Monday, December 10, 2007

what's up, doc?

after 16 years i realized that mahesh bhatt was an inspired man. dil hai ki manta nahin was not a movie i particularly enjoyed watching but watch i did, for whatever aamir khan touched those days was gold..actually it pretty much is today as well. i watched movies of his that no one else probably did - awwal number, love love love, daulat ki jung to name a few. and so it was that dil hai ki manta nahin was watched. i dont remember much of the movie..there is a watermelon song as my sister put it. and a kind of funny (then) hitchhiking scene where aamir tries and fails to stop a car while pooja succeeds with a display of her (shapely?) leg.

fast forward to a couple of nights back and i'm watching the exact scene unfold in black and white as claudette colbert stops a car while clark gable and his defeated thumb watch in amazement. this was in 'it happened one night'. the scene appears halfway..so,yes, it did not strike me till then that 'dil hai..; was a hindi speaking evil twin of 'it..'. i should've guessed as much. isnt he the same one who gave us criminal, which despite an alluring manisha, was still a straight lift from fugitive? someone please review his other movies and let me know where else i've been fooled.

a bit of trivia i gleaned from the wiki is that the hitchhiking scene, where gable chews a carrot while explaining the nuances of asking for a ride, is also one which inspired friz freleng to create a carrot chewing bunny named bugs...amazing , eh?, the amount of mutual inspiration film makers share.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Doesn't come as much of a surprise! Most hindi films have survived on plagiarized material, be it the storyline, screenplay or the music (duh!).

catcharun said...

hmm..true..but from the creator of saaransh and arth..surprised me..
wait till i find out those are inspired as well

nimbu said...

LOL!

Anyhow, not like our great tamil films are doing any better with "original" direction etc (apart from Captain/Rajni that is).

Its been a while since i was here!

catcharun said...

that's a surprise, nimbu. what are you doing in these necks of the woods?

season's greetings to you