I just watched this little gem again as a reminder of Nanda who recently died – her delicate beauty was perfectly captured by Yash Chopra in his first directors role. It was a glorious first film for him, full of hope and panache, and of romance and music of course.
An accidental collision of bicycles on their way to college brings Raj Kumar and Mala Sinha together, culminating in a night of passion, a baby, the father marrying his father's choice, the mother sliding into a "sinful" position, abandoning their baby and eventually marrying her boss. And plenty more besides! The scene where she leaves her baby in the woods coming as it does at 65 minutes in is pretty harrowing stuff, she takes the easy solution but finds almost instantly it was the wrong one and ultimately nearly impossible to live with. On the other hand her ex's original decision to walk out and marry another is not considered as inherently wrong and is something he could live with. There's all kinds of social, political, religious and personal commentaries going on, too many to mention – the previous excellent comment covered it all well – and everything dovetails at the end to a fairly logical conclusion. The only minor niggle I ever had was that no matter how logical the last section dragged on for far too long. The songs were by Sahir and Dutta, my favourites being Tere Pyar Ka Aasra, entrancingly sung by Mahendra Kapoor and Lata; and the beautiful Jhukti Gaata Gaati Hawa sung by Asha with an unusual middle section by Mahendra - and Nanda seldom looked more exquisite or regal, the whole song being a wondrous piece of poetic sound and vision. I freely confess to preferring happy songs with no dark clouds!
All the leads seemed incredibly photogenic with some marvellous photography and generally excellent production values; in fact some of the sets and costumes would have looked gorgeous in colour. Sinha's anguish was perfectly portrayed, especially with Lata's Tu Mere Pyaar – how is it she never achieved wider recognition? Although filmed a couple of generations ago now, the concepts and lessons of To Err Is Human that are expounded in here are sadly still to be learnt today by huge sections of humanity.
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