Summary: Veteran Madan Theatres director Bannerjee's comedy adapting a major Bengali stage success, staged originally by Star Theatres (1932). The zamindar Damodar Chakraborty (Chakraborty) starts a school named after his wife and recruits a married couple as teachers. Manas (Ganguly in the role which had made him a stage star) and Niharika (Kanan Devi) pretend to be married in order to get the jobs. Their imposture, together with the fact that he is Hindu while she is Christian, produces complications. Eventually the couple fall in love and get married. The film is remembered mainly as an acting
tour de force with Kanan Devi matching Tulsi Chakraborty's comic talent. The introduction of various small-town stereotypes gives the film an appealing sense of a village populated by laid-back, slightly crazy but basically benevolent denizens. The film was a hit and was remade several times in
Bengali by Hemchandra Chunder (1958), and then with a partially altered plot, by L.V. Prasad in Tamil (
Missiamma, 1955), Telugu (
Missamma, 1955) and Hindi (
Miss Mary, 1957). Anant Mane also made a Marathi version
Jhakli Mooth (1957).
