Janam Din Mubarako to me and Nutan

As usual this blog must always have a wall post on the 4th of June for two reasons

1. Its my Birthday

2. Its always an opportunity to post something related to Nutan who shares the same birthday with me (I'm  aware she is no longer alive, but I can't help but get a bit of an ego trip that such a renowned bollywood actress shares the same birthday as me)

On previous years (see here, here and here) I have either posted a movie review or a magazine article. I was hoping to post a movie review but that would have to be another time, I do however have a lovely gift for all you Nutan lovers, its a lovely vintage poster print of  Baarish (1957)

Saajan Bina Suhagan (1978)

I plan to make a tradition of posting a Nutan review on this blog for as long as I keep it running on every 4th of June as we both share the same birthday. This is one of Nutan's last leading central heroine films with that master of Soap Opera-ish movies Saawan Kumar Tak, I reviewed another one of his films with Nutan, Saajan ki Saheli here last year as well

Gopal (Sreeram Lagoo) a wealthy family man receives bad news of his cancer from the doctor, he's advised to leave his home in  the more relaxing environments of Simla for the hustle and bustle in Mumbai all in the name of hiding his illness from his family

He leaves his wife Asha (Nutan) and 3 Children (Barkha Chopra, Kasturi Bartake & Padmini Kolhapure) behind without revealing the real reason for his sudden move, especially since his youngest daughter Bulbul (Padmini Kolhapure) has a hole in her heart

With their father gone to Mumbai, Bulbul befriends the new next door neighbour Rajkumar (Rajendra Kumar), who turns out to be (in a strange coincidence of melodramatic emotions to come) her mother Asha's ex lover. They had separated when Asha's father gave her away in marriage while Rajkumar was away in England studying

Asha eventually does find out the truth about her husband Gopal's illness and before his death he makes her promise to keep living like a married woman when he dies (what????)

Its not long till he does indeed die, only that before he kicked the bucket, Mangatram (T.P Jain) a worker at Gopal's hospital had eave dropped on their conversation. He starts blackmailing Asha for it, making extortionate demands for Money Asha can't even dream of

How long will this go on for? Will Asha put herself out of the misery her husband placed her in by coming clean? How long will she cope with this pretense as well as having to raise 3 kids all on her own?

When the title of a movie translates as it does in this case into Married without a husband you know you're in for some ridiculous soap opera style melodrama. It was quite annoying watching Asha obey her husband's selfish and in fact bad for her health advice, I'm inclined to think of it as sexist and his way of exerting control over her, On the other hand Saajan Bina Suhagan reflects the flip side or should i say dangers of self sacrifice as  Asha ends up paying a big price for her obedience to her husbands ill advice  but this being a family drama it all gets mushied up for a candy sweet ending.

But alas depsite this Saajan bina suhagan is quite watchable, nothing special here in terms of performances , as its all very Soap operaish but give it a go if you like the leads (in my case Nutan) or if you love your inoffensive 70's melodrama time pass movies.

Nutan was one of the major highlights in this for me, her Chiffon saris are a Joy to behold, see for yourself below

Loving her pink polka dots

How's this big flowery one? very Beautiful i say

Lovely colourful Floral sari

Padmini Kolhapure never aged I see, she looked just like this in her later movies

Padmini Kolhapure  at about 10-12 years

Other Cool Screen Caps

Loving Vinod's Jumper here

Can someone please ID her, I think she's Barkha Chopra, she had some interesting neckerchiefs

Good soundtrack from Usha Khanna on here, my favourites are the catchy Jijaji Jijaji hone wale jijaji, the sweet 'Madhuban khushboo deta hai' which should go on the list of bollywood piano songs for anyone collecting them. The irresistible 'O jaani, jaani tum' which samples Spanish group Los Pop Tops 'Oh mamy, Oh Mamy, Mamy Blue' . The song I've chosen to embed today though is Happy birthday Mama just because it fits as today is my birthday and no I'm not a Mama but yet still, enjoy



Paisa Vasool Rating: 4.5/10

P.s. This post has been automatically published

Saajan Ki Saheli (1981)

The last film in my Nutan birthday special is Saajan ki Saheli, too often when it comes to her work in the 80's, Karma (1986), Meri Jung (1985) & Naam (1986) are often cited as Nutan's best work, however i'd go for Saajan Ki Saheli as her best work from this decade, very soap opera-ish without doubt but it showed Nutan's versatility in delivereing the goods, whatever role she was required to play, plus I just loved the way she was styled in this, too often when one thinks of Nutan, draped white Sari's come to mind, here her character gets to wear glam outfits

The story starts on Munmun's (Rekha) graduation day where she accepts the top prize for Ancient History, her mother Chand (Chand Usmani) is shocked when she sees the man she's receiving the award from

She rushes home, shouting and looking furiously for a certain diary, when Munmun confronts her on her behaviour, she urges her not to read the diary and thus suffers a heart attack

A very distraught MunMun reads the diary (good for her) and finds out Chand isn't in fact her real mother, her real mother was kunti (Nutan) a young woman who had dreamt of marrying a wealthy millionaire, however she had been involved in a one night stand which a poet Anil (Anil Dhawan) which resulted in being pregnant with Mun Mun, she jilts Anil whose heartbreak then leads him to commit suicide



As a result of a marriage proposal from a wealthy Barrister Avinash kumar (Rajendra Kumar) she gives birth to the child in Chandanpur, after which she rejects it, calling it a 'Paap ki Aulad' (Child of sin). Chand decides to raise Munmun on her own and promises Kunti she would never reveal the secret to anyone


MunMun is gutted on how her birth mother had treated her, she moves away from Chandanpur to Srinagar to work as a tour guide, there she meets and falls in love with a popular singer Anand (Vinod Mehra) who wants her to be in his band, as a result she moves to Bombay where she perfoms in his musical troop


Avinash kumar (Rajendra Kumar) the same man who had married her mom Kunti and had awarded her a prize at college, is impressed by Munmun's talent and sets up a meeting with her

When he goes over to her place he comes across Kunti's picture & in his conversations with Munmun, he realises she's the child of his wife Kunti with whom he's been unable to have a child, he's diasppointed she hid her past from him and decides on tormenting her with jealousy

He tells her about a client on the search for a mother who had deserted her years ago, this gives her a guilty conscience, but Kunti none the less acts jugmentaly about the whole matter and even when prompted by Avinash who hopes she'll tell him the truth about her past, Kunti keeps schtum


When Munmun arrives at Avinash's house for the dinner he's invited her to, she realises his wife is none other than her mother, she's shocked but reveals nothing to her, when Kunti realises she's the girl Avinash is talking about, Kunti treats her like an outcast all without knowing Mumnum is in fact her daughter

Avinash on the other hand keeps bringing the subject of Munmun up much to Kunti's frustration, her anger escalates even more when an emotional adviser Suresh (Suresh Oberoi) brings up her past as well as telling Kumti about Avinash's affair with Kunti

Who is this Suresh, and how does he know so much about Kunti's past? Will she realise that the Paap ki Aulad is in fact her own child? Will she come clean about the past to her husband?

Overall as i've said at the beginning, this film is as soap opera-ish as it gets, it felt like i ws watching an episode of Dynasty and the glam stakes just like Dynasty were high, it was refreshing to see Nutan in Strapless Maxi dresses, made up to the nines with bright red lips, feather boas, assymetric dresses etc. I just loved her style in this




Also hilarious were the dialogues in this film, for some reason i never pictured Nutan as the kind of actress to say 'main tera khoon pi jaunga' (I will kill you) and she gets a lot of room to say such camp dialogues on here, i've included an example of her fierceness in Saajan ki Saheli in this camp scene below, where she slaps Rekha to the point of fainting



The rest of the cast give a decent perfornmance too,Rekha was just gorgeous in this movie, she looked divine and i just couldn't stop taking screencaps



Overall watch Saajan ki Saheli if you like your soap opera-ish type storylines and even more so if you're a fan of Nutan or Rekha, it doesn't drag on endlessly and it closes in at just over 2hrs 8mins

The Lovely songs by Usha Khanna also made this film enjoyable,, there's a lovely Goan flavoured track 'Navtak mangta', a wonderful qawalli 'Aaye hai woh' as well as two gorgeous Mohammed Rafi Numbers 'Boondein Nahi Sitaren' & 'Aise na the hum' my favourite of them all is 'Jiske liye sab ko choda'



Paisa Vasool Rating: 5.5/10

Previously in Nutan Birthday Special

Milan (1967)
Happy Birthday to Me & Nutan

Milan (1967)

Milan is one of the films I've picked out as part of my Nutan Birthday Special, i saw this film last December but thought it'd be more ideal to review it around the time of her birthday. It won Nutan her last ever filmfare Best Actress gong, she was famous for getting these, till today she holds the record for having won five of the black Lady back then when i guess they were still somewhat credible, Milan (Union) is also the director Adurthi Subba Rao's remake of his 1963 Tollywood reincarnation themed film Mooga Manasulu

While on their way to honeymoon after getting married, Gopinath (Sunil Dutt) & Radha (Nutan) start getting flashbacks/memories of a previous life, they arrive at an old haunted house where an old man who confirms most of his questions Gopi has about a possible previous life

The flashbacks reveal life with Gopi as a boatman who is an orphan & Radha as the daughter of a wealthy Zamindar (land owner)



Gopi takes Radha across the river to her college, the two seem to like each other a lot with Gopi bringing/gifting her flowers always, she's taken by his kindness & seems to be very fond of him too

Also smitten by Gopi is Gauri (Jamuna) a local village girl, Gopi however sees her just as a friend

A prince named Ram Babu (Deven verma) takes a liking to Radha


when Rajender (Pran) who is Radha's uncle finds out wealthy Ram Babu is, the fact he can make money out of exploiting Ram's love leads him to pulls strings culminating in Ram & Radha's marriage much to Gopi & Radha's sadness

Now we all know as a lead character Gopi has to get the sympathy card somehow, you know according to bollywood both of them have to end up together, as such Ram Babu dies leaving Radha as a widow, as a result she moves back to the village

When Gopi hears about Radha's widowhood, he's sympathetic and during his many visits to comfort her for her loss, his visits are treated with suspicious notions by Gauri as well as the fellow villagers due to Rajendra's false stories about both of them

Gopi willing to spare Radha the embarrassment and dishonour decides on leaving the village, Radha follows after him, Rajender on the other hand is after both couples to kill them

What will be the outcome of Radha and Gopi? Will Rajender succeed in his plan?

Milan is my no means up there with the reincarnation classics like Madhumati (which i'm yet to see) but somehow i just know it isn't, due to all the reviews and cult following Madhumati has. What ticked me off about Milan was that it takes a full 1.5 hours for the plot to settle in, thereby giving the film a slow and quite boring feel, watch it just for the songs if anything.

Performance wise Nutan is lovely as Radha but somehow perhaps due to the slow story i just couldn't sympathise with her character as Radha and Sunil Dutt one of my favourute actors was just ok here, i felt he overdid his simpleton act just a bit too much in this, i remember feeling quite irritated by his Gopi character, he's watchable and quite adorable yet still though. I also remember being dissatisfied that Pran was somewhat wasted in this film

Jamuna was likable as Gauri, but like Radha i couldn't really sympathise with her Gauri character, she too was awarded the best supporting actress gong, seems everyone was just winning awards right left and centre for this film

Laxmiaknt Pyarelal too won their second best Music director award for their fab songs in Milan, in fact the songs are what makes this film very memorable for me, from the vibrant 'Bol Gori Bol' the wonderful 'Hum tum yug yug se' the lovely 'tohe sawariya' two wonderful ballads 'main to deewana' & 'Ram kare aise ho jaye' and my utter favourite 'Sawan ka mahina' which some of you might remember as one of the songs featured on the extensive and wonderful Laxmikant Pyarelal medley from Mr India

now lets compare this song and picturization with one from the Telugu original 'Mooga Manasulu', they both look so similar, only difference being the different songs, actors and black and white picture. i would like to see the Telugu version just to see how it compare but telugu classics seem to be so rare to come across on Dvd with English Subs



Paisa Vasool Rating: 5/10