In my growing up years, my father would take me to a new movie screening every week, which for army kids like us, would typically mean dressing up well, sitting in easy chairs in front of a big white screen which was upholstered by ropes on an open ground facing a noisy generator and projector, with a hundred other army personnel of all ranks, and being served Coca-Cola and samosas during the break.

The one actor I never saw on that big fauji screen was Dev Anand, since most of his blockbuster movies had been released before I was born. I would watch them only much later on TV. It’s a delight, therefore, to read a book analysing the classics he made and to revisit some of them.

The title of the book is derived from one of his films but alludes to the successful collaboration between Dev and Vijay Anand (Goldie to the trade) as an actor-director pair which churned out some of the most successful Hindi films of the 60s.

The author Tanuja Chaturvedi, an FTII graduate, worked with Navketan films, the company formed by the Anand brothers, and uses her proximity to the brothers to collate some great material, anecdotes, stories, and experiences to detail the making of nine of their most iconic films including Guide, Jewel Thief and Johnny Mera Naam.

She compares the collaboration with the acclaimed director-actor pairs like Akiro Kurusawa and Toshiro Mifune, Federico Fellini and Marcello Mastroianni, and Wong Kar Wai and Tony Leung. Perhaps it’s an unfair comparison, given that Dev and Goldie were brothers and unlike the other pairs, their films didn’t travel globally. That said, though, along with their other brother, Chetan, together, they were a creative powerhouse writing, directing, and producing films.

Referencing conversations with Dev Anand, Chaturvedi outlines the differences in the directing styles of Chetan Anand and Vijay Anand. The former never wrote the script but worked with a basic visualisation while the latter started with a completely written script and dialogues, detailed every scene, the entry-exit point of actors, the transitions and edit points before he began filming.

Behind-the-scenes stories

What you’ll like about the book are the many behind-the-scenes stories of the making of some of the songs in their films. For the creation of the unforgettable songs of Nau Do Gyaraah, Chaturvedi shares an interesting story of how Goldie would take a train from Bandra to Malad with his cycle in tow, get off and cycle all the way through the open fields to the house of RD Burman, work on the tunes through the day and hum it on his way back to the train.

Chaturvedi seems to intersperse the narrative with, perhaps. her teaching notes, as parts of the book describe in much detail, how the camera lenses were decided, how the shot was placed, how a light was managed and how music instruments were arranged.

On the female characters, she says Goldie’s heroines were no pushovers. They weren’t victims but confident, feisty women who followed their heart, quite unlike the suffering, helpless, hapless heroines of that era. We know Waheeda Rehman in Guide was one such.

The book constantly reminds you that it is an eulogy of sorts for her employers. She liberally uses superlatives to describe the duo and sprinkles the book with unnecessary stardust. She even builds up to the first film of the collaboration Nau Do Gyarah in a very filmy way, describing the film industry at that time and how Dev Anand’s entry brought a breath of fresh air.

She says that despite being a non-smoker, teetotaller and non-substance user, Dev saab created cinematic anthems with songs about them, citing Dum maro Dum as an example. But then, so have many other actors, including Amitabh Bachchan.

The book stops short and jumps to an epilogue about their final days, leaving us pondering about the real legacy that Dev Anand built with his brother. For more on his life, the other 100 of his films and his loves, there’s his wonderful autobiography Romancing with Life.

Dev Anand was called the evergreen hero for his boyish charm and an eclectic sense of style. Dilip Kumar believed that Dev was the best looking amongst the trio — Raj, Dilip and Dev — that ruled over Bollywood in those times. Even Majrooh Sultanpuri used words like Haseen and Khoobsurat for Dev Anand in his songs. The book focuses not on his handsomeness or performances as an actor but on how relentlessly the brothers Dev and Goldie churned out one blockbuster after another.

Just for that it’s worth a read.

The reviewer runs a film studio that produces regional language feature films

Title: Hum Dono: The Dev and Goldie Story

Author: Tanuja Chaturvedi

Publisher: Bloomsbury India

Price: ₹464

Find the book here.