Paying Guest

About the film

Paying Guest is a 1957 Bollywood Romance drama film directed by Subodh Mukherjee. The film stars Dev Anand and Nutan along with Shubha Khote.

The soundtrack, composed by Sachin Dev Burman, received a degree of popularity and made a lasting impression. The lyrics were written by Majrooh Sultanpuri. Paying Guest was the second hit film of the team of Mukherjee, Hussain, Dev Anand and S. D. Burman, who had combined two years earlier to make the successful Munimji.

Plot

An incompetent lawyer Ramesh (Dev Anand) keeps on getting evicted as a tenant due his to failure to pay rent. He then dons the guise of an old man to gain entry in a house as a tenant and falls for the landlord's daughter Shanti (Nutan), whose best friend Chanchal (Shubha Khote) marries a famous barrister Dayal (Gajanan Jagirdar) for money and who is of her father's age. After marriage Chanchal becomes Shanti's neighbour. Dissatisfied with her marital life, Chanchal becomes jealous of Shanti and Ramesh's love. Shanti's older sister's rake and ruffian husband Prakash threatens Shanti's father to send him money or else he would come to his house. Ramesh is unable to pay the house rent and Shanti gives him the money her father had given her for monthly expenditure. When Ramesh gives Shanti's father the money that Shanti had given him, he is ready to send it to his son-in-law as money order so as to prevent him from coming to his home. Shanti dissuades him from doing so saying that she will do it. However, since there is no spare money, she fails to send the money to her brother-in-law. In the meantime, Prakash with his wife reaches Shanti's father's house and in an altercation, Prakash pushes Shanti's father and since he was frail, he subsequently dies. Shanti's elder sister also falls ill and Shanti gives her brother-in-law her gold bangles to get medicine but Prakash squanders t…

Music

The music of the film is composed by S. D. Burman and lyrics by Majrooh Sultanpuri.

Key details