Dev Anand & Guide (1965) - Hindi & English

Guide is a movie far ahead of its time - an ultra liberal redemptive take on a taboo subject. A dose of (reluctant) spiritualism and its hit songs may have sold the movie to the masses and made the Hindi version a phenomenal success at Bollywood box office. 

Dev Anand, Waheeda Rehman and a group of actors playing the role a film crew in Guide

What I appreciate are all the bold attempts it makes to address the conservative norms of sixties India, all packed smoothly and skillfully into a song-dance-melodrama bundle of a Bollywood movie.

I might be the minority here but I liked the English version of Guide better than the Hindi version of the legendary Bollywood movie. The English version of the Guide was written by the renowned author Pearl S. Buck and directed by Tad Danielewski. 

Both are two different movies, shot by two different directors, with almost the same set of actors, at the same locations, months apart. Guide might be the only Indian movie who had two birth fathers, a semi-identical twin movie!

Guide follows on the footsteps of Raju, a tourist guide in Udaipur, Rajasthan, India, played by the evergreen actor Dev Anand himself. We get to ride with Raju on his life's journey where he meets and falls in love with Rosie, a young girl, married to an aging archeologist who has no patience for her youthful spirit. The beautiful Waheeda Rehman essays the role of ebullient newly wed Rosie with stars in her eyes and her husband Marco is played by the multi-talented Kishore Sahu.

Dev Anand, Kishore Sahu & Waheeda Rehman in Guide (Hindi, 1965)

Guide is based on the famous Indian writer, R. K. Narayan's novel, The Guide. The Hindi version of the Guide was directed by Dev Anand's younger brother and successful director, Vijay Anand (Goldie.) The female characters in stories Dev Anand and his production house - Navketan Films had chosen to make movies of, including Rosie, are strong, lively, independent and modern in their outlook. 

Dev Anand during his best period of movie-making and acting between 1950 - 1980 was always on a quest to introduce new topics and broaden the views of typical Indian movie audience through his creations. He and the female leads often played morally ambiguous characters in his movies. Had they been in any other Hindi movie of the time they would have been harshly judged. No such negative scrutiny befell his movies. Adultery, long distance lovers falling out of love, black marketing, marijuana use by hippies were all explained with maturity and the right kind of conviction to get the buy-in from Indian audience who lapped up his movies and their chart-topping songs.

Dev Anand sitting on the ledge with Waheeda Rehman and Guru Dutt flanking him (Courtesy: Indian Express Archives)

Guide has the leading man (Raju played by Anand) and the leading lady engaging in an adulterous relationship. But they are also independent individuals on their own journeys who do not depend a lot on each other. This was a concept indigestible by Indian public of the sixties. But not only did Guide become a super hit movie, it is also one of a handful of movies that has secured a permanent place in a variety of top 10 list of Indian films from any era. 

Here is to Dev Anand - Indian filmdom's liberal visionary and an evergreen style icon, who never lost his zest for life or creativity. His death came as a cardiac arrest at the age of 88, two months after the release of the last film, Chargesheet in 2011, which he had both directed and produced! 

Dev Anand with his wife, actor Kalpana Kartik (Mona Singha) whom he married over a lunch break during a movie shoot