Sangam@60...Praying for Peace- Sangam and Mad Men

 Sangam completed 60 years on June 16 2024. 

It's not my favourite film but it has moments. One of them is this:

When Radha and Sundar go for honeymoon to Rome, they visit Trevi fountain. There Radha tosses a coin into it. 

When Sundar asks Radha what she wished, she says : Happiness for you and peace for me.

Vyjayanthimala and Raj Kapoor (snaps after 1 hr 41 min or so)

Linda Cardellini (Sylvia) and Jon Hamm (Don), Mad Men Season 6, Episode 4, first aired April 21 2013

Don : So what do you do when I leave here?

Get on your knees and pray for absolution?

Sylvia: I pray for you.

Don: For me to come back?

Sylvia: No. For you to find peace.

Lauren Bacall@100

#LaurenBacall100

Lauren Bacall Billboard, 1948 King Syndicate

 illustration by Dal Holcomb

Rajnigandha, 1974@50...Early Sprouts of Different Love?

Katherine J. Chen, ‘In Praise of “Plain” Heroines: Why Mary is my Favorite Bennet Sister ‘, Literary Hub, July 23 2018:

“...Could Mary Bennet, in actuality, be considered the bravest, most self-assured, and most independent of her sisters? Pride and Prejudice tends to throw women in two black-and-white categories: wives and spinsters. But with her outspokenness and her desire for “knowledge and accomplishments,”  Mary seems the most well placed to break the suffocating confines of the traditional marriage plot. Ironically, with everything going against her, she is also the most likely of anyone to defy expectations and, ultimately, to surprise....”

I watched Rajnigandha, 1974,  after a few decades, on Hotstar in November 2019.

My feeling:  How it could have turned out to be a wonderful story of lesbian love (not exactly 'Blue Is the Warmest Color', 2013) without any nudity. It's to the credit to the director Basu Chatterjee (1930-) that he has allowed the film (at least for people like me) to take some hue of that love.

It's possible that the love is largely one sided....married Ira (played well by Rajita Thakur) developing those feelings towards single Deepa (played by the late Vidya Sinha), primarily because of the long absence of her husband. But it could be a little more than just the absence of male intimacy and heterogeneous sex. 

I really enjoyed the scenes between Ira and Deepa.

Especially the ones where while sleeping in the same bed of Deepa, Ira puts her leg around Deepa's body and they keep gossiping well into the night. No sex is shown or hinted at. At the beginning at the scene it's Deepa who says that Ira is giving Deepa her husband's place!

Or when Ira bids goodbye to Deepa at the station, whispering how their nights together would be missed.

I found it all very beautiful and moving. 

all pictures above, courtesy of the copyright owner of the film

Jane Greer@100...Still In the Present

When I had not read any of the below stuff, I was swept off my feet by Greer's performance when I first saw Out of the Past, 1947...

 

"...Los Angeles Times film critic Edwin Schallert smartly observed, “It took a woman’s discerning eye to discover Jane Greer as a real actress in the movies.”

 

That talent would soon be recognized by the studio’s new production head. “Jane Greer is the new white hope at RKO,” declared columnist Sheilah Graham. “Her boss, Dore Schary, predicts big things for her—based on her two latest movie performances.” Of course, she would exceed all expectations. Out of the Past established her as a leading lady for the next decade...."

 

 With Robert Mitchum in Out of The Past