Johnny Walker

This is an extremely insightful and well researched article. Well done, Anil, and thanks for this walk down memory lane!

#6 by Urstruly

`I don`t know who JW is `...

what appalling ignorance... alas.

Johnny Walker -- discovered by Chetan Anand for his immortal trademark piece -- of a perpetual drunk -- was an institution by himself –

very true -- he was an actors actor and a comedians comedian...without parallel

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I don`t know who JW is but I really like that comedian who is about 58 years old, slightly chubby, pot-bellied and he is the sidekick and classmate of the boy who falls in love with his class-fellow girl. I just can`t recall the movies name, hmmm.....

Anil

…thanks…

…for me johnny interpreted and took charlie (chaplin) a step forward…

...his interpretations of the characters he played were sophic, not sophistic…and ...

Essensaur

…Only the other day I figured out why Johny Walker appealed so much to me….He always played the born optimist. No situation was ever hopeless to him, and he never had doubts that in the ned, he would come out on top…

…(to continue the previous train of thought)…it is in his eyes…sparkling and smiling most of the time…unlike the earlier tramp’s sad eyes…

…t

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Thank you Anil, for writing about my favorite comedian from the Hindi cinema. Your insightful comments in the context of his ``incontrollable dance of distortions`` are about something that all his fans must have sensed, yet no journalist of caliber seems to have written about.

Many examples come to mind. His silly caricature of an old man bringing the hero`s ``rishta`` for Ashok Kumar`s sister - the distorted walk, the impossible bout of coughing (Mere Mehboob). Then his hunting for his lost ``Jigar`` with his lady love at her working place during the lunch break, and the bashful covering up of his face upon being found out by the returned office staff (Mr. & Mrs. `55).

But he was also great as a street idiot pompously masquerading as a ``well dressed``, westernized gentleman whom no one else could take seriously (CID - the way he tells off the armed goon to wait ``ek minute`` when the latter disturbs his serious conversation with Waheeda Rehman as to how she had so perceptively figured out that he was a ``nek aur shareef`` insaan). And then I cannot forget a hoarding of the movie starring Mala Sinha .. where he sports a goatie beard, and peers over thick-framed spectacles, with a smoking pipe just taken out to make some scathing statement ... (I don`t remember trhe name of the flick - it had a silly song ``Yeh aaj kal ke ladke ...`` with `` Kabootar-Kabootar`` as a refrain...).

And who could have played the drunkard better? ``devdas``, ``madhumati``, ``Johny Walker`` immediately come to mind. I even went to see him act that part in a Marathi movie, where he played the brother of Jayashree Gadkar. In that picture he was aptly named ``Bandu``, and affectionate term for a boisterous, ``udham karne wala`` child who refuses to grow up.

Only the other day I figured out why Johny Walker appealed so much to me.

He always played the born optimist. No situation was ever hopeless to him, and he never had doubts that in the ned, he would come out on top.

His weird solutions to the synthetically overwhelming situations that only the Hindi Cinema can conjure-up, trivialized the complexities of problems. Remember how many ``khatiyas`` he accumulates in ``Chchoo Mantar``, and how he takes on mission impossible in the very same movie, with his own life as the prize to be won? That theme is common to almost all the characters he brought to life on the silver screen.

May be he should have been entrusted with the ``K`` problem. I have no doubt he would have come out with an an unthinkable solution good enough for all parties, in his own inimitable manner ;)

Thank you for writing about the good man.

- E

Good informative tribute. Gotta go, the masseur is waiting...

Anil:
Thanks for a perceptive analysis of one of the comic geniuses of our times. I would have loved to see Johny Walker in a silent film, much like one watched Chaplin; he would have taken pantomime to the level of satire.

Your comment about his contortions prompts me to say that his awkwardness of body language (as opposed to Bhagwan`s grace and the early Mehmood`s dandiness) lent the character, and the film, a certain earthiness. While Guru Dutt used him effectively as a foil, we must not forget that the songs Johny sang are a tribute to the versatility of Mohamed Rafi -- there are people who belive that `Sar jo tera takraye` was sung by the comedian!

I liked your comment about Dilip Kumar having a Johny Walker in him. If you watch his antics in `Azaad`, some portions of `Ram aur Shyam` and the langourous use of language, stretching the syllables, you can see the inside coming out...

Btw, Johny Walker was married to the actress Shakila`s sister, Noor.

Farzana