Half Ticket (1962) :
Brief Review -
Copies half of the Hollywood formula and gives FULL Entertainment of its own. I remember watching the 1942 Billy Wilder comedy "The Major and the Minor," in which the beautiful blonde, Ginger Rogers, pretends to be a minor girl because she only has half the money to buy a ticket. I could have never imagined a male actor doing that in Hindi cinema. Kishore Kumar, a chameleon in his own league, did it for Indian audiences. Besides that half-ticket formula, this Kalidas' comedy has not been much inspired or copied; rather, it gave a lot to others to copy. Remember that scene in Sholay (1975), when Jay (Amitabh Bachchan) tarnishes the image of Veeru in front of Maasi? Kishore Kumar did that 13 years before Big B. You might have hurt this dialogue in many movies over the years: "Mein pagal nahi hu, Mera bas dimag kharab hai." It came from here, I believe. We have seen the villain chasing the hero throughout the film for a piece of jewelry (sometimes drugs, documents, or some other element), and they get involved in too many messy situations. Half Ticket goes bonkers with that thing. We have two of the best funny songs of all time, "Chil Chil Chilla Ke" and "Oo Gujariya," involving the hero and villain in a chase in this movie. None of Kishore Kumar and Madhubala's romantic numbers were that good. It's shocking, but it didn't matter much. Madhubala has less to do, but whatever scenes she has, they are beautiful. Otherwise, the entire movie belongs to Kishore Kumar from start to finish. This is the most nasty Kishore Kumar could get in a movie. So many hilarious dialogues, so many funny moments, and some iconic comedy scenes-Half Ticket has full entertainment loaded for you. Kalidas has made an "epic" comedy, which, barring that Hollywood idea, I believe, is a cult classic! I don't mind if anyone's keeping it on the "top 25 comedies of all time" list.
RATING - 7.5/10*
By - #samthebestest.
