Farewell to the first anti-hero in Indian films
These roles avoid two of the common traits of heroes in India, viz., hero as superman and where the hero finally makes it to the big time - be it in business, politics, the underworld, literature, science or any other career track. In Dev's movies, his roles are unheroic and in all he remains an ordinary flawed human being even at the end. He does not become a multi-millionaire, the don of a city or a novelist with a fan following. He is in a sense the anti-Amitabh since the latter's roles once he achieved superstardom always had him playing a larger than life character.
Raj Kapoor might have also championed the ordinary man but Raj's ordinary man was an idealistic one, ever honest, simple minded and acting according to his principles. Dev Anand's ordinary man was much more real with fluid morals, a person who was not above lying, cheating, seducing, drinking, gambling and even murder under the influence.
This persona of Dev Anand was probably a joint creation of Dev with his brother Vijay aka Goldie Anand, often the director of his early movies (and what most would consider his best movies). What Goldie and Dev managed which the art film world could not was to create mainstream films which had novel, interesting, topical, real stories with characters who were not stereotypes. Vijay and Dev seem to have parted ways in the 80s and most of Dev's latter day movies were directed by himself. They were mostly terrible. Take Lootmaar where he plays an airline pilot. The villains kidnap him. Why? Because they have a malfunctioning aircraft and expect him to repair it (conflating the roles of pilot and engineer). Anyway, Dev, game to the bitter end, enters the aircraft and emerges after a few hours with oil on noble brow, trademark bob of the head and uttering the immortal words "Carburettor karaab hai". The movie was so bad that it was actually fun to watch. The same was probably the case with his other movies of the period. Perhaps the best interpretation of this is that the muse might have left him but movie making and acting was all he knew and he continued doing what he loved.
The other aspect of his career which others too have commented upon was the urbaneness and the style of his character. There was a always a slickness to the Dev character, a quick wit and gift of the gab. Not for Anand the moroseness of a Dilip Kumar or the measured pomposity of a Raj Kumar or the irritating, "Mrs D'Sa Mrs D'Sa" gaucheness of Raj Kapoor. Dev's characters were always city slick, one move ahead of the competition. But it was always the glibness of a small time operator and not of a big fish.
And Dev's films of course also gave had some of the best music in Hindi cinema. The roster of classics is long. Jaaye to Jaaye Kahan, Gaata rahe mera dil, Dum maro dum, Abhi na jaao chodu kar, Tere ghar ke saamne, Shokiyon me gola jaae, one can go on and on. And the music spanned genres. From the classicality of Jaaye to jaaye kahan or Din dal jaaye haye to the hipness of Dum maro dum.
The best of Dev was behind him and that will remain with us and in us
It is difficult to think of another major actor who almost from his first film was comfortable with the colour grey. While he was an out and out villain in Baazi and Jaal, his role in several other films was in territory that no other major mainstream actor would inhabit for the next two decades (Amitabh being the next given his roles in Deewar, Trishul, Sholay, Agneepath, Muqaddar ka Sikandar, Shakti and Sharabi).
Consider Dev's Bombai ka babu where he plays the role of a minor figure in the Bombay underworld who during a drunken scuffle in a gambling den accidentally kills one of his acquaintances. On the run he meet someone who recognizes him and blackmails him into masquerading as the long missing son of a rich man. Dev agrees and is accepted without question by the father, the mother and a sister. Complications set in when Dev falls in love with the 'sister' and further increase when he realizes that the man he murdered is the son he is masquerading. It is a fascinating tale (apparently taken from an O Henry short story but which reminds me more of the novels of Du Maurier, Cronin and Shute), well told and Dev Anand plays the role with empathy, oscillating between being torn with guilt over having deprived the family of their legitimate son, shame and anger because he has fallen in love with his 'sister' and knows there is no way forward, terror of getting caught to begining to feel and act as the real son. In Kala Bazar, Dev is a black marketeer and hoodlum who falls in love and turns over a new leaf. In Kala Pani, the son of a man who is serving his life sentence for a brutal murder. In Guide he seduces a married woman and gets her to run off with him abandoning her husband. In Taxidriver he plays the sleazy figure of a Bombay taxi driver.
Raj Kapoor might have also championed the ordinary man but Raj's ordinary man was an idealistic one, ever honest, simple minded and acting according to his principles. Dev Anand's ordinary man was much more real with fluid morals, a person who was not above lying, cheating, seducing, drinking, gambling and even murder under the influence.
This persona of Dev Anand was probably a joint creation of Dev with his brother Vijay aka Goldie Anand, often the director of his early movies (and what most would consider his best movies). What Goldie and Dev managed which the art film world could not was to create mainstream films which had novel, interesting, topical, real stories with characters who were not stereotypes. Vijay and Dev seem to have parted ways in the 80s and most of Dev's latter day movies were directed by himself. They were mostly terrible. Take Lootmaar where he plays an airline pilot. The villains kidnap him. Why? Because they have a malfunctioning aircraft and expect him to repair it (conflating the roles of pilot and engineer). Anyway, Dev, game to the bitter end, enters the aircraft and emerges after a few hours with oil on noble brow, trademark bob of the head and uttering the immortal words "Carburettor karaab hai". The movie was so bad that it was actually fun to watch. The same was probably the case with his other movies of the period. Perhaps the best interpretation of this is that the muse might have left him but movie making and acting was all he knew and he continued doing what he loved.
The other aspect of his career which others too have commented upon was the urbaneness and the style of his character. There was a always a slickness to the Dev character, a quick wit and gift of the gab. Not for Anand the moroseness of a Dilip Kumar or the measured pomposity of a Raj Kumar or the irritating, "Mrs D'Sa Mrs D'Sa" gaucheness of Raj Kapoor. Dev's characters were always city slick, one move ahead of the competition. But it was always the glibness of a small time operator and not of a big fish.
And Dev's films of course also gave had some of the best music in Hindi cinema. The roster of classics is long. Jaaye to Jaaye Kahan, Gaata rahe mera dil, Dum maro dum, Abhi na jaao chodu kar, Tere ghar ke saamne, Shokiyon me gola jaae, one can go on and on. And the music spanned genres. From the classicality of Jaaye to jaaye kahan or Din dal jaaye haye to the hipness of Dum maro dum.
The best of Dev was behind him and that will remain with us and in us
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