Majboor (1974 film): Difference between revisions

Majboor
Majboor
Directed by	Ravi Tandon
Produced by	Premji
Written by	Salim–Javed
Starring	Amitabh Bachchan; Parveen Babi; Pran; Farida Jalal; Sulochana Latkar; Satyen Kappu; Iftekhar; Jagdish Raj; Mac Mohan; Rehman
Music by	Laxmikant–Pyarelal
Distributed by	Suchitha Films Pvt. Ltd; Eros International;
Release date	6 December 1974
Country	India
Language	Hindi

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Majboor (translation: Compelled) is a 1974 Indian Hindi-language suspense thriller film directed by Ravi Tandon, produced by Premji and written by Salim-Javed. Released in India on 6 December 1974, the film stars Amitabh Bachchan, Parveen Babi and Pran in lead roles and Farida Jalal, Sulochana Latkar, Satyen Kappu, Iftekhar, Jagdish Raj, Mac Mohan and Rehman in supporting roles.

The movie is loosely inspired by two English movies of 1970 - Zig Zag and Cold Sweat. The film was later remade in Telugu by director K. Raghavendra Rao as Raja (1976) starring Shobhan Babu and Jayasudha. It was also remade in Tamil as Naan Vazhavaippen (1979) with Sivaji Ganeshan and K. R. Vijaya , in Gujarati as Naseeb No Khel (1982) and in Malayalam as Ee Kaikalil (1986).^[1] The movie was also an inspiration for the 2008 movie Jimmy.

Plot

Ravi Khanna (Amitabh Bachchan) is a middle-class travel agent living with his aging mother (Sulochana Latkar), his wheelchair-bound sister, Renu (Farida Jalal), and his young brother, Billu (Alankar Joshi), and is also in a relationship with the wealthy Neela (Parveen Babi). One rainy night, he deals with with his last client, Surendra Sinha (Rehman), and accepts a lift from him in his car as there are no taxis around. Six months later, two detectives, CID Inspector Khurana (Iftekhar) and Inspector Kulkarni (Jagdish Raj), come to interrogate Ravi at his office as Surendra Sinha was abducted that night before his dead body was recovered from a manhole. Ravi is innocent, but nervous as Inspector Khurana and Kulkarni are taking a keen interest in him since he is the last known person to have seen late Surendra Sinha and seeks legal advice from his lawyer friend, Advocate Rane (Shiv Kumar).

However, the stress seems to be triggering severe headaches, so Ravi ends up at Dr. Shah's (Sajjan) place. The diagnosis is far more serious than tension as Ravi has a brain tumour that must be removed, but Dr. Shah scares him with a range of possible outcomes from paralysis to blindness or being right as rain so he leaves without making a decision. Ravi is crestfallen as he is the sole provider to his family and cannot contemplate a life where he becomes a dependent. At the same time, Narendra Sinha (Satyen Kappu), younger brother of Surendra Sinha, declares a reward of ₹500,000 for any information of his brother's killer. Driven against the wall and worried about his family's future, Ravi calls Inspector Khurana and poses as an anonymous informer about Surendra Sinha's murder in a scheme to frame himself as the killer and collect the reward money for his family.

After learning about the anonymous phone call, Narendra is ready to pay out the reward, but Inspector Khurana tells him that the money has to be paid to a lawyer whom the informer suggests and a sealed envelope will also be deposited with the same lawyer. Narendra is willing to go through with the proposal. Now that his proposal has been accepted, Ravi meticulously sets the stage, even leaving sealed instructions and a cover letter with Rane, who is rather bewildered at all the cloak-and-dagger stuff until Inspector Khurana calls to confirm that the money mentioned in the covering letter will be entrusted to him. Acting upon the received information, Inspector Khurana and Kulkarni recover the evidence and it is sent to the laboratory for testing. Soon, Ravi is arrested for the murder of Surendra Sinha and is sentenced to death for the crime, much to the consternation of his family, and that of Neela and her father.

While Neela and Ravi's mother try to make some sense of Ravi's confession, also go and ask Narendra not to demand the death penalty, Ravi is in prison awaiting his execution, and another critical seizure lands him up at the hospital, where he miraculously undergoes a successful brain surgery by Dr. Shah with no side-effects. Well aware that he has condemned himself to be hung for a murder he did not commit, Ravi asks Rane if he could appeal and tell the truth in the court as the sealed envelope he left anonymously in his care will confirm his story after all. However, Rane's response tells Ravi that he is his friend as well as his lawyer, so the court would not believe anything Rane says, and that the only way for Ravi to escape the consequences of his ill-advised actions is to find the real murderer of Surendra Sinha. Thus, Ravi escapes from the police custody in search of the real culprit and is aided by Neela in his pursuit.

As Ravi investigates a significant ring that could lead back to the killer, he has some lucky breaks and benefits from his own logical procedural thinking, and one of them is the arrival of Michael D'Souza (Pran), a kind-hearted and happy-go-lucky professional thief, fencing his wares through Prakash (Mac Mohan). After learning of Ravi's plight, Michael pledges to help him nab the real culprit, recalling that on a rainy night, he had grabbed the same costly ring from the driver of a car, unmindful of the fact that it belonged to the dead Surendra Sinha on the backseat. Michael's endeavour to identify the murderer later takes him to Surendra Sinha's house where he runs into his real murderer and sets up a meeting point to settle the issue. In the climax, Michael manages to solve the mystery but not without paying a huge price, which leads to a wounded Michael holding the murderer at gunpoint while Ravi drives desperately to get a doctor back in time.

Cast

Amitabh Bachchan as Ravi Khanna
Parveen Babi as Neela Rajvansh
Pran as Michael D'Souza
Satyen Kappu as Narendra Sinha
Iftekhar as CID Inspector Khurana (murder investigator)
Jagdish Raj as Inspector Kulkarni (murder investigator)
Farida Jalal as Renu Khanna (Ravi's sister)
Sulochana Latkar as Mrs. Khanna (Ravi's mother)
Rehman as Surendra Sinha (murder victim)
Mac Mohan as Prakash (Michael's friend)
Madan Puri as Mahipat Rai (Ravi's one-time accquaintance)
Alankar Joshi as Billu Khanna (Ravi's younger brother)
D.K. Sapru as Mr. Rajvansh (Neela's father)
Shiv Kumar as Advocate Rane (Ravi's friend)
Ashoo as Mona Sinha (Surendra's widow and Narendra's accomplice)
Sajjan as Dr. Shah (Ravi's examiner and surgeon)
Sudhir as Ravi's colleague
Lalita Kumari as Sulakshana Rai (Mahipat's wife)
Murad as Judge
Pinchoo Kapoor as Doctor who is brought by Ravi for Michael's treatment in the climax (Guest Appearance)

Soundtrack

#	Title	Singer(s)
1	"Aadmi Jo Kehta Hai"	Kishore Kumar
2	"Dekh Sakta Hoon" (Male Version)	Kishore Kumar
3	"Roothe Rab Ko"	Mohammed Rafi & Asha Bhosle
4	"Phir na kehna Michael daru peeke danga karta hai"	Kishore Kumar
5	"Dekh Sakta Hoon" (Female Version)	Lata Mangeshkar

Success

The film was a Hit at the box office.^[2]

Awards and nominations

Filmfare Supporting Actor Nomination--Pran
Filmfare Supporting Actress Nomination--Farida Jalal^[3]

References

↑ Ramachandran, Naman, Rajnikanth: The Definitive Biography. India: Penguin Books (2012).
↑ Box Office India Archived 22 September 2012 at the Wayback Machine
↑ http://filmfareawards.indiatimes.com/articleshow/articleshow/366907.cms^{[permanent dead link]}

External links

Majboor on IMDb

[1] Ramachandran, Naman, Rajnikanth: The Definitive Biography. India: Penguin Books (2012).

[2] Box Office India Archived 22 September 2012 at the Wayback Machine

[3] ttp://filmfareawards.indiatimes.com/articleshow/articleshow/366907.cms^{[permanent dead link]}

[1]

[2]

[3]

@@ Line 28: / Line 28: @@
 == Plot ==
-Ravi Khanna ([[Amitabh Bachchan]]) is an upper middle-class travel agent living happily with his widowed mother ([[Sulochana Latkar]]), wheelchair-bound sister Renu ([[Farida Jalal]]) and young brother Billu (Alankar Joshi), and is also in a relationship with the wealthy Neela Rajvansh (Parveen Babi). One rainy night, he deals with a wealthy client named Surendra Sinha ([[Rehman (actor)|Rehman]]) and accepts a lift in his car since there are no taxis around. Afterwards, Surendra is mysteriously abducted and shockingly found dead in a gutter, and police investigations for the murder lead two murder investigators - CID Inspector Khurana ([[Iftekhar]]) and Inspector Kulkarni ([[Jagdish Raj]]) - to the doors of Ravi's office to interrogate him about his meeting with Surendra. Their keen interest in Ravi makes him nervous as he is the last known person to have seen Surendra.
+Ravi Khanna ([[Amitabh Bachchan]]) is a middle-class travel agent living with his aging mother ([[Sulochana Latkar]]), his wheelchair-bound sister, Renu ([[Farida Jalal]]), and his young brother, Billu (Alankar Joshi), and is also in a relationship with the wealthy Neela (Parveen Babi). One rainy night, he deals with with his last client, Surendra Sinha ([[Rehman (actor)|Rehman]]), and accepts a lift from him in his car as there are no taxis around. Six months later, two detectives, CID Inspector Khurana ([[Iftekhar]]) and Inspector Kulkarni ([[Jagdish Raj]]), come to interrogate Ravi at his office as Surendra Sinha was abducted that night before his dead body was recovered from a manhole. Ravi is innocent, but nervous as Inspector Khurana and Kulkarni are taking a keen interest in him since he is the last known person to have seen late Surendra Sinha and seeks legal advice from his lawyer friend, Advocate Rane (Shiv Kumar).
-Around the same time, Ravi's life is turned upside-down when his regular attacks of headache, seemingly triggered by stress, is diagnosed as the terminal illness of brain tumour, which needs to be extracted immediately through a brain surgery. However, his examiner Dr. Shah (Sajjan) unintentionally scares Ravi with the range of possible outcomes of either paralysis or blindness or mental disorder. This shocking revelation puts Ravi in a dilemma and therefore, he hesitates to declare his decision to Dr. Shah, since he is deeply concerned about his family and Neela's future.
+However, the stress seems to be triggering severe headaches, so Ravi ends up at Dr. Shah's (Sajjan) place. The diagnosis is far more serious than tension as Ravi has a brain tumour that must be removed, but Dr. Shah scares him with a range of possible outcomes from paralysis to blindness or being right as rain so he leaves without making a decision. Ravi is crestfallen as he is the sole provider to his family and cannot contemplate a life where he becomes a dependent. At the same time, Narendra Sinha ([[Satyen Kappu]]), younger brother of Surendra Sinha, declares a reward of [[Indian rupee|₹]]500,000 for any information of his brother's killer. Driven against the wall and worried about his family's future, Ravi calls Inspector Khurana and poses as an anonymous informer about Surendra Sinha's murder in a scheme to frame himself as the killer and collect the reward money for his family.
-While aware of the fact that his brain tumour is set to consume him in six months, Ravi learns from the daily newspaper that Surendra's younger brother Narendra Sinha ([[Satyen Kappu]]) has announced a reward of [[Indian rupee|₹]]500,000 for the capture of Surendra's killer. This news provokes Ravi to come up with a scheming plan in hopes of bettering his family's financial conditions. As per the plan, he anonymously contacts Khurana in the police station and names "himself" in tip as Surendra's murderer. Also, Ravi instructs the police to deliver the reward money to the office of his solicitor named Advocate Rane (Shiv Kumar), who is his close friend and a lawyer. On the other hand, Ravi sends an anonymous letter to Rane's office, which reads that he should deduct his fees and hand over the amount of money to Ravi's own mother.
+After learning about the anonymous phone call, Narendra is ready to pay out the reward, but Inspector Khurana tells him that the money has to be paid to a lawyer whom the informer suggests and a sealed envelope will also be deposited with the same lawyer. Narendra is willing to go through with the proposal. Now that his proposal has been accepted, Ravi meticulously sets the stage, even leaving sealed instructions and a cover letter with Rane, who is rather bewildered at all the cloak-and-dagger stuff until Inspector Khurana calls to confirm that the money mentioned in the covering letter will be entrusted to him. Acting upon the received information, Inspector Khurana and Kulkarni recover the evidence and it is sent to the laboratory for testing. Soon, Ravi is arrested for the murder of Surendra Sinha and is sentenced to death for the crime, much to the consternation of his family, and that of Neela and her father.
-With the help of the evidences manipulated by Ravi and fingerprinting, Khurana and Kulkarni become sure of his deception, resume their pursuit and arrest him. During the trial, Ravi makes a fake confession of having abducted Surendra and killed him with an iron rod (which is also a part of the unreal evidences). On the basis of reasonable doubt, the court announces a verdict of death sentence to Ravi, much to his family and Neela's devastation. In a last attempt to change the family's fate, Ravi's mother visits Narendra and appeals for mercy before him, begging him to change Ravi's punishment into life imprisonment. Nevertheless, Narendra stands firm with his determination about Ravi's imminent fate at the tragic loss of his brother.
+While Neela and Ravi's mother try to make some sense of Ravi's confession, also go and ask Narendra not to demand the death penalty, Ravi is in prison awaiting his execution, and another critical seizure lands him up at the hospital, where he miraculously undergoes a successful brain surgery by Dr. Shah with no side-effects. Well aware that he has condemned himself to be hung for a murder he did not commit, Ravi asks Rane if he could appeal and tell the truth in the court as the sealed envelope he left anonymously in his care will confirm his story after all. However,  Rane's response tells Ravi that he is his friend as well as his lawyer, so the court would not believe anything Rane says, and that the only way for Ravi to escape the consequences of his ill-advised actions is to find the real murderer of Surendra Sinha. Thus, Ravi escapes from the police custody in search of the real culprit and is aided by Neela in his pursuit.
-Despite this, things take a turn when Ravi's yet another attack of headache in prison lands him up at the hospital under police custody. While there, he fortunately undergoes a successful brain surgery with no side-effects for being rushed in on time by Khurana and Kulkarni, much to Dr. Shah's happiness. However, it is too late now since Ravi is already a convicted criminal of abduction, ransom and murder. Well aware of having condemned himself to be hung for a murder that he did not commit, Ravi reveals his suicidal conspiracy to Neela and Rane during a permitted meeting with them at the hospital, and they explain to him that the only way out to escape the consequences of his ill-advised actions is to find the real culprit of the crime.
+As Ravi investigates a significant ring that could lead back to the killer, he has some lucky breaks and benefits from his own logical procedural thinking, and one of them is the arrival of Michael D'Souza ([[Pran]]), a kind-hearted and happy-go-lucky professional thief, fencing his wares through Prakash ([[Mac Mohan]]). After learning of Ravi's plight, Michael pledges to help him nab the real culprit, recalling that on a rainy night, he had grabbed the same costly ring from the driver of a car, unmindful of the fact that it belonged to the dead Surendra Sinha on the backseat. Michael's endeavour to identify the murderer later takes him to Surendra Sinha's house where he runs into his real murderer and sets up a meeting point to settle the issue. In the climax, Michael manages to solve the mystery but not without paying a huge price, which leads to a wounded Michael holding the murderer at gunpoint while Ravi drives desperately to get a doctor back in time.
-Seeing no other way out, Ravi escapes from the hospital using some clever tricks and reunites with Neela, therefore leaving in search of Surendra's real murderer with her. During his mission, Ravi investigates a significant ring that could lead him back to the killer, and after interrogations from a one-time accquaintance named Mahipat Rai ([[Madan Puri]]) to a black market dealer named Prakash ([[Mac Mohan]]), Ravi comes across a kind-hearted and happy-go-lucky professional thief named Michael D'Souza ([[Pran]]).
-After learning of Ravi's plight, Michael pledges to help him nab the real culprit since he had robbed the same ring from the driver of a car on a rainy night, unmindful of the fact that it belonged to the dead Surendra at the backseat. After all, Ravi is double-crossed by Michael as Prakash influences him to sell out Ravi to Narendra in exchange of the reward money. Thus, Michael ends up at the late Surendra's house where, in a twisted climax, he runs into Narendra and recalls him to be the driver of the car, whom he had robbed Surendra's costly ring from.
-After a brief confrontation, Narendra admits that Surendra's wife Mona (Ashoo) was having an extramarital affair with him and that as Surendra walked in on them and saw them together, he killed the latter with the infliction of head injuries and threw his body off in the gutter, faking the latter's abduction in order to cover up his crime. Upon learning this, Michael sets up the meeting point of an abandoned, ramshackle wooden house on the [[Thal Ghat|Kasara Ghat]] with Narendra, where he will hand over Ravi to him in exchange of the reward money.
-The following day, Michael visits Ravi's house in order to find out his reason for framing himself for the murder. While there, he has a change of heart on seeing Renu emotionally lamenting their unfortunate separation from Ravi and mercifully promises her that he will bring their smiles back. Meanwhile, Narendra secretly carries his revolver gun to the meeting point, fearing that Michael might expose his crime. Right as Ravi and Neela arrive at the scene, Narendra's conspiracy is exposed before them due to the three gunshots inflicted by him upon Michael.
-Keeping the promise he had made to Renu, a gravely injured Michael turns the tables on Narendra and confesses about his crime to Ravi. On this development, Ravi is forced to leave from the scene to bring some help for Michael, who holds Narendra at gunpoint in a gravely injured state while being taken care of by Neela. Whilst returning with a physician, Ravi also leads Kulkarni and the police to the place on time where the dying Michael confesses about Ravi's innocence and Narendra's conspiracies. As a result, Narendra is arrested and sent to prison for his crimes, while all charges against Ravi are dropped. In the end, Michael expresses his wishes of happiness for Ravi's family before Ravi and dies succumbing to his serious injuries, having fulfilled his promise.
 == Cast ==