Bluff Master (1963)

Desai inaugurates his characteristic ‘performance masquerade’ style with this virtual Shammi Kapoor solo act. Ashok (Kapoor) is a chronic liar who lives by his wits. As a gossip columnist he takes and publishes a photograph of a woman slapping a man in the street. The woman, Seema (Banu), is the boss’s daughter. After many adventures, including an impromptu stage performance when he masquerades as his own father and violent encounters with Seema’s villainous suitor Kumar (Pran), Ashok wins the woman. The film consistently emphasises a lumpenised street counter-culture culminating in the boisterous and popular number Govinda ala re ala performed by Kapoor on the city streets with numerous drunken youths.