Majboor (1974 film)

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 Rehman
Music by	Laxmikant–Pyarelal
Distributed by	Suchitha Films Pvt. Ltd Eros International
Release date	6 December 1974
Country	India
Language	Hindi

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 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). The movie was also an inspiration for the 2008 film Jimmy.

Plot

Ravi Khanna (Amitabh Bachchan) is a middle-class travel agent living with his ageing mother (Sulochana Latkar), wheelchair-bound sister Renu (Farida Jalal) and young brother Billu (Alankar Joshi), and is also due to get married with his girlfriend Neela (Parveen Babi). One rainy night, one of his clients, the wealthy Surendra Sinha (Rehman), visits Ravi's travel agency to pick up the tickets that have been reserved for him when Ravi notices a large emerald ring on his finger as Surendra Sinha impatiently taps on the counter. After leaving the premises, Surendra Sinha offers Ravi a lift in his car till the crossroads near Ravi's house as there is not a single taxi to be seen. Some time later, two detectives, CID Inspector Khurana (Iftekhar) and Inspector Kulkarni (Jagdish Raj), come to interrogate Ravi at the travel agency as Surendra Sinha was apparently abducted that night and his dead body was later shockingly recovered from a manhole. Ravi is innocent, but nervous as Inspector Khurana and Inspector Kulkarni are taking a keen interest in him since he is the last known person to have seen Surendra Sinha. The stress seems to be triggering regular headache attacks and Ravi goes to the doctor where he is sent for a brain X-Ray. The shocking diagnosis is far more serious than tension as Ravi has a brain tumour that needs to be removed, while there is also no guarantee that he will not be blind or even paraplegic as the side-effects of the brain surgery. Ravi is aghast as he is the sole provider to his family and cannot contemplate a life where he becomes a dependent, so he leaves without making a decision when the choices are death and a life worse than death.

While he is aware of the fact that his brain tumour is set to consume him in six months, Ravi gets the interesting news of Surendra Sinha's grieving younger brother Narendra Sinha (Satyen Kappu) having declared a handsome reward of five lakh rupees for any information about his brother's killer. In an attempt to secure his family's future, Ravi anonymously telephones Inspector Khurana at the police station and poses as an informer about Surendra Sinha's murder in a scheme to frame "himself" as the killer and collect the reward money for his family since he has nothing to lose and is going to die in six months anyway. Narendra Sinha is ready to pay out the reward after learning about the anonymous informer from Inspector Khurana. Acting upon the received information, Inspector Khurana and Inspector Kulkarni recover the evidence that has been created against himself by Ravi, who is soon arrested by them for the murder of Surendra Sinha and is sentenced to death by the Supreme Court of India for the crime, much to the consternation of his family and that of Neela. While Neela and Ravi's mother try to make some sense of Ravi's confession, also go to Narendra Sinha to beg for clemency, Ravi is in prison awaiting his execution and his another headache attack lands him up at the hospital by Inspector Khurana and Inspector Kulkarni, where Ravi miraculously undergoes a successful brain surgery with no side-effects but is now a convicted criminal of abduction, ransom and murder.

Well-aware of having condemned himself to be hung for a murder he did not commit, a regretful Ravi realises that now the only way for him to escape the consequences of his ill-advised actions is to find the real murderer of Surendra Sinha. In order to save himself from going to the gallows, Ravi manages to escape from the hospital in search of the real killer and is aided by Neela in his pursuit. As Ravi investigates the significant large emerald ring of Surendra Sinha 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. Learning of Ravi's plight, Michael pledges to help him nab the real culprit after recalling that on the fateful 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. Despite Michael's endeavour to identify the murderer, his friend Prakash (Mac Mohan), who is a black market dealer, gives Michael the advice to play a double game with Ravi by selling him out to Narendra Sinha as guilty of Surendra Sinha's murder in exchange of the reward money of five lakh rupees. Michael now takes Prakash's advice and visits Narendra Sinha's house to strike a deal regarding the capture of Ravi. While there, Michael comes face-to-face with Narendra Sinha, and is shocked to recognize him as the driver of the car, whom he had grabbed Surendra Sinha's costly ring from.

Realising that the killer of Surendra Sinha is none other than his own brother Narendra Sinha, Michael claims to be knowing his real intentions when Narendra Sinha admits that Surendra Sinha's wife Mona (Ashoo) had an extramarital affair with him which Surendra Sinha discovered on the rainy night and disowned him as his brother. An offended Narendra Sinha immediately retaliated by smashing glass bottles on the head of Surendra Sinha, killing him. While he was taking Surendra Sinha's dead body away from his car for its disposal, Michael apprehended Narendra Sinha and forced him to hand him over the ring. After succeeding in throwing Surendra Sinha's dead body inside the manhole, Narendra Sinha faked his brother's abduction before the police, and announced the five lakh rupees reward in order to cover up his crime. Upon learning the truth, Michael sets up a meeting point with Narendra Sinha where he will hand over Ravi to him in exchange of the "reward" money. Before the meeting, Michael deliberately visits Ravi's house to find out the reason behind his unusual actions of framing himself for the murder, where he has a change of heart instead on witnessing Renu lament Ravi's tragic separation from the family, thus taking an oath that he will reunite Ravi with his family.

In an abandoned, ramshackle wooden cottage by the riverside on the Kasara hills, Ravi and Neela meet up with Michael to learn the identity of the real killer, only to be horrified to witness Narendra Sinha shooting Michael thrice in his stomach with the fear of him exposing his crime. Nevertheless, after he gets hit by three gunshots, the gravely injured Michael holds Narendra Sinha at gunpoint in crossfire and confesses about his crime to Ravi, who leaves Neela to hold the fort and drives desperately to get a doctor back in time for treating Michael. On his way back with a doctor, Ravi also leads Inspector Kulkarni and the police to the scene and successfully manages to get hold of Narendra Sinha while Michael is attended by Neela, the doctor and the police. With his last breath, Michael gives his testimony about Ravi's innocence and Narendra Sinha's real intentions to Inspector Kulkarni, eventually dying in the arms of Ravi. As a result, Narendra Sinha is arrested and charged for both Surendra Sinha and Michael's murders, while Ravi is acquitted by Inspector Kulkarni. The film ends with the funeral of Michael when his fulfilled oath of reuniting Ravi with his family is recalled.

Cast

• Amitabh Bachchan as Ravi Khanna
• Parveen Babi as Neela Rajvansh
• Pran as Michael D'Souza
• Farida Jalal as Renu Khanna (Ravi's sister)
• Sulochana Latkar as Mrs. Khanna (Ravi's mother)
• Satyen Kappu as Narendra Sinha
• Iftekhar as CID Inspector Khurana
• Jagdish Raj as Inspector Kulkarni
• Mac Mohan as Prakash
• Rehman as Surendra Sinha
• Madan Puri as Mahipat Rai
• Sajjan as Dr. Shah
• Alankar Joshi as Billu Khanna (Ravi's brother)
• D. K. Sapru as Mr. Rajvansh (Neela's father)
• Shiv Kumar as Advocate Rane (Ravi's friend)
• Sudhir as Sharma (Ravi's colleague)
• K. N. Singh as Prosecuting Attorney
• Murad as Supreme Court Judge
• Ashoo as Mona Sinha (Surendra Sinha's widow)
• Lalita Kumari as Sulakshana Rai (Mahipat Rai's wife)

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.

Awards and nominations

• Filmfare Supporting Actor Nomination--Pran
• Filmfare Supporting Actress Nomination--Farida Jalal

External links

• Majboor on IMDb