Bidaai (1974)

First of all a round of applause to the costume designer of this film, never have i seen anyone pull off a Jack and Queen of Hearts outfit, it's so well made and a lot of attention has been paid to detail. Secondly apologies for my quick end to my 7 day Jeetendra Extravaganza i was dragged by my friends for a weekend in Manchester, I'm back home now so i shall i continue blogging properly

Prabhakar (Satyendra Kapoor) leaves his struggling family behind in the village to relocate to the city, left behind are his mother Parvati (Durga Khote) his younger brother Sudhakar and his sister Gauri

years later when his family are being hounded by Mangal for rent, a grown up Sudhakar (Jeetendra) moves to the city where he takes up a job as a cab driver to make ends meet

While working as a cab driver he meets a wealthy girl Padma (Leena Chandavarkar) and the two fall in love, they get married and they move back to the village to live with Sudhakar's mother

Rich Padma however finds life in the village very hard to bear and demands they move back to the city, she also becomes jealous of the immense attention Sudhakar pays to his mother and nags him endlesssly

Parvati eventually decides Sudhakar move back to the city much to his dislike, he agrees reluctantly, not wanting to disobey her

Upon getting to the city he sets out to teach Parvati a lesson on the importance of a mother's greatness following the birth of their baby. I've captured the hilarious dialogues that ensue between Padma & Sudhakar in the screencaps below

Really?? LOL

So will Sudhakar allow Padma to breastfeed their baby? Will she learn the importance of motherhood?

Overall Bidaai is quite an enjoyable movie, the whole importance of motherhood the film advocates is done with so much melodrama and is a bit too much over the top to be taken seriously, but you do get the message

Bidaai also earned Durga Khote her only Filmfare award as the Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Parvati, which i would describe as the self sacrificial; all suffering mother

Jeetendra was fun to watch, hearing him deliver the breastfeeding dialogues had me cackling, and of course i have nothing but pyar (love) for Leena, she is undeniably cute, any recommendations on what films to look out for her in

And great work from the costume designer,none other but the great Bhanu Athaiya, i have never seen anyone pull off the Queen of hearts and Jack outfit as much as they did

Good music from Laxmikant Pyarelal, my favourites are the fun 'mera sasura bada paisewala' 'maine tum sang' & the superb 'Dekho dekhoji' picturised on a giant card sets with Jeetendra and Leena in the King of spades and Queen of hearts outfit

Paisa Vasool Rating: 5/10

If you're into fashion or costume designing, I'd recommend Bhanu Athaiya's The Art of Costume Design book, based on her experiences as a costume designer for numerous bollywood films like Teesri Manzil, Reshma aur Shera, Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam amongst others, unfortuantely it seems to be only available in India though (why is this?) its definitely worth collecting

Read the book review here

Order the book from India if you can here, but i think i'll wait for a friend who's going to India to get mine for me