Raj Kapoor@100!
As the cinema lovers celebrate 100 years of legendary Hindi cinema legendary showman cum international star Raj Kapoor, it's time to discuss his lesser talked about performance as well. Raj Kapoor was the ultimate Showman film maker India saw and probably the most popular Indian film star internationally across continents and languages.
Somehow I couldn't relate to Raj Kapoors style of acting in many films and it was only later that I started appreciating his cinema. In his later innings post Sangam however none of the films did that well as an actor. However, I would like to mention that in his later films ,Sanjay Khans ABDULLAH -1980 stands out for me.
The film is an epic desert saga set in Arab world and Raj Saab plays the title role very well.
Sanjay Abbas Khan was a great admirer of Raj Sahib and after the brief appearance in his Chandi Sona he signed the showman as lead here. Abdullah is a simple,pious Muslim who has a well,talks to camel and extremely soft spoken. He raises the Hindu child Krishna and saves him from evil bandits. The role was tailor made and Raj Saab nailed it so well that the pious Arab character we read in poems like Abou Ben Adham came alive infront of me.
His scenes with the kid,with Sanjay and how he talks to his camels are heart warming. His brutal torcher at hand of evil Danny is heart wrenching and seems like a prequel of the infamous Ghatak scene wherein again Danny torchers an old Amrish Puri. Another aspect of Abdullah is that Kapoor Saab shared screen with Mehmood after 22 years of their Parvarish post which there were rumors of some tensions between the two. Here they have great chemistry though.
A grand enjoyable action saga where Raj Saab delivers an ace and a film which needs to be seen much more than it is discussed for the fights between Sanjay-Zeenat after it's release! The film is a pioneer of grand action films set in Arab and later fims like Sultanat, and then Palay Khan and Khuda Gawah (set in Afghanistan though) carried this genre. I am sure Raj Kapoor fans will not be disappointed seeing his heart warming act!!!
