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On This Day

21 Jul, 1912

Cinemaazi remembers Avinash Vyas on his birth anniversary

21 Jul, 1930

Cinemaazi remembers Anand Bakshi on his birth anniversary

21 Jul, 1992

Cinemaazi remembers Ravindra Dave on his death anniversary

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Bagdad Ki Raaten (Abu Hasan) (1962)

Nanabhai Bhatt (Batuk Bhatt)

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Release Date1962
LanguageHindi
Shooting LocationPrakash Studios and Shrikant Studioes

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During the reign of Caliph Haroun Alraschid, there lived at Bagdad a very rich merchant, called Abou Hassan, with his mother and sister. Abou Hassan soon formed a society of young men, hearly of his own age and rank in life, and who thought only of making their time pass agreeably. To further this end. he did not content himself with treating them day and night, and giving the most splendid entertainments, where the most delicious viands and wines of the most exquisite flavours were served in abundance, he added music to all this collecting the best singers of both sexes. These feasts were generally terminated by balls, to which the best dancers of both sexes in the city of Bagdad were invited. All these amusements, which were daily varied by new pleasures, were so extremely expensive to Abou Hassan that he could not continue so profuse a style of living beyond one year. The kind hearted king made it a custom to go through the streets of Bagdad in different disguises in the night. He shared laughs in the lofty dreams which the merchant's son Abou Hassan designed in his mind.

One day his mother unfolded the truth before him, and from the moments he ceased giving these entertainments his friends disappeared, and he was convinced that riches are valued more than person. He told his mother, "Instead of friends, I have found only perfidious ungrateful men unworthy of my friendship". Even the love of royal dancer Hasina seemed to be false to him. But on the other hand, Jarina never doubted her love. She was in love with Jaffar a gardener's son. This Jaffar was prince Gul, who came only as a gardener before Jarina so that inequality should not stand in the midst of their love. But the cunning Vazir cherished a desire to marry prince with his daughter and this was the only way before him to capture the throne of Bagdad. He arrested the king cleverly, and the prince Gul was under the impression that his father has gone to the burial royal priest (Bare Pir Sahib) to pass the holy month of Ramjan. At last the secret dissolved, and that too, at the time when the Abou Hassan and the prince himself were under the custody of Vazir.

But the tyranny of Vazir knew no bounds. He threw the prisoners in a lion's cage, it proceeded towards them and they were near to be torn to death when suddenly the lion, having the smell of Abou Hassan threw itself on his feet-Why? Abou Hassan's sister Jarina was married to the prince or not? How Abou Hassan won the hands of his beloved Hasina? How prince freed his father? And how both tried to save the throne of Bagdad from the clutches of Vazir? What fate met the Vazir?

To know all these, see "BAGDAD KI RAATEN”.

[From the official press booklet]