertigo”; notwithstanding the color de-saturated sequences here & there which also has Hitchcock stamped all over it and also a Cary Grant-Audrie Hepburn starrer “Charade”.
Performances are top-notch across the board. We have the likes Prem Chopra, Asha Parekh and Premnath on the leads but its Shammi Kapoor to whom Mr. Husain owes every bit of gratitude since he’s the one who made “Rocky” look so fun & mischievous on screen – a characteristics which, even Husain didn’t actually enforce in his original screenplay –( It was a simple line in Nasir’s which reads Kapoor’s “As a handsome looking drummer” “who is caught up in the web of love & mystery”) .
It’s ironical that a man trying to win the heart of a woman is actually responsible to the death of her own sister and full credit to Shammi, for successfully binding these two polar opposites into one seemingly original caricature if not a character. Watch how he shimmies across the floor in that stunning soundtrack “Aaja Aaja Main Hoon Pyar hai thera” sung by Asha Bhonsle & Mohammad Rafi, with the classic Chaplin-like expressions and a make-up which includes - the puffed up freaky hairdo, bellbottom pants & the pitch perfect cat’s-eye make-up eminently featured on the Iconic dancing diva “Helen” the actress with the most expressive of eyes which is a moving tribute to the pristine, 1960’s Bollywood elation.
However the only problem with this film which I found was the fact that there were couple of ridiculously ill-timed songs, which does not sink with the story that well and stood out like a sour thumb - “Oh Mere Sonare” and “Dekhiye Sahibon”. Barring that single tactical error this movie is one significant achievement in the history of Hindi Cinema.
Like I mentioned earlier, You’ll recognize elements from Hollywood films such as_ “Charade” and Alfred Hitchcock’s “Notorious” but Teesri Manzil is a wholly original work of art. The Score, the cinematography, the music, the performances they all are outstanding. It’s a true treasure going back to this period & watching these actors enacting those Iconic roles time and again.
I end my review posing a question which Amir Khan pointed out in one of his Talaash interviews, which is
“Will movies like Teesri Manzil still succeed in the modern twitter/facebook era where information spreads across like a jiffy, making it even easier for the audience to spoil its climax & plot elements, while leaving the readers and the production team in a state of bamboozlement.?”
Interesting stuff.
