''Ek Saal'' () is a 1957

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

romantic drama film Romance films involve romantic love stories recorded in visual media for broadcast in theatres or on television that focus on passion (emotion), passion, emotion, and the affectionate romantic involvement of the main characters. Typically their ...

directed by Devendra Goel and starring

Ashok Kumar Ashok Kumar (born Kumudlal Ganguly; 13 October 1911 – 10 December 2001), was an Indian actor who attained iconic status in Indian cinema. He is regarded as one of the greatest actors of Indian cinema. He is considered to be the first Super-st ...

and

Madhubala Madhubala (born Mumtaz Jehan Begum Dehlavi; 14 February 1933 – 23 February 1969) was an Indian actress who worked in Hindi films. She is considered as one of the greatest and finest actresses in the history of Indian cinema. One of the country ...

in lead roles. The film is about a father of a dying girl who hires a conman to make his dying daughter's last year a happier one. A critical and commercial success, ''Ek Saal'' was the first film in the string of box-office hits Madhubala starred in between 1958 and 1962.

Plot

Bombay-based Usha Sinha (

) lives a wealthy lifestyle with her widowed dad, a retired Colonel. During her birthday celebrations at her grandmother ( Pratima Devi)'s house in

Lucknow Lucknow () is the List of state and union territory capitals in India, capital and the largest city of the List of state and union territory capitals in India, Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and it is the administrative headquarters of the epon ...

, she encounters a flirt, but avoids him, only to run into him again in a taxi-cab, and then in her very own house in Bombay. She finds out that his name is Suresh (

), who has been hired by her dad as a Manager. Eventually both she and Suresh fall in love with each other. Suresh appears to care a lot about Usha and even takes her to a doctor for a medical check-up to ensure her well-being, to which she agrees, without knowing that she has brain tumor and is not expected to live more than one year. What the Usha do not know is that Suresh does not love her at alI, for his true love is a Lucknow-based woman named Rajani (

Kuldip Kaur Kuldip Kaur, (1927–3 February 1960), was an Indian actress who worked in Hindi and Punjabi films. Known for her roles as negative characters, she was cited as one of Indian cinema's "most polished vamps" and actor Pran's "opposite number". ...

), and he is merely here to win their trust, so that he can be successful in robbing them of all their cash and valuables.

Cast

as Suresh Kumar *

as Usha Sinha *

as Rajini * Johnny Walker as J.B. Pinto * Minoo Mumtaz as Mary * Mehmood as Doctor Mahesh Kapoor *

Madan Puri Madan Puri (30 September 1915 – 13 January 1985) was an Indian actor of Hindi and Punjabi films. His brothers were actors Chaman Puri and Amrish Puri. As a character actor mainly in negative roles (villain), he acted in about 430 films in ...

as Dr. M.M. Puri

Soundtrack

The soundtrack of ''Ek Saal'' was composed by

Ravi Ravi may refer to: People * Ravi (name), including a list of people and characters with the name * Ravi (composer) (1926–2012), Indian music director * Ravi (Ivar Johansen) (born 1976), Norwegian musical artist * Ravi (rapper) (born 1993), a Sou ...

and lyrics were penned by Prem Dhawan and Ravi.

Release

Critical reception

Filmi Geek wrote, "There is lots and lots of pretty to enjoy n the film. It praised Madhubala for playing a

brain tumor A brain tumor (sometimes referred to as brain cancer) occurs when a group of cells within the Human brain, brain turn cancerous and grow out of control, creating a mass. There are two main types of tumors: malignant (cancerous) tumors and benign ...

patient: "Madhubala is utterly radiant .. she does play a marvelous ingenue, and she's simply lovely".

Box office

''Ek Saal'' earned 5.1

million 1,000,000 (one million), or one thousand thousand, is the natural number following 999,999 and preceding 1,000,001. The word is derived from the early Italian ''millione'' (''milione'' in modern Italian), from ''mille'', "thousand", plus the ...

at the box office and was commercially successful. It eventually became the twelfth highest-grossing film of 1957. Revenue wise, it was the nineteenth highest-grossing film of the year.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Saal 1957 films 1950s Hindi-language films