Ganga Jamuna Saraswati Film Hindi
Lupita Calvi
Thakur Hansraj Singh (Amrish Puri) loots a temple of its golden idol in order to sell it abroad. When his brother-in-law (Trilok Kapoor) confronts him, he kills him and then swindles his own sister (Nirupa Roy) and her son Gangaa out of their home and inheritance. Young Gangaa vows vengeance as they leave their home.
But I digress. Bhima retrieves the chest filled with guns for the Thakur, which he instructs his henchmen to use for one of those wonderfully non-specific but nefarious plots so beloved in Hindi cinema.
The accident has closed the road for the night, but he kicks her out of the truck. When it starts pouring rain, though, he feels guilty. Bansi tells him about a hotel nearby which only takes married couples (how very Mills and Boon!) and Gangaa and Jamuna spend a slapstick-filled night in a room furnished only with one bed and a clearly mechanical mouse.
The next morning Bhima arrives looking for Jamuna. The ever-gallant Gangaa beats him up and delivers him to the policemen who are following Bhima with the girl he had raped previously (hurray! police who do the right thing!). Grateful Jamuna declares her love for Gangaa, and the other truck drivers gather around.
The inevitable outcome is that Gangaa beats up his cousin again. Meanwhile, the Thakur himself is hosting a party and has instructed the local police in the person of corrupt Inspector Goga (Goga Kapoor) to ensure that the musician Shankar (Mithun Chakraborty) shows up to perform.
Of course they are! So Gangaa scoops the bullet out of brave Shankar, and they bond like brothers. He takes Shankar home, and they stop on the way at a bar where they sing a drunken song about their newly acquired friendship.
They also discuss the women they love, who of course is Jamuna. When Shankar reaches the temple where his father is a priest, the police are predictably waiting for him. He is arrested and sentenced to two years in prison.
Shankar comes across a group of men about to toss a cobra into a fire. He rescues the snake and scolds the men (who are appropriately ashamed), and gives the snake some milk to drink from his own hands. I figure a cobra is going to be a pretty useful friend at some point!
They arrest Gangaa for assault and he is sentenced to two years in prison. This being an Indian film (again), Jamuna is pregnant; she gives birth to a boy with the help of none other than Saraswati, who comes to her rescue when the other villagers want to stone poor immoral Jamuna.
Their happiness is short-lived. As Bansi drives them home in the truck, Ranga blows up a bridge as they cross it. Jamuna is swept away in the rushing waters; faithful Bansi is killed in the explosion; and Gangaa manages to save the baby but cannot find Jamuna.
Great way to describe a Manmohan Desai movie ( or indeed for that matter most mainstream Bollywood movie). Indeed, the comparison of the movie maker with a rider is very accurate. I never could think of this comparison myself, but from now on, I will always make this comparison, while wondering why movies that begin so promisingly lose their plot midway.
Unless you are BollyBob capable of being a cockeyed humorist
what subtext exists in his movies? They all have horrible value
systems epitomized by the cobwebs tearing. With the honourable
exception(but what an exception!) of AAA, they are ALL uniformly horrible. I never understood what Amitabh saw in this association (except of course MONEY)
And I say this as a fan of Dara Singh movies. :)
I remember watching this movie as a kid and found it pretty horrible. Gave me half a headache.
Nirupa Roy looked quite good when she was younger. Would be lovely if you could review some of her movies as heroine like Har Har Mahadev(1950/49) and the like.
She was one of the better heroines in the 50s.
I recommend drinking to go with this one highly. There are many many drinking games that could be made up to add to the fun: Gangaa saves someone! Shots for everybody! or: Well, THAT made no sense! Shots for everybody!
I did know that :) Beyond that, their association goes back to MD directing Shammi in Bluffmaster in 1963; and in 1966 Shammi roped him in to direct Budtameez knowing that MD was in financial difficulty. They were good friends.
I LOVE THIS MOVIE! its one of my favourite movies.
i cant believe this was a flop and how everyones complaining. it was this movie that started to get me watching old movies (of amitabh) and also i started to know and like meenakshi and jaya prada after this.
jamuna was my favourite.
What i feel is that this movie was flop because it was wrongly publicised, With cast and title of movie no one was having idea that movie revolve around amitabh, minakshi and jaya. and every one was in impression of another AAA. But it was not excatly a MD style movie, it was more like a family drama and liked by female audience.
The original script had Amitabh as (Ganga Ram), Jeetendra as (Jamuna Das), and Mithun/Rishi Kapoor as (Saraswati Chandra). Sort of like Amar Akhbar Anthony. Manmohan Desai got his script writer (Prayag Raj) to reinvent the idea and ended up with Meenakshi as Januma and Jara Prada as Saraswati.
Amitabh only did this movie as favour to bail out Desai, who recently suffered huge losses due to his sons movie Allah Rakha flopping. Bachchan was in semi retirement then and had just come back after his stint in politics to bail out friend Tinnu Anand by doing Shehenshah. Though it was panned by most of the critics and didnt do as well as Bachchans previous outings with Desai it was still the most highest grossing movie for that year.
Great review. I saw the premiere of this movie in 1988 at Metro Cinema, Bombay. Amitabh Bachchan, Meenakshi Seshadri, Manmohan Desai were all there. Within half an hour into the movie, the crowd was restless since we were clearly witnessing the first Amitabh debacle after the several years. In terms of box-office, tickets were available in current booking in the first week itself and Metro pulled the movie out after 4 weeks (unheard of since our Amitabh standard for those days was a minimum of 25 weeks). Maratha Mandir re-released the film in the 5th week but that was only because the owner was the president of the Amitabh Bachchan Fan Club (Manoj Desai, who also produced Khuda Gawah). My top reasons for its failure:
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