Director: K.A. Abbas; Writer: K.A. Abbas; Producer: K.A. Abbas; Cinematographer: Ramchandra; Editor: Mohan Rathod; Cast: Surekha, Vimal Ahuja, Jalal Agha, Madhavi, David Abraham, Persis Khambatta, Irshad Panjatan, Prakash, Yunus Parvez, Madhukar, Samir Kumar, Kuljit Singh, Ravikant, Bhagwan Sinha, Qamar Amrohi, Pardesi, Bhola, Jagdish Kamal, Ghanshyam Rohera, Moti Bina, Sunil Kaushik, Surendra Kaushik, Nazir Kashmiri, Chandulal, Verinder Raj Anand, Akhtar Siraj, A.K. Hangal, Jeevan, Prithviraj Kapoor, Tinnu Anand
Duration: 02:04:33; Aspect Ratio: 1.335:1; Hue: 100.000; Saturation: 0.047; Lightness: 0.094; Volume: 0.264; Cuts per Minute: 8.494; Words per Minute: 11.714
Summary: Characteristic of many CPI ideologues’ work in the 60s (cf. Sukhdev), this is a demagogic melodrama bewailing the city’s effect on ‘traditional’ values. The city is represented by nightclubs, swindlers and drunken women. The hero is Amar Kumar (Ahuja), a crusading journalist under pressure to accept a bribe to kill his story about corruption in high places. Returning from Delhi, he meets a bootlegger named Johnny (Agha) on the plane. An old passenger, Sevakram (Panjatan), dies and leaves a wad of money he stole from a bank. Amar, debating the future with his estranged wife Asha, winds up in Bombay at a nightclub. At Toto’s house, Amar meets the cabaret singer Lily (Khambatta) and the drunk Rosy (Madhavi). Although Rosy loves Johnny, he loves Lily. Eventually it transpires that Johnny strangled the old man and as the police chase him through Bombay, his car runs over Rosy and he is caught.
The film was based on Abbas's novel - When Night Falls.
Interestingly Anand says that he first visited Shastri Nagar at the request of Darshana Bhogilal (PUCL lawyer), in order to take evidentiary photographs of the demolition.
Saare Jahan Se Accha is playing in the background. Daleria wadi is Shastri Nagar, Bandra where the slaughterhouse was till 1974, and where Anand Patwardhan will film the first half of Hamara Shehar in 1983.
The figure of the oligarch, here Sonadas Dolaria
Shastri Nagar, Bandra
Shastri Nagar, Bandra from K A Abbas's Bambai Raat Ki Bahon Mein
bombay ballet
Persis Khambatta twists to a Bombay backdrop. The song cuts once to a Koli dance, and then to a stylised ballet about the footpaths of Bombay. Under the Rajabai Clock Tower of the Bombay University (financed by Premchand Roychand, the opium baron and patron of the city), an "everyday" occurrence of the police night beat. The comic description of the constable is a familiar trope in Bombay cinema.
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