Adhi Raat Ke Baad (1965)
aka Aadi Raat Ke Baad
Article 5584 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-11-2018
Directed by Nanabhai Bhatt
Featuring Ashok Kumar, Ragini, Sailesh Kumar
Country: India
What it is: Action thriller

When he is suspected for the murder of his girlfriend’s lover, a man who knows the secret of invisibility goes on the run and tries to discover the real culprit.

It takes so long for this movie to get to its first musical number that for a while I was wondering if I stumbled across and Indian movie that wasn’t also a musical, but such is not the case. Which is a good thing, in this case; as this movie was in Hindi without English subtitles, I found it very difficult to follow and ultimately ended up enjoying the musical numbers best because they didn’t require knowing the story line. I did figure the plot point of an invisible man wanting to prove his innocence, but as the movie progresses, the plot only becomes more obscure. Initially, I thought it was a comedy based on the mood of the earlier scenes, but it becomes steadily more serious and somber as it progresses. Though I can’t really pass judgment on this one due to the language barrier, I did feel there were a number of scenes that seemed unnecessary. As for the invisible man special effects, they’re very primitive here, and as the film progresses, we see fewer and fewer of them, almost as if the invisibility gimmick has become invisible. I can’t really say I cared for this one, but that may only be due to the language barrier.