Baton Baton Mein
Director: Basu Chatterji
Actors: Amol Palekar, Tina Munim, David Abhram, Pearl Padamsee
Music: Rajesh Roshan
Year: 1979
Run time:113 mins
Baton Baton Mein (Whilst Talking), a laid back romantic-comedy film, that makes you smile rather than provoke laughters. The movie is predictable – there is nothing surprising in the movie – the movie is not perfect and yet, the movies keeps you interested. The beauty of the movie lies in the direction – narration of the story, the believable characters and of course, the story. Oh and, how can I forget the beautiful music!
It is a 1979 movie and the budget was not that big, so you will notice a few scenes that were shot amateurish; it is not a great technical film. However, it should not affect you any way from watching the film; you would not get distracted, because each scenes are a moment of a life that you would have seen in your life or in someone else’s life, which are narrated pleasingly. Basu Chatterji understands the art of telling a story, a simple story. Now that is a tough task, but he is one the director who has mastered it. In the film there isn’t any hints of fussiness in his narration or direction. He has not forced in anything. Throughout the movie the pace is casual but the story does not move at a snail’s pace, there is always something happening that it keeps everyone enchanting.
Tina Munim, a gorgeous woman, playing a young woman – Nancy in the film. Nancy was feeling irritated from the dating scenarios and hated men after a bad dating experience. She lives with her mother and a young brother. Her mother Rosie (Pearl Padmasee), is always worried about her; she wants to get Nancy married as soon as possible – you know like any Indian mother who would want girls to get married ASAP. Then there is Uncle Tom (David Abraham) brother of Rosie, and he lives with his wife. They are neighbors, so Nancy and Uncle Tom travel together to work and back home after work, by train/tube/local. So after few daily routines of those characters shown we are introduced to the family of Tony Braganza (Amol Palekar), he is a mummy boy, like any typical Indian boy. Unlike Nancy’s mother Tony’s mother (Piloo Wadia) wants him to stay as her little boy forever. Anyway, one day he sets off late for work and what do you know, he is in same train carriage as Nancy and Uncle Tom. Then Tony’s eyes are set on Nancy – he does not wink at her, but he starts drawing her in his small notebook, since he is a cartoonist for a newspaper. That made Nancy and Uncle Tom curious – they wanted to meet him, so they asked him to get off at the next station for a drink. From that point it is all about how the relationship between Tony and Nancy develops; Tony does not want to get married where as Nancy does not want to get into a serious relationship. Then there is Henry (Mazhar Khan) who is in love with Nancy but does not have guts to ask her out. That is the jist of the movie.
About Tina Munim’s acting, erm, well, there are a couple of scenes where her acting is a bit dodgy but it makes you chuckle and she is pretty much effective in other scenes. Besides her beauty compensates any bad acting. Amol Palekar, David, and Pearl are adorable and flawless acting by them. Ranjit Chowdhry (playing Sabhi – younger brother of Nancy), is good as well, you will see him in this kind of genre and never go unnoticed.
There are four songs in the movie, which are written by Yogesh and Amit Khanna and composed by Rajesh Roshan. In my opinion, Baton Baton Mein is the best work of Rajesh Roshan. It is one of my favorite soundtrack, you would never get bored of it. And songs are brilliantly used in the film; more or less used as a background score. You cannot get a better classic movie and soundtrack than Baton Baton Mein.
One does not need to do something stupid or a stunt to keep the audience attracted/entertained. All it takes is a good story, a good performance and a good narration of the story to entertain the audience, which this film achieves.
If a Goonda (goon/don) can appreciate this film, then surely you can/will like the film.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
A sweet and simple love story. I still chuckle when i see this one.
I guess I am the only one to be able to post a comment on April 1st when the site is supposedly down!! hahaha!
Yeah MK….
cool one…
welcome back people!
oh ya, Oz really fucked us up for sometime now.
But good stuff it was. Got most of us fooled or in doubt as to PFC is alive or dead.:d
In this movie Tina’s acting was as plain as the surface on which NHL plays. Rest everything was nice about it. Good songs as well.
loved the songs.. perfect songs to listen to on a lazy sunday afternoon over chai. really liked the movie too.. tina munim was lookin wowwww!! :x i don’t think i’ve seen (m)any of her movies but i was really bowled over by how beautiful she was.. it totally made me pardon her bad acting in places. ranjit chowdhry was hilarious in every scene he showed up in.. him and his violin.. and amol palekar brilliantly underplayed tony’s role to the T. the story doesn’t have any melodrama, nothing over the top.. just a simple, sweet, and honest attempt at storytelling. you don’t find movies like this these days
apart from Karz and Baton Baton Mein, nor have i seen other films of her. in that movie as well she looked good and her acting was better. her acting was not as plain as…… in this case.
does any of know what Ranjit Chowdhry is doing these days? he is good in Khatta Meetha and Khubsurat also.
There are films which you can watch it once and just forget when they get over.
Then there are some that you will watch them only once and they linger in ur memory forever.
But there are very few films, that, no matter to which generation you belong you will still enjoy and watch that film many a times and “Baton Baton Mein” is one of those films.
I feel its the simplicity in story line wid some humour tat binds the audience to this film.
Apart from that songs of this film are so melodious and Tina Munim looks gorgeous.
I really miss the era and genre of these type of films
i agree there have not been abundance of movies on this particular genre. but there have been a few good ones in last few years, for example, Socha Na Tha, Aahista Aahista, Home Delivery and Khosla Ka Ghosla – (I have not seen that movie yet but from whatever I have heard or read about it….)
was able to find a couple of songs from the movie on youtube.. i think i’m just going to buy the movie now…
na bole tum na maine kuch kaha
http://youtube.com/watch?v=BB66DUzre3Y
suniye kahiye
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOX2R12R9cY
the dvd was only released a year ago! btw, i have got the soundtrack, do you….:-\”
:( nope.. don’t have the soundtrack… yet.
“If a Goonda (goon/don) can appreciate this film, then surely you can/will like the film.”
What surprised me even more than that is that a goonda can say “adorable” ;)
OK, only kidding.
For me the best about this film were Nancy’s brother and Henry.
Nancy’s mother got on my nerves… :-??
Baton Baton Mein was a very nice, cute film. If you guys like this, you should also check out “Kirayadar” starring Raj Babbar, Padmini Kolhapuri, Vidya Sinha and of course the great Utpal Dutt.
HG: Read your review, this week only. Thanks for review. If I am not wrong BBM, was the movie which made famous Amol Palekar’s french cut beard.
His get up was very important. French cut beard and Safari suits. An educated, working and dreamy middle class man, conscious of his looks. But its subtle in the film.
How you found the scene when Amol makes caricature in the train and David smiles looking towards him?
BBM’s music is good, rather very good but not best of Rajesh Roshan. Guy is very underrated. He has given many brilliant compositions. He had given Juli (old one of 1974-75). and pls listen one song of Kunwara Baap of Mehmood, Rajesh Roshan’s first film as music composer. Its Kishor Kumar’s song rather a lulaby – Aa ja ree aa jaa, nindiya tu le chal kahin urhan khaotole pe, dur yahan se dur. That one song puts him in the category of genius composers.
rksaab, i would not know if the movie made the french beard famous in India. yeah, they all looked like characters.
erm, you mean what i thought of that particular scene? i just wish there are more uncles like him, so that when i am checking out his niece out… he would not come after with me a gun. Nah seriously, he probably knew him or seen him beforehand… so thought he found the partner for his niece.
i only have heard a song from Julie and have not heard the lulaby; i will listen to this song later. Baton Baton Mein is a complete soundtrack, that was my reason for saying that it was his best work. His Khatta Meetha soundtrack is good as well.
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Monica, you should know that, I am an adorable Goonda ;) Anyway, what is wrong with Rosie? She portrayed a role of mother to perfect. The subplot of Henry was a bit agony.
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Tony, I have heard about that movie but, unfortunately, have not seen it yet.
apparently, in last few years he has directed two films: “Prateeksha” and “Ek Ladki Bholi Bhali Si” ? Any of you heard about it or seen it?
Absolutely agree with you Angie and most of you. I already have this movie in my home collection of movies which we like to sit down and watch often. Some others in my collection r Khoobsurat, Rajnighandha, Khatta Meetha, Rangbirangee, Angoor, Jaane bhi do Yaroon, Naram Garam, Woh Saat Din, Old Gol Maal and Umrao Jaan and many many more which would take a long time to list but these are some of our all time favoriets from the older movies.
Thanks, Toni for mentioning ‘Kirayadar’ will definitely check it out.
saw ranjit Chawdhary today in Jackson Heights, New York City, was buying basmati rice and some indian Packed food from indian store. i recognised him but didnt know his name, just remmberd the face from Batoun batoun main and more recently kante. then when i was waiting for Subway i saw him again standing in his shorts and white t-shirt was wearing chappals and carrying lots of indian food stuff. he was talking to him self. was looking older. he is no doubt a very good actor but why filmmakers dont take advantage of such a good talant like Ranjit. he is only stuck with Mira nayar’s and deepa mehta’s of the world.
Ranjit Chowdhry is one of the finest actors ( in my humble opinion) of the hindi film industry. I wish i got to see more of him. but as rightly said by vivek we end up wathching hin in mira nair, deepa mehta movies only these days.
I have been a fan of ranjit after watching chakra. in case someone does not know about chakra check out the imdb page of chakra (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080514/)
On a side note heer is some more details about chakra. The following is a comment about the movie chakra from imdb
to reiterate the above comment has been copied from imdb site