Bandi (1957)

Satyen Bose’s melodrama, based on Sailajananda Mukherjee’s Bengali film Bondi (1942), features the Kumar brothers (Ashok, Kishore and Anup). Madhav (Kishore Kumar) is the innocent and illiterate brother of the educated and married Shankar (Ashok Kumar) who works for an eccentric zamindar, becoming the object of the affections of the zamindar’s daughter Mala (Rai). The villain of the piece, Choubeji (Mishra), causes Shankar to be jailed for 15 years. Shankar’s wife (Shyama) dies and his younger brother Madhav, now the guardian of Shankar’s daughter (Nanda), arranges her marriage to a boy who happens to be the villain’s son. When Shankar is released, he marries Mala and sets out to avenge himself on Choubeji, causing violent conflicts in which he nearly kills his own brother. There are several Kishore Kumar solos in this film remembered as one of the comic star’s few ‘serious’ roles. Director Bose immediately went on to cast the three Kumar brothers in the farce Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi (1958).