साहिब बीबी और ग़ुलाम (1962)

Curiosità

• Premi: 1 · Candidature: 1. Tra cui: Filmfare Award per il miglior film

Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam is a 1962 Indian Hindi-language drama film directed by Abrar Alvi, produced & co–directed by Guru Dutt, who also co-stars in it alongside Meena Kumari, Rehman, and Waheeda Rehman. It is a remake of the 1956 Bengali film Saheb Bibi Golam, which itself is based on Bimal Mitra's 1953 novel of the same name. It is set in the 19th century during the British Raj and focuses on Bhoothnath (Dutt), who meets Chhoti Bahu (Kumari), the lonely wife of a zamindar (Rehman). The film follows Chhoti Bahu's effort to keep her husband—who likes drinking and watching tawaifs perform—at their home by drinking with him. She becomes addicted to alcohol, leading both of them into bankruptcy.

Production

Guru Dutt wanted to adapt Bimal Mitra's novel Saheb Bibi Golam (1953) into a film after reading it and watching its staged version at Rang Mahal Theatre, Calcutta, with his wife Geeta, Mitra, and Abrar Alvi. This marked the novel's second cinematic adaptation after the 1956 version. The novel was written in and never translated from Bengali.

Dutt invited Mitra, who lived in Calcutta, to visit him at a bungalow Dutt rented in Khandala. Alvi said Dutt was thorough on any aspects of his projects and that the bungalow was used to ensure both Mitra and Alvi concentrated on writing the screenplay. After arriving in Khandala, Mitra and Alvi invited a "Mr. Mukherjee", who was fluent in Bengali and Hindi, to be a "bridge between us".

Dutt and Alvi completed the casting; their first choice to play Bhoothnath was Shashi Kapoor, who was invited for a meeting with Dutt but he arrived two-and-a-half hours late, which irritated Dutt, who then declined to cast him. Biswajit Chatterjee, who portrayed Bhoothnath in the play, became Dutt's next choice; he and Chatterjee had dinner at the Grand Hotel to discuss it.

Chhaya Arya, the wife of the photographer Jitendra Arya, was suggested to portray Chhoti Bahu. Living in London, the film's production team asked her to move to Bombay (now Mumbai). In October 1960, she arrived there for a photograph session. When seeing the results, Dutt felt she was not too wanton- or motherly-looking for the role. He searched for a more suitable female actor and chose Meena Kumari for the role.

The film marked the sixth collaboration between Waheeda Rehman and Dutt. In Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam, Waheeda Rehman stars as the "couldn't-care-less carefree" Jabba. After reading the novel, she wanted to play Chhoti Bahu but Dutt felt she was too young for that role, saying she looked more like a girl than a woman. Still insisting, she asked Dutt and the film's cinematographer V. K.

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