Archive for the ‘Songs of 1950s (1951 to 1960)’ Category
“Mohar” (1959) was a movie starring Shammi Kapoor and Geeta Bali, but not much is known about this movie today. This movie has flopped badly at the box office. And as luck would have it, Madan Mohan was the music director of this movie. Seeing his movie bomb at the box office was a fate that Madan Mohan suffered in most of the 92 movies in which he gave music.
Read more on this topic…
Madan Mohan is mostly known for his immortal ghazals, but he has created other genre of music as well. In fact, for much of 1950s, his music direction style was not well defined. His music during this period often resembled the music of many other sources.
Read more on this topic…
In India, the three unifying things for Indians are Indian Railways, Bollywood movies and Cricket. We have had several rail related songs in Bollywood movies, but it is a great surprise that cricket related songs are conspicuous by their absence, even though cricket is as big a craze among Indians as movies, and it has become more so in the last few decades.
Read more on this topic…
Salim and Anarkali have been a favourite topic of Bollywood movies in 1950s and 1960s. In 1950s, there was in fact a movie called “Anarkali” (1953) which was a musical blockbuster. It had Pradeep Kumar and Bina Rai in the roles of Salim and Anarkali respectively. In 1960, “Mughal e Azam” was produced, where Dilip Kumar and Madhubala played these roles. This movie was just as big a musical blockbuster as “Anarkali” (1953).
Read more on this topic…
Bechain dil khoyi si nazar
Posted on: August 31, 2009
“Yahudi”(1958) was a mythological movie of foreign origin. The movie is of the Roman era of Marcus and Brutus. But I do not think there may have been too much of an authenticity in the portrayal of characters in this movie, even though this movie was made by the respected Bimal Ray.
Read more on this topic…
Bada bedard jahaan hai
Posted on: August 31, 2009
In Bollywood movies, Maa often plays an important role. And there have been many such songs in movies sung by Maa.
Read more on this topic…
Aplam chaplam chap laayi re
Posted on: August 31, 2009
I thought I had posted this song earlier. I just realised that this song was still missing from the blog.
Read more on this topic…
In Bollywood movie songs, it the the boy who wooes the girl and the girl takes exception. But what happens when it is the other way round ? When the girl starts wooing the boy, then the latter is very uncomfortable. And that was much more so half a century ago.
Read more on this topic…
In 1950s, Shankar Jaikishan tended to use Lata’s voice for all female playback songs. It is alright if they had to use her voice for one actress, but there were occasions when more than one actress in the same movie lip synced to Lata’s voice. Fortunately, they did not do so in the same song.
Read more on this topic…
Wo din kahaan gaye bataa
Posted on: August 30, 2009
One of the earlier pioneers of Bollywood movie music was Anil Biswas. He was one of the earlier music directors to make the most of Lata’s voice.
Read more on this topic…
Recent comments