Two extraordinarily handsome young men made their film debuts in the ’40s. They went on to become cinema legends, giving us films, songs, scenes, dialogue and characters we remember even today, more than 70 years later.
Mohammad Yusuf Khan, who became famous as Dilip Kumar, was from Peshawar and his first film was Jwar Bhata (1944); Dharam Dev Pishorimal Anand also known as Dev Anand was from Lahore and began his career in 1946 with Hum Ek Hain.
While both were at their peak in the ’50s and at the dawn of the ’60s, they had different styles, different strengths. When Dev Anand loped down a dimly lit street or slouched around in a seedy bar, wearing a cap at a rakish angle, jacket collar turned up, scarf knotted carelessly at the throat, sometimes with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, he was the quintessential city slicker. He is part of so many gorgeous nightclub-bar songs, whether it’s Geeta Bali singing Tadbeer Se Bigdi Hui Taqdeer Bana in Baazi (1951) or Sheila Ramani crooning Dil Se Milake Dil in Taxi Driver (1954). Dev Anand’s standout roles were almost all him playing the modern urban hero or anti-hero (you can count the number of times he wore a dhoti-kurta on screen on the fingers of one hand.) He was debonair, playful, carefree. Even if things occasionally went wrong for him, they rarely culminated in high tragedy. In most of his films, he ended up defeating the bad guys (he did quite a few crime-suspense films) and getting the girl.
Dev Anand in Baazi. When he slouched around in seedy bars, cap at a rakish angle, jacket collar turned up, scarf knotted carelessly at the throat, he was the quintessential city slicker.
Dev Anand’s urban hero sometimes had a dangerous edge; he played quite a few characters on the wrong side of the law. For example, he was a black marketeer who scalped movie tickets in Kala Bazar (1960) and, a pickpocket in House No 44 (1955). But he was respectable too, a cop in CID (1956), a journalist in Afsar (1950), an army man in Hum Dono, his first double role (1961).
Dilip Kumar’s trajectory followed a very different path. Unlike Dev Anand’s more cheerful, insouciant roles, Dilip Kumar’s screen outings gave him the moniker of Tragedy King. Also, unlike Dev Anand, he often wore a dhoti-kurta and played rural characters in most of his movies.
In Mela (1948), Mohan (Dilip Kumar) and Manju (Nargis) live in a village and are much in love. They are to be married but after a series of calamitous events and accidents, Manju is forced to marry an elderly widower, Mohan goes to jail and eventually they both die. Nadiya Ke Paar (1948) is also a tale of village lovers who meet a tragic fate. In Gunga Jumna (1961), Dilip Kumar delivered his dialogue in impeccable Bhojpuri and turned in a truly magnificent performance of a simple rustic lad compelled to become a daku.
But Dilip Kumar’s range went far beyond playing a tragic hero. He could do the grey-toned urban anti-hero with equal aplomb. In Footpath (1953), he played a black marketeer named Noshu. In Amar (1954), probably his most “negative” role, he played an upper-class lawyer engaged to a college-educated girl (Madhubala). But on a stormy night, he rapes another woman.
His portrayal of the spineless lovelorn hero who drinks himself to death in Devdas (1955), based on Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s novel of the same name, is a milestone in cinema history. His riff on Heathcliff (a character he was clearly fascinated by) in Arzoo (1950) shows him going from vulnerability to vengeance. And when it came to love and romance, he could create an intense, sensuous aura with his heroine – his love scenes and songs with Madhubala in Tarana (1951) are a case in point.
He could carry off swashbuckling costume dramas such as Azaad (1955) and Kohinoor (1960) with great zest, while displaying his flawless comic timing. And who else could have carried off the role of Prince Salim (Mughal-e-Azam, 1960) as Dilip Kumar did, with a combination of power, restraint and regality?
Dilip Kumar often played rural characters beset by tragedy. In Gunga Jumna (1961), he played a simple, rustic lad compelled to become a daku, and delivered his dialogue in impeccable Bhojpuri.
While Dev Anand did most of his films under his own banner (Navketan Films), directed by his brother Vijay Anand, Dilip Kumar worked with outside producers and directors, though he was clearly more comfortable with some than with others. He did seven films with director SU Sunny, with whom he forged a winning combination (the music composer was always Naushad). Both Dev Anand and Dilip Kumar have some of the greatest Hindi film songs picturised on them.
The two actors came together only once on screen, in Insaniyat (1955), which didn’t work. Unlike Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand was ill at ease outside his city milieu and looked thoroughly out of place in a dhoti-kurta.
Both stars achieved huge popularity; Dev Anand gave India its first real modern, urban hero, but it is Dilip Kumar who remains one of the greatest actors in the history of Hindi cinema.
