Review of Mera Saaya (1966) by Luke T — 27 Sep 2016

In this mystery drama directed by Raj Khosla, a lawyer's (Sunil Dutt) wife dies in his arms. But another woman in identical appearance shows up claiming to be the lawyer's wife. Is this the wife of Rakesh (Dutt) or is she someone completely different?

Dutt gives a very good performance as the man who comes back from his studies in London only to witness the awful events that his wife Geeta (Sadhana) has died. However, when he sees Nisha (also Sadhana) he is shocked and surprised because she looks exactly like Geeta. Sadhana is absolutely brilliant in her double role as Geeta and Raina (also-known-as Nisha), the woman who does everything she can in order to convince Rakesh that she is his wife.

Dutt though gives the best performance as he is not prepared to have any of it and takes the case to court. Yes! This means that there are scenes in the courtroom and as the evidence is handed out, you know exactly what is going on and this makes the film really easy to follow.

The direction from Khosla is excellent throughout as the dramatic moments keep you on the edge-of-your-seat, because you will get into the film immediately, while the script is very well written by G.R. Kamath. There is excellent cinematography to be had throughout through the use of locations and the sunny weather is another positive as well.

It deservedly won the Filmfare Award for Best Sound, where I feel that it is a shame that there were only three nominees in each Filmfare category at the time of this release. If there were five nominees then I reckon this would have got more nominations, notably for Best Film, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay.

But despite that, this is one absolutely superb mystery drama that is guaranteed to keep you guessing until the very end - with the dramatic climax a real positive and definitely worth waiting for. No wonder it was declared a super hit at the box office.