A ’70s Hindi film called Do Bachche Dus Haath with a poster that looks like this, and a ‘For the first time, Junior Mehmood as James Bond’ sales pitch. What do you do?
Watch it, of course.
Its kitschiness and kookiness aside, the film makes an impression for a whole different reason altogether. But more on that later.
First things first. The MVP of this actioner is its canine star Rexy (King Kong in the film) who gloriously makes into our list of the most heroic dogs of Bollywood.
Do Bachche Dus Haath follows the adventures of a wannabe detective Junior Jasoos (Mehmood Junior), who fancies himself as the famous British spy, and his gallant dog King Kong. Together they come to the aid of a little girl, Pinky (Parichay‘s Baby Pinky) in finding her parents’ killers. The film is directed by K Parvez aka Kalpataru best known for his ‘Ghar’ titled films in the Eighties: Ghar Ghar Ki Kahani (1988), Bade Ghar Ki Beti (1989), Ghar Ho To Aisa (1990) among others.
The trio encounters various gangs of crooks – their bosses are the likes of KN Singh, Prem Nath and NA Ansari, no less – trying to eliminate them. The ten hands in the film’s title and poster refers to these baddies. However, our clever boy King Kong foils every sinister attempt and rescues his human friends.
Here’s a quick account of King Kong’s many feats:
He finds the trail to the killers, saves Pinky and Junior when the goons have left them to die, he even gets an ambulance for his injured mates. But King Kong truly outdoes himself when he sprints alongside the villain’s speeding jeep – to which his friends are tied and are being dragged around – chases the baddie out, takes control of the vehicle and succeeds in freeing the duo.
What. A. Legend.
Furthermore, Do Bachche… isn’t the kind of film where one expects to spot fascinating bits about foreign cinema: the Eurospy genre, Hong Kong cinema’s spy movies etc.
Or maybe the proffering of the film’s Bond-obsessed older lead establishes it’s just the kind of film to discover these connects.
The film opens with Junior Jasoos dreaming he’s a Bond-like hot-shot spy working an important case only to be woken up abruptly by King Kong’s loud barks. As he berates the dog for interrupting his dream, we get a glimpse of Junior’s room — filled with foreign spy film posters which are as follows:
Berlin, Appointment for the Spies (1965) – It’s the English poster of the Italian Eurospy film Berlino – Appuntamento per le spie aka Spy in Your Eye for the American audience. Hollywood noir veteran Dana Andrews plays a US secret service agent who, unknowingly, lets Russian operatives implant a miniature camera in his prosthetic eye that grants them access to classified information. Andrews’ Secret Agent Z.3 is described as “a Blend better than a Bond” with “… sexier gals, groovier gimmicks and much more gall.”
The Eurospy genre refers to European espionage films in the Sixties that were influenced by Bond movies. Some took inspiration from them, some competed with them while some made spoof versions of them. Hindi cinema, too, witnessed a flurry of such films during that period.
The Saint Against Agent 001 (1966) – Based on Leslie Charteris’ adventure novels, there have been many variations in The Saint series of feature films. This Eurospy-styled French production has Jean Marais as the charismatic adventurer/ sleuth Simon Templar aka The Saint. He is tasked with helping an old friend who has stirred trouble with both the Americans and the Germans.
Originally titled Le Saint Prend L’Affut, the film is called The Saint Lies in Wait in English whereas the Agent 001 title was used for the Italian market. Trawling the internet threw up an Urdu press ad for the same. It mentions the film being promoted as Khaufnaak Jasoos for the subcontinent audience.
Asiapol Secret Service (1966) aka Ya zhou mi mi jing tan – Action superstar Jimmy Wang Yu plays a secret agent of the Asia Police Secret Service in this another Bond-inspired spy thriller. The film is produced by the legendary Shaw Brothers — makers of iconic Hong Kong hits One-Armed Swordsman (1967) and The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978). Majority of the reviews of the film observe its lacklustre imitation on the Bond film tropes and suggest that the Brothers, known for their martial arts movies, seemed out of depth in delivering a spy flick.
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Writing about these films merits the question: who in the Do Bachche Dus Haath crew had such distinct taste in videshi spy cinema.
It’s amazing, isn’t it?
[Movie posters and screenshots courtesy: IMDB.com | YouTube]
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