Taxi Driver (1954)

Mangal drives a taxi by day, then drinks at night, listens to his singer girlfriend Sylvie and then goes into a drunken stupor - and wakes up with a hangover. One day, while assisting ... See full summary »

Director:

Chetan Anand

Writers:

Chetan Anand (scenario), Uma Anand (story)

Stars:

Dev Anand, Kalpana Kartik, Sheila Ramani

1 win.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Dev Anand	...	Mangal (Hero)
Kalpana Kartik	...	Mala
Sheila Ramani	...	Sylvie
Johnny Walker	...	Mastana (as Johny Walker)
Bhagwan Sinha
Patanjal
Shujju
Kamal Singh
Vernon Corke	...	Tony
Krishan Dhawan
Rashid Khan	...	(as Rashid)
M.A. Latif	...	(as M.A. Latief)
Parveen Kaul	...	(as Parveen Paul)
Hamid Sayani	...	Hamid (as Hameed Sayani)

Storyline

Mangal drives a taxi by day, then drinks at night, listens to his singer girlfriend Sylvie and then goes into a drunken stupor - and wakes up with a hangover. One day, while assisting another taxi driver, Mangal comes to the assistance of a damsel in distress who is being molested by two thugs. Mangal gallants rescues her and attempts to take her to her destination, to no avail, as the person she is looking for has moved. The next day, Mangal and the young woman, Mala, again attempt to seek Ratanlal, a music director, but the entire day is spent in vain. Mala lives in Mangal's tiny apartment and both become attracted to each other. When Mala finds out about Sylvie, she leaves him. He goes in her search, but finds that she has become a famous singer with the help of her music director friend. Will Mangal ever get a chance to tell about his love for Mala? What will Sylvie's reaction be?

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Plot Keywords:

taxi | singer | rescue | taxi driver | cigarette smoking | 

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Genres:

Musical | Romance

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

India

Language:

Hindi

Filming Locations:

Modern Studio, Andheri, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

Company Credits

Production Co:

Navketan International Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

133 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Chetan anand remade taxi driver after 20 years as janemaan, on the occasion on 25th year, silver jubiilee year of navketan, as jayen to jayen kahan, was to taxi driver, ayegi ayegi kisiki hamari yaad ayegi was to janemaan.

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Connections

Remade as Jaaneman (1976)

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Soundtracks

Jayen To Jayen Kahan
Sung by Talat Mahmood
Music composed by Sachin Dev Burman
Lyrics by Sahir Ludhianvi

User Reviews

An average movie from Dev Anand

Story: Hindi cinema of the current times has matured considerably since the golden era in that writers generally stick to one well-defined theme and characters are nicely developed throughout the story. While Taxi Driver' succeeds in sticking to just the main theme instead of going all over the map, it fails in delivering a structured flow where the scenes do not feel disconnected. I mean, we have goondas sporadically dropping in and out throughout the film. The story and the presentation was not gripping. The movie is ideal for putting on the DVD while doing your chores and occasionally curiously glancing at TV, say every few minutes.

Action: When I was growing up, I saw Dev Anand as a chocolate hero. He came from an era prior to a time when the hero was usually modeled as a macho image -- not unlike the one painted by Amitabh Bachchan in Janjeer. The action scenes shown in this movie were probably good enough for the 1950s Hindi film standards. But still, watching Dev Anand beating up four goondas was not even laughable.

Songs: I've was familiar with a couple of songs before watching this movie. The rest were new to me. The music was not the typical SD Burman kind. It sounded more like RD. Overall, it was just OK.

Rating: Had this movie been made after ... say 1980s, I would have dropped the rating to 2 or 3. But just like my other reviews of old movies, I've included extra points for the nostalgic factor and, thus, have placed this movie at 5.