Sunday, May 17, 2009

BLACKMAIL: Well Worth the Wait!

I first found out about Vijay Anand's 'Blackmail' (1973) thanks to a fabulous review by Memsaab, one of my favourite Bolly-bloggers. I thought it sounded absolutely gorgeous and knew that I immediately had to find it and make it mine... it was AGES before the DVD finally made its way to me - I ordered them in summer 2008 and didn't receive it until March this year (it's a long story!) And I fell in love with it right away....

What's not to love about this movie? It has everything - drama, romance, foreign baddies in a fake golf tournament, lots of suspense, a gorgeous Rakhee, two gorgeous Rakhees, a (to borrow Memsaab's adjective) dreamy Dharmendra, windswept love letters, Kishore Kumar's voice, tears, unrequited love, men of science in a massive lab, a pretty amazing 'formoola', laughter, beautiful music, oodles of sexiness (you have to see 'Mile Do Badan'), cute children, Madan Puri in a crazy wig... need I go on? I adored it. 'Blackmail' is a lovely film, and a total delight for any Dharmendra fan... and even if you're not huge on Dharmendra, you'll love it if you love good Hindi films from the 70s.

I'm not doing a proper review of this movie, as I think Memsaab's excellent review says everything I might have said (and better than I could possibly have said it), so here are some of my favourite screencaps from 'Blackmail' (for your viewing pleasure, but also so I can come back here and stare at them the next time I need cheering up ;-))....