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Kanoon (1960)- First songless Hindi film by BR Chopra!
Ashok Kumar had complimented BR Chopra for having a knack for recognising good story and script. BR always tried to walk on unsual path as far as subjects of films are concerned. Anacdote says that he was attending some foreign film festival when somebody commented that Hindi films are just conglomeration of songs and dances and few emotional scenes and Indians cant make films without putting songs in them. BR Chopra took it as challenge and thus begun making of Kanoon- a film having no song.
Kanoon: A judge faces a case where a person is accused of killing someone and when accused saysthat he has already completed 10 years punishment in jail for killing the same person. Judge and his friends are talking in a club about absurdities involved in the law and the facts that case can be moulded in any manner because law needs evidence and evidences can be produces/changed /morphed. Judge enters in a bet that one can do crime and still can come out clean. His friends say that its impossible and nobody can spare himself from the claws of law.
Judge has a son and a daughter who is engaged to a young and bright lawyer. Judge’s son lose alarge sum of money on his adventures in business and he takes a debt from a moneylender. Money lender gives son of judge an ultimatum to retun his money and son goes to his sister to ask her to request her fiancé to go to money lender to take more time so that he can arrange the money in mean time. Young lawyer reaches to moneylender’s house and sees that a person is killing money lender. He sees the face of the person. He knows the person. he becomes very distubed.
Next day case comes in the court of Judge and a poor man is arrested by police who entered in the house of moneylender to steal some food to eat and in the dark he fell down on the dead body of moneylender and take knife in his hand by which moneylender was killed.
Case goes on and evidences are against poor man and he is supposed to get life sentence and young lawyer is living with big mental tensions because he has seen none other than his would be father in law- the Judge himself. After few trials he is unable to stop any longer and in the court he impeaches the Judge that he has killed the money lender. case takes a new turn as now a eye witness is there. Judge resigns from the post and he is now accused in the same court.
Judge’s daughter breaks relation with young lawyer. Case goes deadly against the judge and when he is sinked in the water till his nose then events take another turn when a thief is killed by police and this thief is having similar face that of Judge. Judge is released as innocent and he says he feels proud n his would be son in law who kept law above his relations.
A nice B&W crime/murder mystery drama to watch. Direction and pace of the film is good. Acting deptt is good. dialogues are good. background music is good. Film got two filmfare awards - best director ( BR Chopra) and best supporting actor ( Nana Palsikar)
Characters : Actors
Judge : Ashok Kumar
Son of Judge : Memood
Daughter of Judge : Nanda
Young Lawyer : Rajendra Kumar
Money lender : Om Prakash
Poor man : Nana Palsikar
10 Responses to “Kanoon (1960)- First songless Hindi film by BR Chopra!”
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I’ve heard lot about this film from my mom & seen bits & pieces on Doordarshan in the good old day. Will surely try to watch it.
Gattu:
watch and enjoy good old films:)
- I read a BR Chopra article (perhaps more than 15 years ago) where he remembers the night of the release of this movie. He was standing there close to the theater at a paan shop. The vendor didn’t know he was BR Chopra and casually mention to him “This film is a flop… it has no songs… whoever made it is such an idiot”… BR kept quiet, smiled and left. A few days later when the film was declared a big hit… he stood there at the same paan shop and overheard the vendor talking to his customers “What a movie!!! My business because of this movie has increased too. Everyday people come asking if I have any tickets because all shows are going housefull”…
I particularly liked the way BR plays with light in this one. Watch the scene where Rajendra Kumar walks into Om Prakash’s home and threatens him with legal consequences if he doesn’t stop swindling Mehmood (his to-be brother in law). Nervous, Om Prakash quickly agrees and abides with what RK wants from him. Bell door rings… RK sees it’s Ashok Kumar and does not want Ashok Kumar to know the reason he is at Om Prakash’s house. He hides. Om Prakash opens the door… This may be perhaps the first time the camera is taken to be a person where Om Prakash in half light, half darkness talks to the camera…
Some faded memories… coming back… I particularly liked the misunderstanding and the push-pull that takes place inside Nanda after the “murder”… it was amazing to see she caught between her lover and her father…
And ofcourse the scene in court where RK can’t take it anymore and points the finger at… ahem… nope… should shut up as many of you haven’t seen this one… :)
Oz: That panwala story is amazing. like a piece lifted directly from Sholay:)
Thanks for bringing out positives of the film.
Light use is really nice in this B&W kanooni drama. I forgot to mention one more character in the film played by Jeevan. This artist should be covered in a post.
Caught between father and lover is again caught by Chetan Anand in Kudarat. where she is caught between Raaj Kumar and Rajesh Khanna when later is accusing former to do a killing some 20-25 years ago. again a watchable film.
:)
thanks RK. another one on my list!
Good one, RK!
The first songless Tamil movie was made in 1954: Andha Naal. Further, it had a Rashomon-style of story-telling and a popular hero of the time, Sivaji Ganesan, playing anti-hero!
Randrable: thanks for this info about Andha Naal.
Its interesting that almost same time Hrikesh Mukherjee made Musafir having multiple stories in one film like Rashoman, though he was having this idea since long. Seems like science, people working in arts can also think and feel same inspite of living far away geographically from each other. :)
RK,
sorry if it sounds like nitpicking, but except for two small paragraphs (first and last), this article just gives out the whole story (that too without any spoiler alert:((). Personally, I would have liked to read more of an elaborate version of the last para.
Pradeep,
Hi
sorry to disappoint you:(
When wrote something ( Article if you say so:)) on Kanoon then was not sure how many might have seen this old film. Idea is always to discuss something in comment section and to add, like Oz added more facts abt film. If you have not seen the film then you wont feel I spoilt mystery of story because what I wrote are very general things happen in so many hindi films. Some one is killer and somebody is caught because he took the knife or pistol in hand.Certainly Kanoon is much more than the infos I gave in this piece. In terms of story also, Kanoon is limited to this limited information only.
Hope you enjoy the film when see:d
just watched this movie and really enjoyed it! some over-the-top acting, but i guess that’s expected from the times that the movie was made in.. oz’s comment about the lighting was spot on too. thanks for this recommendation RK :)