Night in London

  The one question that many of us often end up pondering over is when did Hindi cinema truly become cool? As long as they were not mythological or historical, most Hindi films operated in a believable universe but when it came to the urban milieu, a majority of them depicted a scenario that could be somewhat implausible. It could have been towards the late 1960s when perhaps inspired by the flashy James Bond films, popular Hindi cinema hit upon a kind of narrative where films began to exist in the real world. This change can be first seen in the spy thrillers or capers like Kismet (1968), An Evening in Paris (1967), Yakeen (1969), and Aankhen (1968) but the one film that is often forgotten is Brij Sadanah’s Night in London (1967), a thriller that perhaps invented the über cool urban crime thriller genre. Shot across locales like London, Paris, Germany, Beirut and Hong Kong to name a few, Night in London like most in the genre had a wafer thin plot and might look predictable today but irrespective of it flaws, a meandering plot being one of them, it remains a true trailblazer. Night in London starts with Renu (Mala Sinha) walking in her jeweller father’s shop only to find a sinister man waiting to deliver her a letter. Renu learns that her father has been kidnapped and that she has to zip to Hong Kong with the mysterious man. Once there she is told by Col Fu Chin (Anwar Hussain) that if she wants to see her father alive she would have to pose as Princess Vijay Nagar and retrieve a precious diamond necklace now with someone in London. Renu does not want to do the ‘wrong’ thing but she has no choice. Once she manages to get hold of the necklace an international gang of criminals gets after her for the diamonds and while Renu escapes their bullets they run off with the necklace. When the gang realises that the diamonds that contain a secret formula have been switched, they return to London for the real one. Meanwhile, a petty criminal, Jeevan (Biswajeet), saves Renu and the two eventually fall in love. They are soon joined by Bahadur Singh (Johny Walker), Jeevan’s stepbrother, who wants Jeevan to give up his share of their dead father’s will, and the three take on the forces that are after the diamonds. Long before globalisation became a buzzword there were only a few Hindi films that managed to place themselves in the middle of any kind of global phenomenon. Night in London weaves the counter culture of the Swinging Sixties effortlessly within its plot and remains an integral part of the narrative even at places where this trope sticks out like a sore thumb. The caper was a somewhat relatively new sub-genre in the 1960s across the world and it’s in that context Night in London can be compared with genre defining films such as Charade (1963) and Arabesque (1966) in terms of execution. The action sequences especially the one where a helicopter chases Renu and Jeevan remain peerless and the besides the locations where it was shot Night in London’s music also added to the exotica. Composed by Laxmikant-Pyarelal with lyrics by Anand Bakshi the film featured Md. Rafi in sublime form in songs such as Bahoshon hawas mein deewana and Nazar na lag jaye and is also one of the rare ones where Lata Mangeshkar sang a cabaret Mera naam hai jamila that was filmed on Helen. Although R.D. Burman has been long considered the one who ushered in the funk era of Hindi film soundtracks one simply needs to listen to LP’s background score for Night in London to see how they contributed to the modern sound in Hindi films. In fact, most of Brij’s films right from Night in London to Victoria No. 203 (1973), Bombay 405 Miles (1980) and even Professor Pyarelal (1981), which were all composed by Kalyanji-Anandji, feature funk heavy background scores that are an undeniable part of the Bollywood’s retro revival. There is no denying that like the earlier Brij film Yakeen, Night in London, too, at places is burdened by a plot that is unnecessarily complex and the narrative suffers from glaring loopholes. The film makes its intentions very vocal right at the start where it begins with us hearing Mala Sinha’s voice-over explaining how one day when she went to see her father in his store he was kidnapped and yet the plot meanders. But what truly brings it down is the pedestrian level editing. Brij would, of course, go on to solve these problems with gems such as Victoria No. 203 and later Bombay 405 Miles. A revival of standard Hindi ‘filmy’ fare has seen Manmohan Desai and Prakash Mehra being acknowledged as geniuses who rather than worrying about the zeitgeist simply changed it. Had it not been for the manner in which Brij tragically died – he shot himself with his own .32 Smith & Wesson after shooting his wife, former actress Saeeda Khan, and his daughter Namrata, and trying to kill his son, one time actor Kamal Sadanah, who survived the attack – Brij might have remained more embedded in our consciousness. The fact that both Manmohan Desai and Prakash Mehra have been revisited by the newer generation via remakes has also added to their cult and nestled somewhere in between is the brilliance of Brij that is calling out for a relook. Cinema Obscura – A weekly space that celebrates films obscured between the unforgettable and the long forgotten. Source for pic- http://osianama.com/song-synopsis-booklets/night-in-london-1967-1108041?mastid=53931 Gautam Chintamani is a film historian and the author of the best-selling Dark Star: The Loneliness of Being Rajesh Khanna (2014) and The Film That Revived Hindi Cinema (2016) Tweet him – http://www.twitter.com/gchintamani Disclaimer: The opinions, beliefs and views expressed by the various authors and forum participants on this website are personal and do not reflect the opinions, beliefs and views of ABP News Network Pvt Ltd.