Monday, November 20, 2006

Bollywood Fugly lesson #3: if the hat is wider than your hips and taller than your torso, put it back on the shelf

From my friend and all-around hep cat Teleport City, I bring you the Indian Research and Analysis Wing official-issue Gigantic, Floppy Green Sombrero, what all the well-dressed spies were wearing to fight Pakistani terrorism in 1968.

(Aankhen, 1968)

It was hard to pick just one thing from this movie to showcase, but since Teleport City sent me this one specially, I saw fit to christen it the flagship. Flip through the rest of the pictures on his review and you'll find even more fashion fabulousness, most of it quite good indeed, with above-the-elbow gloves and pegged trouser suits. But yeah, the hat is ridiculous. It's also completely impractical - first of all, the movie is set in Japan, not Mexico, and second, how are you supposed to unleash your fierce fighting moves in a hat that throws off your center of gravity? No.

So, you super spy dames, remember htis: if Emma Peel didn't wear it, then don't you, either.

5 comments:

Aparna said...

The hat is weird...but Dharmendra is yummy!!!!

Beth Loves Bollywood said...

This is by far the youngest Dharmendra I've ever seen, and I'm disturbed by how much he looks like Sonny (or vice versa, I guess). And also a bit like my dad, who was a nose-to-the-grindstone grad student in 1968, sporting very similar clothes and short hair.

Anonymous said...

Beth,

You should check out early Dharmendra movies, especially with Meena Kumari. Meena Kumari herself is quite stunning and vulnerable.

I think a British magazine once had a list of sexiest men. In that list, I think they were only two men from Indian subcontinent: Dharmendra and Imran Khan (Pakistani cricker, now politican)

Anonymous said...

This film is based in Beirut, not Japan.In the pre-civil war days, it was quite a swinging city..apparantly

Beth Loves Bollywood said...

The review I read describes quite a bit of the plot being in Japan before departing to Beirut...which, as you say, apparently was quite the place to be.