Synopsis
Raju
(Dev Anand), once a successful tourist guide,
hesitates to return to his hometown of Udaipur
after his release from jail and decides
to search for his fortunes elsewhere. He
ends up in a remote village temple wearing
over his threadbare clothes a saffron scarf
which had once belonged to some passing
mendicant, and finds himself suddenly elevated
to the position of a holy man. Six months
pass; Raju's mother (Leela Chitnis) and
Rosie, a dancer and Raju's lover (Waheeda
Rehman), arrive at the jail to take him
home but are told he was let off six months
earlier. Rosie takes Raju's mother home
and relates her own side of the story. She
was the daughter of a professional temple
dancer who, in an attempt to give her a
respectable existence, married her off to
a middle-aged archeologist, Marco (Kishore
Sahu), who not only had no time for her
but also forced her to leave dancing as
it was not considered a respectable pastime.
On an excavation, they took Raju as their
guide and while Marco spent his days and
nights at an excavation site, drinking and
whoring, the rebellious and neglected Rosie
tried to commit suicide. She was saved by
Raju, in love with her by now, and encouraged
by him to leave Marco and lead a life of
her own. Rosie left Marco and and came to
live with Raju. Naturally tongues wagged
at the sanctity of their 'live-in' relationship
and soon Raju was abandoned by all his friends
and even his mother. Neglecting his own
career, Raju groomed Rosie to become a professional
dancer. Soon Rosie became the rage of the
country as Nalini and Raju suddenly found
himself a rich man, but their personal relationship
started to deteriorate when he took to drinking
and gambling with this new found wealth.
When Marco tried to reenter Rosie's life,
Raju forged Rosie's signature in an attempt
to keep him away from her. Meanwhile, failing
to revive the relationship they used to
share, Raju left Rosie and went back home.
However Raju's forgery was discovered and
he was arrested. Though she initially misunderstood
his motives, Rosie met him in jail and promised
to wait for him. Back to the present. Raju
now has got accustomed to being a holy man,
but in that role he has actually helped
the village to acquire its own school, hospital
and postal service. One day he tells the
villagers a story his mother had told him
long ago of another holy man who had kept
a fast for twelve days to bring rain to
a parched land. Unfortunately, before the
story is forgotten, drought hits the village.
The villagers beg him to fast for them.
For Raju the playacting becomes the reality.
He starts believing that this is a task
assigned to him by god. Raju's mother and
Rosie reach there and watch helplessly as
Raju slowly drifts towards death due to
the fasting. The rains come at last, and
while the villagers dance wildly outside,
Raju dies of starvation....
The film
 Guide
is one of the most remarkable films of Indian
Cinema and truly a film that was ahead of
its times. Based on R.K. Narayan's novel
The Guide, the film is immortalized
by Director
Vijay Anand's bold, unconventional strokes;who
would have dared to show a man and woman
living together outside the sanctity of
a marriage way back in the 1960s? And that
too in a milieu as traditional as that of
Hindi cinema which doesn't allow nonconformist
relationships even today! In fact, it is
one of the earliest efforts in Indian Cinema
to actually show its two leading characters
as frail human beings who could make mistakes
in life, sin and yet be unapologetic about
it. Consequently Dev
Anand, who also produced the film, was
advised by all and sundry not to touch this
project with a bargepole but it speaks volumes
of his conviction towards the subject matter
that not only did he get a film made on
it but a film that remains one of the landmark
films of Indian Cinema.
Guide
was made in two versions - an English version
in collaboration with Pearl S Buck and directed
by Ted Danielewski to introduce Dev Anand
to western audiences and of course the Hindi
version directed by Dev Anand's younger
brother, Vijay Anand. Initially Vijay was
dead against directing this film causing
Anand to approach elder brother Chetan Anand
who was busy with his own film, Haqeeqat
(1964) and then Raj
Khosla but things didn't work out here
either. Vijay Anand was approached again
and this time he took on the film albeit
reluctantly. Ironic because Guide
today is regarded as perhaps the best film
that Vijay Anand had made and rightly so.
The
film, alive with its riot of colours, works
best as it looks at the development of the
relationship between Raju and Rosie. Raju's
courage and compassion, and the hypocrisy
of 'respectable' society's attitude toward
'public women' are powerfully portrayed,
as is the chemistry between him and Rosie
aided by tender, poignant moments and superb
dialogues. However their later falling out,
at the height of Rosie's success, is rendered
more sketchily -- the film implies (in contradiction
to its earlier message), that worldly success
inevitably corrupts and that career women
must indeed construct (in Rosie's words)
'a sort of fortress around the heart.'
The
film is enhanced richly by the two central
performances. Dev Anand gives perhaps his
best shaded performance in the title role,
playing him perfectly with just the right
amount of grey and his perfectly nuanced
performance won him his second Filmfare
Award for Best Actor. Good as Dev Anand
is, however, the life and soul of Guide
is undoubtedly Waheeda
Rehman. It was a daring role to play
in those times, of a woman who leaves her
stifling impotent husband and lives with
her lover, a guide who helps her in her
ambitions to become a famous dancer. Waheeda
was in fact told she was committing professional
suicide taking on this role. However it
is to her credit that she was more than
able to humanize Rosie to get the viewer's
sympathy with her rather than against her.
Whether breaking the metamorphic pot of
social constraints or dancing precariously
over a ledge in keeping with her dangerous
new desires, Waheeda Rehman is outstanding
in the film with her portrayal of an adulterous,
career-minded, strong woman. Never has she
looked, acted or danced better! Though R.K.
Narayan disowned the film, he had no complaints
with Waheeda's performance as Rosie. She
too won the Filmfare Award for Best Actress
for Guide. However, after
Guide, Waheeda's career graph was strange
to say the least. Her commercial successes
Ram Aur Shyam (1967) and Pathar
ke Sanam (1967) hardly challenged her
histrionic ability and the films that did
so - Teesri Kasam
(1966), Khamoshi (1969) and Reshma
Aur Shera (1971) bombed at the box-office
in spite of some of her best work as an
actress. Dev Anand and Waheeda are supported
perfectly by the supporting cast particularly
Kishore Sahu.
The other big star of Guide was
its musical score by S.D.
Burman. The film represents perhaps
Burman Dada's greatest work and he is aided
tremendously by Shailendra's lyrics and
the flawless rendering of the songs by Mohd.
Rafi, Lata
Mangeshkar, Kishore
Kumar and himself. Each and every song
be it Aaj Phir Jeene ki Tamanna Hai,
Tere Mere Sapne Ab Ek Rang Hai, Din
Dhal Jaaye, Gaata Rahe Mera Dil,
Piya Tose Naina Lage Re, Mujhse
Chhal Kiye Ja and Kya se Kya Ho Gaya
(a rare case of two songs back to back),
Allah Megh De and Wahaan Kaun
Hai Tera is perfectly written, composed
and sung. It is indeed shocking that Burman
Dada lost out on the Filmfare Award to Shankar-Jaikishen
for their populist score in Suraj (1966),
which great as it was came nowhere near
to Guide's scintillating musical score.
Guide also sees Vijay Anand at his
peak and more than reinforces his reputation
as Indian Cinema's premier song picturizer.
Special mention must be made of Aaj Phir
Jeene ki Tamanna Hai (The famous low
angle tracking shot of Waheeda dancing along
the ledge of the temple continues to amaze
one even today) and Tere Mere Sapne
which he canned in just 3 shots with complex
character and camera movements - truly a
great filmmaker at the heights of his craft.
The film is brilliantly photographed in
Pathe Colour (the English version was filmed
in Eastman Colour) by Fali Mistry and processed
abroad which has helped the print retain
its vibrant colours even today. And special
mention must be made of Hiralal's choreography
resulting in some of the most famous dance
numbers of Hindi films.
Initially Guide had a tough time
being sold because of its so called bold
theme but thanks to Production Controller
Yash Johar's perseverance, the film was
finally sold and released to great critical
acclaim and was a big commercial success
as well even though as mentioned R.K. Narayan
was most unhappy with the final film as
he felt it deviated too much from his novel.
One of the major changes that Vijay Anand
did was to change the setting of the film
from Malgudi to Udaipur and while this did
give the film an exotic, grand visual look,
admittedly perhaps this took away from the
ambiance of the small town of Narayan's
novel. The ending too of the film was significantly
different from that of the novel. But then
Vijay Anand has always maintained that he
was never interested in merely copying any
work of art from one medium to another unless
there was scope for value addition and to
be fair to him, he has made Guide
into a rich and unforgettable cinematic
experience. The English version said to
be closer to the novel and in spite of a
nude scene using a duplicate instead of
Waheeda Rehman, flopped miserably but the
Hindi version remains a classic to this
day. Need one say more?
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