Seeta Aur Geeta (1972) :
Brief Review -
Perhaps Bollywood's best female-led mass entertainer. We have produced many female-led classics that are 10 times better than Seeta Aur Geeta, but none of them were actually mass entertainers. Be it Mother India, Bandini, Parineeta, or Anuradha, these are all-time classics and will forever remain greater than Seeta Aur Geeta, but this film has changed the dynamics of mass cinema from a female point of view. We have become habituated to mass cinema led by male stars, and female cinema led by females is always away from mass value. Seeta Aur Geeta changed that perception forever. You couldn't get anyone better than Hema Malini to do it. Fearless Nadia had done that 3 decades before Hema Ji in Muqabala (1942), but the production value and filmmaking style were much better. The film is based on the old formula of identical twins who are separated at birth. Years later, they swipe places by mistake (not intentionally like The Prince and the Pauper, so don't confuse it with that), and the fun game begins. Dilip Kumar did that in Ram Aur Shyam (1967), which was a remake of the Telugu film Ramudu Bheemudu (1964), and Seeta Aur Geeta provides a gender swipe to that story, with a few additional changes here and there-smartly written by Salim-Javed. I am shocked to see a macho hero like Dharmendra accepting this role. Those were the days when even the big superstars used to be far away from insecurity, especially in female-driven films. But the director gives Dharam Ji enough moments of his own. In the climax, when Hema and Sanjeev are trapped, Dharmendra makes a massy entry with a massy dialogue: "Ja bol de, sher ka baap aaya hai." Absolute seeti maar moment! Yet, the film belongs to Hema, who was the biggest female superstar of the 70s decade. 2 super hit songs by RD Burman and the perfect dose of a commercial entertainer by Ramesh Sippy make it an absolute blockbuster experience.
RATING - 7/10*
By - #samthebestest.
