The Guru Dutt team is a group of filmmakers formed by Guru Dutt for some of his works. [1] Some well-known films that the team created include Chaudhvin Ka Chand , Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam , Kaagaz Ke Phool , and Pyaasa . In 2005 Pyaasa was ranked among the top 100 movies by Time magazine. [2]
Much of their work found critical appreciation long after these movies were made. Movies such as Kaagaz Ke Phool, which was a huge commercial failure of its days, found critical and commercial success when it was re-released in the 1980s in Europe. Dutt has a huge following in France, Germany, and Japan, where his movie festivals are held occasionally. [3] [4]
The following are notable films from Dutt's career: [5] [6]
The team stopped working together after Dutt's death at 39.
After his death, only a few of the members were able to achieve the critical acclaim they did as a team. Partly the reason was Guru Dutt's eye for detail. Pyaasa and Kaagaz Ke Phool are an inspiration for directors even today. The exceptions were Dev Anand, S.D. Burman, Sahir Ludhianvi, Hemant Kumar, and Mohammad Rafi, who were already established when Guru Dutt entered film making. Waheeda Rehman is also an exception, as she performed par excellence in her coming films like Teesri Kasam , Bees Saal Baad , Reshma Aur Shera , Khamoshi and her magnum opus Guide . V. K. Murthy continued work with Promod Chakravarthy but his notable work was in Tamas (1987), directed by his erstwhile assistant Govind Nihalani.
Geeta Dutt was an Indian playback singer and a famous Hindi and Bengali classical artist known as the Skylark of India, born in Faridpur before the Partition of India. She found particular prominence as a playback singer in Hindi cinema. She is considered as one of the best playback singers of all time in Hindi films. She also sang many modern Bengali songs, both in the film and non-film genre.
Chaudhvin Ka Chand is a 1960 Indian Hindi-language film directed by Mohammed Sadiq. This film was a super-hit at box-office, and became one of the top-grossing films of 1960. A production of Guru Dutt, the film centers on a love triangle between Dutt, Rehman and Waheeda Rehman, and features music by Ravi. After the disastrous box office performance of Kaagaz Ke Phool, Guru Dutt ventured into the idea of producing a commercial project to protect his studio from ruins. The next commercial venture by the studio was Chaudhvin ka Chand, which was a successful comeback film for Guru Dutt and saved Guru Dutt's production studio from ruins.
Guru Dutt, was an Indian film director, producer, actor, choreographer, and writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers of Indian cinema.
Waheeda Rehman is an Indian actress and dancer. Regarded as one of Hindi cinema's finest actresses, her accolades include a National Film Award and three Filmfare Awards. Rehman was honoured with the Padma Shri by Government of India in 1972, later receiving the Padma Bhushan in 2011. Rehman has worked in more than 90 films, in a career spanning over five decades and has received significant media coverage across her film career.
Pyaasa is a 1957 Indian Hindi drama film directed and produced by Guru Dutt, who stars alongside Mala Sinha, Waheeda Rehman, Rehman, and Johnny Walker. Set in Calcutta, it focuses on the disillusioned Urdu poet Vijay (Dutt), whose works are underestimated by publishers and panned for writing on social issues rather than romantic topics. The film follows his encounters with the golden-hearted prostitute Gulabo and his former girlfriend Meena (Sinha), how the former helps him to get his poetry published, the success of his works, and his romantic relationship with Gulabo.
Abdul Hayee, popularly known by his pen name (takhallus) Sahir Ludhianvi, was an Indian poet and film song lyricist who wrote primarily in Urdu in addition to Hindi. He is regarded one of the greatest and revolutionary film lyricist and poet of the 20th century India.
Nasreen Munni Kabir is an India-born television producer, director and author based in the U.K. She is best known for producing an annual season of Indian films for the British terrestrial television channel Channel 4.
Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam is a 1962 Indian Hindi-language drama film that was directed by Abrar Alvi and produced by Guru Dutt, who also co-stars in it alongside Meena Kumari, Rehman, and Waheeda Rehman. The film, which is based on Bimal Mitra's Bengali-language novel Saheb Bibi Golam (1953) which was the second adaptation of the novel after the 1956 Bengali film with the same title Saheb Bibi Golam starring Sumitra Devi, Uttam Kumar and Chhabi Biswas. Having seen the novel and its staged version, Dutt wanted to adapt Saheb Bibi Golam into a film,was 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 dancing girls perform—at their home by drinking with him. She becomes addicted to alcohol, leading both of them into bankruptcy.
Kaagaz Ke Phool is a 1959 Indian Hindi-language romantic drama film produced and directed by Guru Dutt, who also played the lead role in the film along with Waheeda Rehman. It is the first Indian film in CinemaScope and the last film officially directed by Dutt. It marked a technical revolution in Indian cinematography and is widely considered to be ahead of its time.
Abrar Alvi was an Indian film writer, director and actor. Most of his notable work was done in the 1950s and 1960s with Guru Dutt. He wrote some of the most respected works of Indian cinema, including Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam, Kaagaz Ke Phool and Pyaasa, which have an avid following the world over. Pyaasa is included in the All-Time 100 Movies by Time magazine, as chosen by critics Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel.
Venkatarama Pandit Krishnamurthy known professionally as V. K. Murthy, was an Indian cinematographer. Murthy, a one-time violinist and jailed freedom fighter, was Guru Dutt's regular cameraman on his movies. He provided some of Indian cinema's most notable images in starkly contrasted black and white. He also shot India's first cinemascope film, Kaagaz Ke Phool. For his contribution to film industry, particularly Indian film industry he was awarded the IIFA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005. In 2010, he was honoured with the Dada Saheb Phalke Award for his contributions to Indian cinema.
Guru Dutt Films Private Limited was an Indian film production company, founded by actor-director Guru Dutt in 1955. Guru Dutt Films, along with the Guru Dutt team, saw some of its best works during the 1950s and 1960s, also sometimes referred to as the "Golden age of Indian cinema."
The 10th Filmfare Awards were held on 13 June 1963, honoring the best films in Hindi Cinema of the year 1962.
Gyan Mukherjee was an Indian film director and screenwriter, who worked in Hindi cinema, best known for the hits Jhoola (1941) and Kismet (1943).
The 26th Annual Bengal Film Journalists' Association Awards were held on 1963, honoring the best in Indian cinema in 1962.
Waheeda Rehman is an Indian actress and dancer who has appeared in mainly Hindi films, as well as Telugu, Tamil, Bengali and Malayalam films. She is noted for her contributions to different genres of films and different roles from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Her accolades consist of a National Film Award,n 2 Filmfare Awards out of 9 nominations, the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award and the Centenary Award for Indian Film Personality. Throughout her career, she has been frequently cited as one of Bollywood's greatest, most influential and most beautiful actresses by various media outlets, titles for which she has received substantial publicity.
Ten Years with Guru Dutt is a biography of Indian filmmaker Guru Dutt that was written by journalist Sathya Saran. It is based on Saran's conversations with the screenwriter Abrar Alvi about Dutt and Alvi's collaborations, which began when they met on the sets of Baaz (1953) and ended with Dutt's death in 1964. This information was compiled into a 23-chapter book with first-person narrative interspersed with Saran's commentary. Penguin Group published Ten Years with Guru Dutt on 25 July 2008.
Conversations with Waheeda Rehman is a biography by the producer of television documentaries and author Nasreen Munni Kabir, documenting Kabir's extensive conversations with the actress Waheeda Rehman about the actress' life and career. The biography details Rehman's birth in 1938 in Chingleput, her 54-year-long film career, and her 1974 marriage to the actor Kamaljeet, with whom she has two children. It was published on 19 February 2014 by Penguin Books. The book generated positive reviews from book critics; most of the praise was directed towards the book's question-and-answer format, and Kabir's and Rehman's style in questioning and answering, respectively.
The Dialogue of Pyaasa is a 2011 book by the British author and television documentary producer Nasreen Munni Kabir, containing the dialogues of the 1957 Indian romantic drama Pyaasa in Hindustani and its translation in English. The book was published by Om Books International on 28 February 2011 and received positive critical reviews.
Kaagaz Ke Phool: The Original Screenplay is a 2014 book by the journalist Dinesh Raheja and the film archivist-cum-historian Jitendra Kothari. It contains original screenplay—in Hindi and English—for the 1959 romantic drama Kaagaz Ke Phool, along with interviews of the film's cast and crew team with the authors, speaking of their roles in the film and their experiences during the shooting. Released by Om Books International, Kaagaz Ke Phool: The Original Screenplay was positively reviewed by book critics.