Story, Synopsis, Trivia, Dialogues for Kismat (1943)
The story is about a very lovable pickpocket named Shekhar (Ashok Kumar) who becomes friends with a poor theater owner (P.F. Pithawala) whose daughter is a beautiful singer by the name of Rani (Mumtaz Shanti). In a mad fit of greed, the old man forced his daughter to dance until she was exhausted and crippled. Shekhar falls in love with Rani and sets out to steal money from the theater's current owner Indrajit, who is sort of a villain. Shekhar wants the money to pay for an operation that will let Rani walk once again. However, after a series of events, Shekar not only gets arrested, but also manages to accidentally implicate Rani as well. In the ending, everyone gets saved when it is revealed that Shekhar is in fact Indrajit's long lost son.
The supreme hit, the fourth success in a row for producer Mukherjee (Kangan, 1939, Bandhan, 1940; Jhoola, 1941) made by the people who were to launch the Filistan studio. Pickpocket Shekhar (A. Kumar) befriends an old man (Pithwala) who once owned a theatre and is the father of its star singer, Rani (Shanti). In a fit of greed he made his daughter dance to exhaustion, making hier a cripple. Now she is employed by, and indebted to, the theatres new owner, the villain Indrajit. Shekhar steals Indrajits wifes valuable necklace and Rani resues him from the cops. Shekhar and Rani fall in love and he wants to raise the money to cure her disability. The cirsis is precipitated when Rani unwittingly wear the stolen necklace and is caught by the police. Shekhar owns up, is arrested, escaped from the police and raids Indrajits house to pay for Ranis operation. Caught again, Shekharis saved from a long jail sentence by the relevation that he is Indrajits long-lost son. Shekahars newly found brother Mohan is permitted to marry Ranis sister Lila (Whom he had made pregnant) and the happy ending sees all protagonists united in the family of the partiarch Indrajit. Known for its musical hits, Kumars ebullient performance and Shantis voice, the film assimilates the Warner Bros. relist style with expressionist overtones, esp. insom of its classic, often anthologised sequences, e.g. Shekhars escape from the fops in a puff of cigarette smoke or the final robbery scene. A contemporary review in Filmindia (Feb. 1943) condemned the film for imitating John Cromwells Algiers (1938)while glorifying crime, making it a bad influence on the younger generation. It includes the patriotic son Aaj himalay ki choti se phir humme lalkara hai. The film which ran for 3 consecutive years in the same cinema in Calcutta, is an early example of a pre-Partition lost and found movie reherasing the familiar pre-capitalist fairy-tale motif of members of a family who are seperated by fate or villainy and eventually are recognised and reunited. Check out this page for more updates on Kismat.
