Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi (1958)

There are some films which surprise not only us, but also the filmmakers with it's success. This is one such film which was made by Kishore thinking it will flop and he will show losses in his income but it worked. The film is a superb comedy involving 3 Brothers played by real brothers Ashok,Kishore and Anoop Kumar. Ashok Kumar detests women and forces his brothers to stay away from them, however Kishore one day meets Madhubala who comes to repair her car in midnight, they fall in love later after fighting. The film is superb and makes you laugh throughout. There are several funny scenes like Kishore entering Madhu's house,also their convo is funny, Anoop going to repair their car and getting nervous around women and other stuff. There are also villains thrown in played by KN Singh which ends in a fight scene, but yet things are kept funny.Direction is superb Music became a rage,be it Ek Ladki Bheegi Bhaagi Si, Hum Thi Woh The, Haal Kaisa Hai sung by Kishore or the famous Babu Samjho Ishaare All are perfectly picturised too Camera-work is good,The film is in black and whiteAll 3 Brothers Kishore,Ashok and Anoop are superb, Kishore gets the lead and he does a superb job, I always wonder why he didn't go ahead with his acting career as he was such a brilliant actor Madhubala is superb in her role,Ashok Kumar is superb too,Anoop Kumar is hilarious,K.N.Singh is good, rest are okay

I need not repeat what very aptly the 3 above reviewers: Birdoberoi,Manoj Agrawal & Headley Lamar wrote, great reviews. I will write something to add a zing to it. The movie is funny and added a lot by super acting of Madhubala. The dialogues by G. Moonis and Ramesh Pant create excellent situation. S. D. Burman arranged the music very beautifully to the lyrics of Majrooh Sultanpuri. All 3 brothers were good in their roles but the movie would not have been the biggest box office hit of 1958 without Madhubala. If you remove 5 following references the movie would have been outright failure, just as Kishore wanted it to be, a FLOP (so he could take losses and reduce the taxes he owed to Govt., but Fate had other plans!): 1. Rain soaked Madhubala's visit to Mohan Garage at midnight, a 10 or more minutes of her being drenched in wet clothes. 2. Kishore's dream while asleep in Madhubala's car and singing "5 Rupaiya" 3. Kishore wakes up and finds way in to Madhubala's bedroom, she is asleep in night suit then the funny scuffle that follows, excellent natural acting by Madhubala. 4.Madhubala taking Kishore out for picnic and they sing "Haal kaisa hai janab" 5. Madhubala stalling the villain and singing "Ruk jao na ji". Point in case.It is quintessentially her performance that brought such monumental success to the movie. Just a note if you don't know it contrary to the movie story where Madhubala likes Mannu(Kishore)in reality during the shooting our Kishore da fell head over heels for Madhubala and it is said he even threatened to commit suicide if she won't marry him (even though he was already married, so eccentric was our Kishore da). The chemistry between the two in the movie is incredible where he plays naive yet likes her company. It is a classic movie and even though in Black & white but will never get old. A very clean movie a delight for next 10 generations to come.

I suppose that much of what I found hard to watch about this film was due to the cultural differences between what I find to be entertaining and what the expectations of a Bollywood aficionado would be. For one thing, the song and dance numbers were tremendously over-long and primitive in execution and the glue that held them together (the story) wasn't at all compelling.I'm sure that there were funny bits that were lost on me since I didn't speak the language, but musicals and comedic films from other languages including Hong Kong action films and Japanese comedies work just fine for me.And I was looking for the similarities to the Marx Brothers mentioned in previous comments about the film. I didn't see it with the exception of the conceit that the three main characters were brothers. In fact, the relationship that they had reminded me more of the Three Stooges rather than the Marx Brothers.Oh, and whomever released this on DVD made it so the viewer had to sit through about fifteen advertisements for their other DVD releases. I can understand the average of four trailers on a DVD but this was ridiculous.

It seems Ganguli brothers were a huge fan of Marx Brothers Movies and that's what their source of inspiration was when they made "Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi". But the inspiration is limited only to the idea of all three brothers acting in a musical and a comical thriller. The movie is a showcase of talents of ever talented brothers Ashok Kumar, Anup Kumar and specifically Kishore Kumar. Watch him singing melodious "Ek Ladki Bheegi Bhaagi si", naughty "Haal Kaisa Hai Janaab Ka", hilarious "Paanch Rupaiya Barah Aana" or mad cap "Hum The Woh Thi". If there ever was a true all rounder in Indian Cinema, it was the Singer, Composer, Writer, Director and Actor Kishore Kumar and arguably he is the only Genius that bollywood has ever produced. Almost 20 years now that he died of a heart attack but you can still see his style reverberating amongst the new generation of performers.