Draft:Jiban Mrityu

Jiban Mrityu (transl. Life and Death) is a 1967 Indian Bengali-language action thriller film co-written and directed by Hiren Nag. Produced by Santosh Kumar Banerjee, Nirmal Kumar Banerjee, Tapash Kumar Majumder and Shakti Dutta under the banner of B. M. D. Movies Pvt Ltd, the film is based on a short story of the same name by Dr. Biswanath Roy, which itself was inspired from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexamdre Dumas. It stars Uttam Kumar and Supriya Devi in lead roles, while Kamal Mitra, Tarun Kumar, Bankim Ghosh, Mihir Bhattacharya and Subrata Chatterjee play supporting roles. The soundtrack of the film was composed by Gopen Mullick, with lyrics penned by Pulak Bandyopadhyay and Shyamalesh Ghosh. It revolves around Ashok Mukherjee, employed of the cashier of a bank named Citizen's bank, gets arrested after being falsely accused for a theft in the bank. After being released, he comes to know that all happend to him was a conspiracy done by his colleagues. To avenge, he takes up the identity of a Sikh businessman named Shanta Prasad Singh and traps them in his presence of mind.

Jiban Mrityu
Directed by	Hiren Nag
Based on	Jiban Mrityu by Dr. Biswanath Roy
Inspired from	The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Screenplay by	Dr. Biswanath Roy Hiren Nag
Produced by	Santosh Kumar Banerjee Nirmal Kumar Banerjee Tapash Kumar Majumder Shakti Dutta
Starring	Uttam Kumar Supriya Devi Kamal Mitra Tarun Kumar Subrata Chatterjee
Cinematography	Kanai Dey
Edited by	Baidyanath Chatterjee
Music by	Gopen Mullick
Production company	B. M. D. Movies Pvt Ltd
Distributed by	S. R. Films
Release date	14 April 1967
Running time	112 mins
Country	India
Language	Bengali

Jiban Mrityu marks the second collaboration between Uttam Kumar and Hiren Nag after Thana Theke Aschi (1965); and 12th film of Kumar opposite Supriya Devi as the lead pair. It was a super hit at the box office and ran over for 14 weeks in theatres. Eventually it gained a cult status in the history of Bengali cinema and the mannerism of Shanta Prasad portrayed by Uttam Kumar became popular among the masses.

It was remade in Hindi as Jeevan Mrityu (1970) starring Dharmendra and in Tamil as Sange Muzhangu (1972) starring M. G. Ramachandran. The 1998 Bengali film Asol Nakol starring Lokesh Ghosh, had the same plot inspired from Jiban Mrityu.

Plot

Ashok Mukherjee (Uttam Kumar), an innoxious and honest person, gets released from Alipore Central Jail after six years, on the false charges of stealing 5 lakh rupees from his own workplace Citizens Bank. Getting out of the prison, in a first and foremost manner, he goes to his residence; where he is informed by a completely an unknown person who was the then-owner of the house, that his mother had died being run over by a car, during Ashok's prisonment. A mournful Ashok goes to the home of Gopa Chatterjee (Supriya Devi), his love interest with whom he was to marry. But there he comes to know that no any women naming Gopa lives there. Being disoriented, Ashok reaches the house of his colleague and brotherlike Samir (Ashok Mukherjee), who reveals the truth to Ashok that all the incidents happend to him were nothing but an abominable conspiracy done by their colleagues - Surya Ray, Bidyut Ghosh, Prabir Sen and . They are the main culprits who framed Ashok for the theft and became disapparent from the city. Even though he knew the truth, Samir couldn't do anything six years ago because the above men had threatend to kill him by goons, making him suppressed.

Homeless Ashok, who is haunted by his dark identity of a criminal, sets out to Ratangarh in search of his college-life friend and the forest officer of the noted place Paresh Roy (Tarun Kumar), but after reaching there he comes to know that three years ago, Paresh had been transfered to Balukhand forest. Seeing a bungalow on the way, he asks for permission to take shelter for the night, but lack of money thwarts his plans and he decides to spend the night under a tree behind the bungalow. All on a sudden, he hears the voice of some people, who broke the chest in that bungalow and stole the money, looking to see that they are two people who have also recruited the janitor of that bungalow into their group. The two are none other than the nephews of Maharaj Ranadev Singh (Kamal Mitra), who had came to travel the bungalow in order to changing of weather. They hide the suitcase full of stolen money under the ground, which Ashok witnesses without their knowledge. Meanwhile, being well aware of the bad nature of his nephews, Ranadev summons the police and names them as the mastermind behind the theft. Then Ashok appears their with the suitcase and hands it over to Ranadev. He informs that he hadn't seen the faces of the thieves but heard their names such as Mahinder and Narender. The nephews try to escape but becomes handcuffed by the police. When Ashok wants to leave the place, Ranadev arranges for him to rest in his bungalow. In the midnight, he discovers Ashok awakening and asks him about his identity. To his surprise, Ranadev listens from Ashok that he is a newly returned prisoner and also expresses his interest in knowing about his past.

The film goes to a flashback, when Ashok was in college as a student of socio-economics 8 years ago. His best friend was Paresh, who failed final exams four times and was in love with Ratna (Subrata Chatterjee). Ashok had a bantering relationship with Gopa, his neighbour and also the daughter of his father's childhood friend, whom he loved also with all his heart. Days were passing like this, meanwhile Ashok got an opportunity to give a job interview at the Citizens Bank, There he won the hearts of the examiners with his sharp intelligence and extraordinary style of speaking, being successfully finalised for the job. After joining the job, the honest Ashok gradually became the envy of some of his colleagues like, Surya Roy, Bidyut Ghosh, Prabir Sen and , each of whom being dissatisfied were fed up with low wages and didn't complete any office works in a proper manner. Trusting Ashok's works, the Managing Director who considered Surya and his gang as perpetual missense, assigned Ashok the responsibility of correcting the bank's erroneous statements, which were previously prepared by Surya himself. He ordered Ashok to send the notice to the parties after rectifying the statements. Then Surya purposefully came to Ashok and mocked the bank authorities saying that due to the low remuneration, he couldn't even call a doctor in order to treat his little daughter who was suffering from fever for three days. Ashok generously gave him 20 rupees according to Surya's sayings, which was later revealed to be used to a bet on horse races by Surya.

One day in a sudden manner, Paresh appeared at Ashok's office and told him that he had been the forest officer at Ratangarh on the recommendation of his maternal uncle, who was also a ranger in forest. He also revealed that Ratna had refused him for marriage and invited Ashok in his bungalow at Ratangarh to spend honeymoon after marriage. In the mean time, an immigration lawyer named Subrata Basu, who was hired by Gopa's father to plead on his behalf in a pending court case, set his eyes on Gopa. Disliked by Gopa, an enraged Subrata deliberately loses the case and being traumatized by the incident, Mr. Chatterjee died of a stroke.

well educated, honest, sincere and hardworking person who lives with his mother. Gopa (Supriya Devi), his lover lives in his neighborhood. Ashoke appointed as a cashier in a bank. But after some day he meets with police and got arrested. After returning from jail he understand that it was a conspiracy. But this whole incident actually demolished his all dreams. His mother was dead and he do not trace Gopa. Suddenly he helped a person and for his honesty and sincerity Ashoke appointed to look after his business. Gradually he became the owner of the business and started to take revenge against those culprits for whom he had lost some valuable time of his life. He takes a different look. Became a Sardarji and one day he meets with Gopa. Ashoke gives them a serious blow and takes his revenge. At last the truth prevails.

Cast

• Uttam Kumar as Ashok Mukherjee / Shanta Prasad Singh
• Supriya Devi as Gopa
• Kamal Mitra as Ranadev Singh
• Tarun Kumar as Paresh Roy
• Subrata Chatterjee as Ratna
• Bankim Ghosh
• Ashok Mukherjee as Samir
• Prasad Mukherjee as Mr. Chatterjee, Gopa's father

Soundtrack

All lyrics are written by Pulak Bandyopadhyay and Shyamalesh Ghosh; all music is composed by Gopen Mullick

No.	Title	Lyrics	Music	Singer(s)	Length
1.	"Kono Kotha Na Bole"	Pulak Bandyopadhyay	Gopen Mullick	Manna De Sandhya Mukhopadhyay	3:16
2.	"Prabhat Surjo Tomar Mahima"	Shyamalesh Ghosh	Gopen Mullick	Bani Thakur Sandhya Chatterjee	3:01
Total length:					6:17

Remakes

Tarachand Barjatya, the founder of Rajshri Productions showed his interest to remake Jiban Mrityu into Hindi and bought the rights in 1968. He approached Shakti Samanta to direct the film; but Samanta, who disagreed to make a film under Rajshri Productions instead of his own Shakti Films and also was busy in the shooting of his bilingual project Aradhana (1969) starring Sharmila Tagore and Rajesh Khanna, declined the offer. Then Barjatya hired Satyen Bose as director, whose initial choice was Dharmendra as the protagonist. After watching the original film, a depricated Dharmendra, wanted to reject the film as he considered himself not to be worthy to do justice with the characters played by Uttam Kumar. Then Kumar himself persuaded him to do the film and advised to portray the roles in his own mannerism. Later the film finalised under the title of Jeevan Mrityu and released in 1970. Besides the Hindi film, it was also remade into Tamil in 1972 as Sange Muzhangu directed by P. Neelakantan, where M. G. Ramachandran was apparent as the protagonist, with some changes in the plot.

External links

Jiban Mrityu at IMDb