Jaal 1952

Jaal is a 1952 Indian Bollywood musical, suspense, thriller, social film released on Jan 01, 1952. The film is directed by Guru Dutt, produced by T.R. Fatechand under banner named Filmarts.

After losing his vision during a storm, Carlos (K.N. Singh) lives with his sister, Maria (Geeta Bali), off the Indian coast in a fishing village. One day a mysterious young woman, Lisa, enters their lives, followed by a mysterious man, Tony Fernandes (Dev Anand). Maria and Tony fall in love with each other, much to the chagrin of Simon, who loves Maria and wants to marry her. Lisa then warns Maria that she has known Tony, they have had an affair together, and he had betrayed her, however, this warning has no effect on Maria. Then a gypsy palm-reader also cautions Maria that she may be headed for disaster at the hands of a stranger. The question remains: who exactly are Lisa and Tony, and what is the reason behind their presence on this fishing community; and whether or not Maria is being drawn into a web of lies and deceit at the hands of Tony?

Set in the fishing village of Goa, this film depicts the ties between Tony, a good-for-nothing man from the city, and Maria, a village girl who loves him innocently. The spirit of Christian love and forgiveness lies at the base of the story, and the film has a strong religious color to it, unusual for Guru Dutt.

Dutts classic follow-up to Baazi (1951) with the same stars. Set in a small Indian enclave still under foreign control (presumably Portugese Goa), Tony (Anand) is an unscrupulous gold smuggler who seduces the local belle Maria (Bali) and makes her his accomplice. Lisa (Purnima), who was Tonys companion until the police got on her track, tries to warn him. In teh end, when Tony is hunted down by the police, Maria stops the shootout and persuades him to go to jail, promising to wait for him. Marias blind brother Carlo (K.N. Singh) and her fiance Simon (R. Singh) are the other important characters in the story. The films most remarkable scenes, apart from its wonderfully suspenseful opening on the waterfront, include a very stylish seduction scne as Tony lures Maria to the beach with his song Yeh raat yeh chandni phir kahan (sungby Hemanta Mukherjee), and she ends up caught, literally, in his net. The rural Goan fishing community is transformed into a kind of frontier town to provide the setting for the morality tale of sex and religion, summarised in a strangley comic scene with masked dancers at a village fete. Dutt uses the sound of waves as a leitmotif and his renowned crane shots (of Pyaasa, 1957; Kaagaz Ke Phool, 1959) are already in evidence. [Source: Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema] Check out this page for more updates on Jaal.