Shammi Kapoor, that great (in more than one sense) fount of joy on screen, passed away today. His songs (mostly with Rafi) are some of my all-time favourites, especially the entire An Evening In Paris album (Shankar-Jaikishan).
PS: And…
PPS: And…
The list is endless, at least in the mind’s screen, each time it switches to Chitrahaar mode. Could it be that, the instant we receive news of a passing, we mourn more the actors who entertain us than the ones who simply excite us with their craft? The latter we worship for the duration of the film, a little later, and for all posterity. The former we reach for every time life hands us a smackdown and we need a pickup. I think I need a pickup now.
Posted in: Bitty Ruminations
Baradwaj Rangan 
bran1gan
August 20, 2011
Radhika; This was the Between reviews I was talking about, where Naseer talks about Balraj Sahni.
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Shankar
August 19, 2011
Baddy, I’m sure you saw the monstrous Ajooba on the big screen !! 🙂 Yeah, I get you…about the prime time stuff.
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radhika
August 17, 2011
I think I saw Teesri Manzil 4-5 times – it would keep getting screened at this bed-bug infested theatre near home, the kind with loooong ceiling fans that whirred sleepily while we scratched furiously. But Shammi always made us forget our surroundings with his madcap antics. In some ways he reminded me of Kishore Kumar – both had this uninhibited body language, no fear of looking foolish and an oddly sweet vulnerability when they did pathos.
The interview – I read a much longer piece by Naseer on Shammi – I read it in an in-flight magazine. I couldn’t find that piece online but I found this excerpt in another interview. I wonder if cerebral actors like naseer find it really difficult to do the starry turns that came easy to the likes of Shammi. Have you seen the Shammikapoor unplugged series of oral history on youtube? You can see the man’s effortless understanding of the camera and how it will treat him even as he recounts his tele-autobiographical vignettes
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bran1gan
August 17, 2011
Shalini: Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve seen any Shammi Kapoor film on the big screen. Well, things like Vidhaata and Hero perhaps — but none of the prime-time stuff.
radhika: I remember reading this interview. It was in a book, right? Do you have the name? I think I even wrote about it in a Between Reviews.
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radhika
August 16, 2011
Quote from a Naseeruddin Shah interview : “I adore Shammi Kapoor. People will snigger when I say this because they expect me to say Dilip Kumar or Balraj Sahani. To tell you the truth, I thought Balraj Sahani was a boring actor, most of the time. Other wise he was brilliant. His performances in films like Kabuliwalla and Do Bigha Zameen are unmatched. I don’t know why he never played a villain. I wish he had. But if there is anybody I do adore, it is Shammi Kapoor. I don’t think there has ever been a more magnetic, attractive, sexy and funny guy on the Hindi screen, ever. His tragedy is that he never did a great movie. The reason why he might be forgotten in the future is because his movies will not be remembered. He did Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya kind of movies, but they were rotten movies. His good ones are films like Teesri Manzil which might just survive. I don’t see why I have to justify why I like Shammi Kapoor. He was just a very good actor. No one can do songs like him. And no one looked more interesting than him. I look up to him. I have attempted to emulate him in my small way. He is the man! There are not too many others who I look up to.”
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Anu Warrier
August 15, 2011
It’s really the end of an era. Shammi Kapoor looked like he was having fun on screen, and he made sure that we had fun too. I have never felt so affected by the death of other stars from the past. You are right that Shammi Kapoor’s films offered a pickup – I defy anyone to remain morose through any of his movies. I am off to give myself an overdose of Shammi Kapoor… to re-watch every single movie of his that I have in my collection.
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bigbala
August 15, 2011
Quite an under-rated actor also no ? I don’t think anyone has put across raw sadness as well as he did in some movies. Of course, the songs were always beautiful.One of the few times that an actors death might actually make me feel a tinge of sadness.
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Vishal
August 14, 2011
More than 30 years ago, when Rafi died, Shammi Kapoor was simply told the following words (by his assistant, I believe): “Your voice has left you.” And Shammi Kapoor understood right away that Rafi had passed away.
PS: The duet from An Evening in Paris, “Raat ke hamsafar thak ke ghar ko chale” is one of my most favorite duets of all times.
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Shalini
August 14, 2011
I saw “Teesri Manzil” on the big screen in Bokaro, Bihar when I was 5 years old and fell in love with Shammi…and never fell out.
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Aditya Pant
August 14, 2011
See this one. Shammi Kapoor’s first film as a lead had him singing a few lines towards the end of this (mostly) Asha song.
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