Aas (1953)
Year – 1953
Language – Hindi
Country – India
Producer – Goel Cine Corporation
Director – Devendra Goel
Music Director – Shanker
Box-Office Status –
Cast – Kamini Kaushal, S. K. Prem, Chandabai, Om Prakash, Shekhar, Gulab, Master Ramesh
Miscellaneous Info –
Songs List
Review
PREMIERED at the Lamington Cinema in Bombay on October 2nd, 1953 the Goel Cine Corporation domestic drama “Aas”, produced and directed by Devendra Goel, is retrieved from mediocrity by the single portrayal in it of Kamini Kaushal, starred as the heroine with Shekhar opposite her.
Purporting to tell the story of an attractive and accomplished young woman who finds herself engaged as a governess to the little son of a handsome and newly bereaved young widower, the picture suffers from a depressing poverty of characterization, treatment and direction.
The result is an impression of unrealism. contrivance, exaggeration and inadequacy in the plot and the persons, as well as in their behavior and the incidents, all of which fail to carry conviction in the degree which is essential to sustain the dramatic impact and to drive it home.
Kamini Kaushal, round whom the story revolves and upon whom the whole drama rests, manages fortunately to save the picture by a portrayal which is quietly restrained yet sufficiently vivid and real to make the character come alive with a sympathetic appeal which runs through the picture and knits it as well as the characters together into an organic whole.
Shekhar, as the widower Ashok who falls in love with and marries the governess in the face of his aunt’s opposition, is a character very poorly developed. Starting off well enough, he sinks into a vacillating, too impressionable nonentity to be wholly convincing.
Gulab as the aunt and Chandabai as her willing and vicious tool are better in that respect. But their characters are too exaggerated and this impression is heightened by all their prowling around the corridors and rooms and the childish naivete of the plots with which they break up the happy home.
Om Prakash in a thoroughly superfluous role provides a barrage of laughs with his bluff humor and little Ramesh is superb.
The music is poor, and the songs average. The photography is extremely good.