Gumnaam

HOW could anyone not love GUMNAAM? The most sensational dance number ever to open a serial killer movie "Jan Pennechaan Ho" and the fabulous Glomesh Ganesh in a gold Lame dress, Zorro boys and India's answer to Little Richard kick start GUMNAAM off to a musical start start unmatched in movie history. There even seems to be the wives and aunties of the producers as chorus girls, all out of step in their purple frilly dresses - and Zorro masks. Not even the superb 1955 plaster nightclub decor (made in 1965) or the (laughing bird) Kookaburra sounds (often heard in Tarzan films) clutter this most exuberant of nightclub dance numbers. The lead singer even throws himself on the floor and convulses - all in tune! The "Anything Goes" opening of INDIANA JONES TEMPLE OF DOOM can't even match this for 'out of your seat' shocko bizarro, because from then on GUMNAAM busies itself with a literally 'and then there were none' plot. There is a haunted mansion, ghosts and nooses from nowhere. The Mantan Moreland style kitchen hand Mamood, has the other major dance number, a tiki-himialyan Esther Williams inspired heavenly fantasy of meeting dancing virgins atop a spearmint plaster stairway held up with dancing plaster fish. All to tikka tikka boo bongo music Just beyond belief. What about the Two drunk girls who decide to sing about how funny it is to be drunk in a haunted house with a killer on the loose! Imagine THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT meets 'TEN LITTLE INDIANS' via MURDER ON THE ORIENT-NILE-GANGES and you might get slightly close. Find GUMNAAM. Show it to all your friends. IF only Hollywood was this much fun. Well it was, once wasn't it. This gets a 10 out of 10 just for the two dance numbers alone. The other 145 minutes are a bonus.