Golden Era of Bollywood: Dev Anand's First Film was the Amar Akbar Anthony of Pre Independence Bollywood

Monday 29 October 2018

Dev Anand's First Film was the Amar Akbar Anthony of Pre Independence Bollywood

Hum Ek Hain was the first film of Dev Anand released in 1946. A Prabhat Film directed by P L Santoshi and Music by Husnlal Bhagatram.The story of unity in the face of religious and class differences, Dev Anand shared equal screen space with a host of others, including debutants Rehman, Rehana, and Kamala Kotnis, all saplings in the shade of a banyan tree-like figure that is Durga Khote.

Dev Anand plays Shankar who is the son of Durga Khote the three adopted children are Yusuf played by Rehman, John played by Rane and Durga played by Ranjit Kumari. The children, although encouraged to practice their separate religions, are taught to remain united at all times.

On an outing, Vidya (Kamla Kotnis) witnesses Chhotebabu’s haughty behavior and is not impressed. She instantly falls in love with the upright Shankar who puts his foot down at Chhotebabu’s domineering ways. Shankar reciprocates Vidya’s feelings. In the meantime, other two brothers also find their ladyloves—Nargis (Rehana) and Dolly (? actor), respectively, and both alliances are fixed.

The villain Chhote Babu, who wants to marry the girl who is engaged to the eldest of the three boys Shankar but couldn't marry her. All the three sons got married and were living a happy life. One day Shankar leaves for a town with his new wife to visit his ailing father-in-law, Chhote babu visits John at the clinic and tells him that the place is too run-down for practice and that he needs to build a bigger hospital. He instigates John to write to Shankar for money, and introduces him to an engineer who will head the construction work., he sows discord and hatred, causing great enmity between the trio until reason prevails and they reunite.
It was a movie with a strong matriarch, which may have inspired other movie makers of the future to come up with movies of this theme. The movie clearly paves way for future movies with the theme of unity in diversity. “Amar Akbar Anthony” is an example that readily comes to mind.