Rajkumar

Rajkumar (1964) : Brief Review -

Shammi Kapoor's royal mass! Funny thing that Shammi Kapoor has also starred in a film called "Prince" (1969), in which he played a prince (in Hindi, it means Rajkumar). Prithviraj Kapoor had played a king earlier in the legendary Mughal-e-Azam (1960). Wait, had Sadhana been part of any such films, or am I the only one who thinks that this was a new template for her? Rajkumar is the story of a prince who returns from abroad and decides to pretend that he has forgotten all his Indian culture and has become quite nasty and irresponsible. In the meantime, the conspiracies to remove him and replace him as a prince/king begin in the opposite party, and the adventure begins. Shammi Kapoor has done these impersonations for years, and that's one major thing people liked about him. In Rajkumar, you see him in multiple looks, such as Saint, Arabian smuggler, Bhagat, and even a Pujari. It's fun alright, even though it's typical. The climax goes on to hit a new grandeur from the cinema perspective, and Rajkumar looks like a big film all of a sudden. Hundreds of people get involved in battle, and the camera clicks all of them in one single frame to flaunt the size of scale. I don't really give a damn to silly cliches, such as Prince can easily break the iron chains around him. If he could do that, why didn't he do it before? Anyway, it's all for the happy, dramatic, and adventurous ending, or else the masses would have felt disappointed. In one scene, Shammi Kapoor denies getting Sadhana's hand for marriage when he could have easily gotten that. He says, "It's not a manly way. You'll understand when you fall in love." He won me completely at that moment. Ramanand Sagar's script and K Shankar's direction both were very formulaic, but Shammi and Sadhana's presence and two super hit numbers really took me on a ride for 2 and a half hours. A half hour of that was unnecessary and stretched.

RATING - 6.5/10*

By - #samthebestest.

A prince returns to his reign after 10yrs from foreign but gets trapped in a murder of heroine's father.

Pros: 1. This movie is similar to a thriller movie for that time. From the very first scene, the movie becomes engaging. One scene Shammi Kapoor has beard and it's gone in the next scene. The change is explained immediately but for the first time audience, it adds to the excitement. 2. Shammi Kapoor, sadhna, pran, prithviraj Kapoor and rajendra nath have played their parts beautifully. Shammi Kapoor is very good in comic scenes. A very well deserved product of nepotism. An excellent actor from Kapoor family. 3. Music is very melodious. When the story switches to romantic mood, songs entertain you. 4. The movie can entertain any generation of audience if you have low expectations and do not mind done to death story. Screenplay is the savior here.

Cons: The movie drags towards second half. The first half shows urgency in finding the real culprit (for the movie characters, the audience is shown everything, it's not a suspense movie) but the urgency and interest of heroine gets sideline for some time in the second half. Too many songs come one after the other.

But it was an excellent movie for its time