''Ladki'' () is a 1953 Indian

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

-language

romantic comedy Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a sub-genre of comedy and Romance novel, romance fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount all obstacles. Ro ...

film written by V. S. Venkatasalam and directed by M. V. Raman. The film stars

Bharat Bhushan Bharatbhushan Gupta, better known as Bharat Bhushan (14 June 1920 – 27 January 1992) was an Indian actor in Hindi language films, scriptwriter and producer. He was born in Meerut, and brought up in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh. Career 1941– ...

Kishore Kumar Kishore Kumar (born Abhas Kumar Ganguly; ; 4 August 1929 – 13 October 1987) was an Indian playback singer, musician and actor. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest, most influential and dynamic singers in the history of modern India ...

Vyjayanthimala Vyjayanthimala Bali ( Raman; born 13 August 1933), known mononymously as Vyjayanthimala, is an Indian parliamentarian, dancer and former actress. Regarded as one of Hindi cinema's greatest actresses and dancers, she is the recipient of sever ...

, and

Anjali Devi Anjali Devi (; 24 August 1927 – 13 January 2014) was an Indian actress, model and producer in Telugu and Tamil films. She was well known for her role as the Devi Sita in '' Lava Kusa'' as well as for the title roles in movies like Chenchu ...

in lead roles, along with

Om Prakash Om Prakash Chibber (19 December 1919 – 21 February 1998) was an Indian film actor. He was born in Jammu and was a well known character actor of Bollywood, Hindi Cinema. His most well-known movies are Mere Hamdam Mere Dost (1968 film), ''Mere ...

Leela Mishra Leela Mishra (1 January 1908 – 17 January 1988) was an Indian actress. She worked as a character actor in over 200 Hindi films for five decades, and is best remembered for playing stock characters such as aunts (''Chachi'' or ''Mausi''). She ...

Raj Mehra Raj Mehra (born 20 May 1913 – 10 April 1993) was an Indian character artist and film actor in Hindi language films, especially known for his role as a father of leading actors. During his career, he worked in over 300 Hindi films. Some of hi ...

, and Chittor V. Nagaiah in supporting roles. The film was produced by A. V. Meiyappan of

AVM Productions AVM Productions is an Indian film production studio founded by A. V. Meiyappa Chettiar. It is the oldest film studio in India. The filming studios are located in Vadapalani, Chennai. It has produced over 300 films in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, ...

. The film's score was composed by R. Sudarsanam and Dhaniram, edited by

K. Shankar Kannan Shankar (17 March 1926 - 5 March 2006) was an Indian film editor, screenwriter and director. He directed more than 80 films in South Indian languages including Tamil language, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu language, Telugu and Kannada as well ...

and M. V. Raman, and filmed by Yusuf Mulji and T. Muthu Sami.

Plot

Rani, a

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

, is best friends with Kamini, much to the disapproval of her mother, since Kamini's father had married a woman of low caste. They meet Raja, a medical student, and Kishore. After the initial tussle, Raja and Kamini fall in love while Kishore likes Rani. Rani goes to Colombo for the University Sports Tournament, and while winning every single event she enters there, she injures her leg and is in hospital. Meanwhile, Kamini and Raja marry secretly, since he knows his woman-hating, upper caste father will never agree to this marriage. Captain Sundar, Kamini's childhood friend, comes from Rangoon and wants to marry Kamini, but is shattered as he finds out she is married to Raja. Raja's parents are told of the wedding and they call him home asking him to forget the marriage and marry a girl of their choice. Raja refuses and goes back to Kamini and misunderstands the situation when he sees Kamini with Sundar. He returns to his parents and tells them he's willing to marry the girl of their liking who turns out to be Rani, having returned from Colombo. Kamini, devastated by Raja's betrayal, decides to commit suicide. Finally with Kishore and Sundar's help, everything is sorted out and Raja is re-united with Kamini, while Kishore marries Rani.

Cast

as Raja *

as Kishore *

as Rani *

as Kamini *

as Hazurdas *

as Mrs. Hazurdas *

as Rani's Father * Chittor V. Nagaiah as Motilal * Randhir as Nainsukh

Production

''Ladki'' was produced by A. V. Meiyappan, founder of

. It was simultaneously shot in

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

as '' Penn'' and

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of South India ** Telugu literature, is the body of works written in the Telugu language. * Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Tel ...

as '' Sangham'', with

starring as the female lead in all three versions.

Soundtrack

The film's soundtrack was composed by R. Sudarsanam and Dhaniram, while the lyrics were provided by

Rajendra Krishan Rajinder Krishan Duggal (6 June 1919 – 23 September 1987) also credited as Rajendra Krishan, was an Indian poet, lyricist and screenwriter. His poems and lyrics were in the Urdu language. Biography Rajinder Krishan was born in a Duggal famil ...

. The song "Shaadi Shaadi Shaadi" sung by

and "Baat Chalat Nai Chunari Rang Dari" sung by

Geeta Dutt Geeta Dutt (born Geeta Ghosh Roy Chowdhuri; 23 November 1930 – 20 July 1972) was an Indian Indian classical music, classical and playback singer. She found particular prominence as a playback singer in Hindi cinema and Bengali cinema (India) ...

becomes the successful songs of the film.

Reception

Upperstall's reviewer Karan Bali wrote: "As with Bahar and many of her early films, it is Vyjayanthimala's dances that are the film's saving graces although it is unintentionally funny now to see how deliberate and obviously tacky the sequences are which lead into her dances ..Ladki too makes no real demands on 'feminist' tomboy Vyjayanthimala histrionically ..Kishore Kumar are strictly supportive appendages at best ..Kishore Kumar does what he can, bringing the film to life with his lively antics whenever he is on screen. One sees his potential for zany comedy that would go on to flower fully in films like '' Aasha'' (1957), '' Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi'' (1958) and '' Half Ticket'' (1962)".

Box office

At the end of its theatrical run, the film grossed around 1,50,00,000, and became the second highest-grossing film of 1953 with a verdict of "hit".

References

External links

* {{AVM Productions 1953 films 1950s Hindi-language films Indian black-and-white films Indian romantic comedy films Indian multilingual films 1953 romantic comedy films 1950s multilingual films Films directed by M. V. Raman AVM Productions films