Mumtaz - The Greatest and Most Beautiful Actress

Sometime back, in one of his interviews, Sh. M. F. Hussain indicated his immense liking for Mumtaz, without mincing words. He also pointed out that he and three other painters, had formed a We Love You Mumtaz Club. There would definitely be umpteen such clubs and individuals who share these feelings. I think fans of Mumtaz should take a cue and make concerted efforts to bring out her contributions to get her the glory she rightly deserves, specially after she has been awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by Filmfare. It has inspired me sufficiently to advocate her case, and this site is the result.

The best way to do that, would be to analyse her contributions. I have analysed her performances in more than seventy films. Though I have still not seen a number of her films, I get fascinated by her captivating looks and inspired performances in each of her film, in each of the scene, whatever be the length of her role, and any number of times I see them.

Mumtaz entered the film scene as a young girl of 14-15 years of age, maybe because of her elder sister, Mallika was also in the films. Though Mallika went into oblivion, could be because of her marriage, but this young girl with her cherubic face, was there to stay for a long time till she herself decided to quit. Too young to be cast as leading lady, she started with bit roles only, but was not missed. In spite of the absence of any godfather, she quickly graduated to lead roles in the so called grade C movies when they wanted a young and beautiful face to be cast opposite Dara Singh. I wonder how can we call them grade C or stunt movies, when the stories of all the present multi-starrer, big banner, mega-budget movies are identical to them? Moreover, considering the total duration of presence of the leading lady, with plethora of stars in current movies the time she gets now compared to the time for which Mumtaz used to come on the screen, even in the bit roles, they cannot be termed merely as the bit roles? So then how is a premise justified that an actress working in a low budget movie is not a good actress? And if this premise is correct, then what is the status of Shabanas, Smitas, etc.?

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