House No. 44 (1955)

Ashok has no home, family or education, and lives on the footpath getting by on odd jobs and pickpocketing. He is drawn to Nimmo, the daughter of a railway watchman, but she dismisses him as a loafer, and then he loses track of her. A smooth piece of pickpocketing brings him to the shady Sunder, who finds him work with the gang based at House No. 44. Nimmo reappears as a co-worker; without realising it she has been acting as Sunder's decoy ever since he took her in after her father died. Ashok sets out to rescue her while she tries to reform him, and when they try to go straight the gang keeps them out of work until they are starving. Dev Anand is Ashok and Kalpana Kartik is Nimmo - they had already married in secret in 1954, during a lunch break while shooting Taxi Driver. It is a Navketan production, shot at Jagriti Studios in Chembur, with S. D. Burman's songs and an original story by Vishwamitter Adil. Johnny Walker, Kumkum and K. N. Singh are in the cast. A reviewer calls it practically "Baazi II", because the plot and principal cast are so similar to Guru Dutt's Baazi; the cinematographer V. Ratra shot both.