Golden Era of Bollywood: 50 Years of the film PRINCE

Tuesday, 1 January 2019

50 Years of the film PRINCE

On the 1st Jan 1969 released Shammi Kapoor's hit film, Prince. It was produced by F. C. Mehra and directed by Lekh Tandon. The film stars Shammi Kapoor with Vyjayanthimala in the lead with Rajendranath, Ajit, Helen, etc. The film grossed around ₹4,00,00,000 with a net of ₹2,00,00,000, thus becoming the fourth highest grossing film of 1969 with a verdict of a hit at Box Office India.
The team of producer F. C. Mehra, director Lekh Tandon, actor Shammi Kapoor and musicians Shankar-Jaikishan had earlier worked together on the hit film Professor (1962). The songs of that film are some of the immortal songs of Mohammad Rafi.
This is a really fun film, and though Shammi is admittedly towards the end of his career as a hero, he is still the Shammi who made hearts go pitter-patter. The songs are classic Shanker-Jaikishan-Rafi-Shammi, with the dance-off between Helen and Vijayanthimala probably its most well-known feature.

The film is about how wealth and privilege do not guarantee happiness, Shammi Kapoor plays Prince Shamsher Singh, the jaded, bored, arrogant son of the Maharajah of Ramnagar (Ulhas). He is an irresponsible, alcoholic, and womanizing adult, who wants everyone to bow down before him and his princely rank. One priest refuses to do so, and Shamsher pummels him mercilessly, though in vain. Frustrated, he asks the priest what he should do with his mundane life, and the priest tells him that he should repent, sacrifice all his palatial pleasures, and live the life of a simple and ordinary man, and hence learn the true meaning of life, for at least six months. Shamsher agrees to do so and arranges an accident with his car, which plummets down a mountain, explodes and is blown to smithereens. Everyone in the palace believes that Shamsher is dead. He goes to a nearby village, and a blind woman there mistakes him for her long-lost son and starts calling him Sajjan Singh. Shamsher decides to play along as Sajjan.
Once two corrupt officials meet him, they find him to be similar to Shamsher so they conspire with him to pose as Shamsher for a hefty sum of money, to which Sajjan agrees. When he accompanies the officials back to the palace, he is shocked to find that his father has remarried a much younger woman, Ratna, and shortly after marrying her, has died, leaving the palace and its management to her and her greedy brother. Shamsher decides to reveal his true identity, but the officials threaten to expose him to his new-found blind mother, and Shamsher knows that he is trapped in the body of Sajjan Singh, forced to pose as none other than himself.

It is a typically a masala film, Shammi Kapoor's fans will enjoy this film. When the movie was released Vyjayantimala was 39 and Shammi Kapoor just 5 years her senior and so and PRINCE doesn’t belong to their prime. The most famous aspect of Prince, for many Indians, is the song “Badan pe Sitaare”. Even today, it is considered one of Shammi’s most popular songs. The story behind it is that Hasrat Jaipuri and Jaikishen went out to a nightclub on a trip to Paris. In the club, with all the glittering costumes around him, Jaikishen began writing the first few lines of this song (Badan pe Sitaare hue, o Jaane Tamanna Kidhar Ja Rahii ho, zara paas aao, to chain aa jaaye = Decked up so in glittering stars, where are you headed, my beloved…here, come to me, that I may get some solace). Hasrat Jaipuri then took it from there and they recorded the song when they got back to Bombay.