This is one of the best Hindi movie from 1960s. Good direction and story, wonderful acting by Guru Dutt & Waheeda Rehman.

Kaagaz Ke Phool Was Directed As Well As Produced By Guru Dutt...Written By Abrar Alvi...This Was First Indian Cinemascope Film.. Story Revolves Around Suresh Sinha A Famous Director....He Is Looking For A Lead Actress For His Current Movie...Meanwhile His Married Life Is Not Going Well...Wife Has Left With The Daughter...He Is Not Allowed To Access His Daughter....One Day He Meets A Lady Shanti...After Few Days He Realize... She Is The One Whom He Was Looking For ...So He Casts Her In His Movie ....Shanti & Sinha Come Close ..They Built A Liking For Each Other....Which Leads To Various Situations Which Changes The Life Of The Director Sinha....Guru Dutt Was Amazing Director ...But A Fine Actor Too...He Does Well As Director Sinha...Waheeda Rehmaan As Shanti Gives Better Performance.....Johny Walker Is Good ...Baby Naaz Is Fine But The Character Is Not Well Written...Script Of The Movie Is Good ...But It Gives More Importance To Sinha & Shanti Chemistry...Music Of The Movie Was Composed By S.D.Burman ....It Has The Most Beautiful Composition "Waqt Ne Kiya Kya Haseen Sitam" By Geeta Dutt...One Of The Best Song By Her...We Have "Dekhi Zamane Ki Yaari" By Rafi Is Again A Classic ...Altogether Music Is Good...Everything Was Fine...But Movie Was Such A Disaster At The Box Office...That Guru Dutt Decided Never To Direct A Movie ...Hence It Was The Last Movie Directed By Guru Dutt...People Never Understood The Concept...So It Was On The Cards....Now The Movie Is Considered A Classic ...One Of The Best Work By Guru Dutt & His Team....Overall A Excellent Movie ....Must Watch For Averyone...:)

Reading some of the reviews makes me think that this film needs more context for an American audience and may not be fully appreciated if it is the first classic Bollywood movie one watches, but if you are interested in classic cinema (not just classic Bollywood) it really must be seen.Yes, Sinha's wife and her family are caricatures, yes Rocky's character is ridiculous, yes the beginning and end are melodramatic (no more so than many other classics, though), but everything else is artistry. Sinha and Shanti both have excellent, minimalist dialogue and express themselves well through body language and facial expression without becoming caricatures themselves. Maybe I'm reading too much into it but I think perhaps the contrast between the flat portrayal of the anti-film characters and the realistic portrayal of the main characters is more than just an attempt to please the audience and is rather an attempt to focus on the true drama. As if to say, yes, the protagonists are suffering because of these problems, but it is their suffering that we want you to look at, not the situation that caused it.The technical quality of the prints available (both picture and audio) are somewhat poor at times but for me this did not detract from my experience. I can see why it was a failure in the box office at the time. It wasn't the type of story the mass market generally wants, and especially not at the time it was made, but it is also clear why it is now considered a masterwork.

Why is Guru Dutt hailed as one of the all time best directors in the world? See this film and you'll get an answer. Guru Dutt never got his due from the audience or the critics when he was alive. After he died, he was suddenly hailed as this best thing to have happened to Hindi film industry. And today, he is universally regarded as one of the best Hindi film directors. This film too is resplendent with that same irony, hypocrisy and tragedy. There are films and then there is this. 'Kaagaz Ke Phool' is Guru Dutt's extremely personal and almost poetic take on the trials and tribulations of a life of fame and glamor; and especially the aftermath of it. Guru Dutt plays a successful director Ajay Sinha who is looking for a new face to cast as the leading lady in his next film. In the midst of all this, he has a strained marriage wherein his wife leaves him to live with her parents along with their daughter. On a certain rainy day, he meets a girl (Waheeda Rehman). They meet again in the studio. Immediately,Guru Dutt realizes that Waheeda's is THE face he had been looking for and promptly casts her in his next film. Eventually he falls in love ith her but she doesn't reciprocate. Meanwhile, he isn't allowed to eet his beloved daughter too through a court order. As a last straw, his next film is a colossal failure and he suddenly finds that the ones who pretended to be his well-wishers and friends now seem to hate and ignore him. Thus Waheeda, his discovery, goes on to become a successful star while he begins his downward spiral into the deep darkness of ignominy. Subsequently and ironically, after many years, he dies on the same director's chair It is not a perfect film by any means. The screenplay is sometimes indulgent and probably isn't as good as say Guru Dutt's 'Pyaasa' (his other classic). Plus, the whole track involving Johnny Walker is somewhat irrelevant to the film and hence could have been shortened. However, it was incidentally, India's first film to be shot in Cinemascope and hence makes good use of technique but essentially KPK remains a very humane film which moves us without being preachy or overtly sentimental. SD Burman's haunting music and Kaifi Azmi's poignant lyrics add to the mood of this filmIronically, the film was a commercial disaster upon its release (eerily similar to the protagonist Sinha's last film). So, the claims of it being an Autobiographical film also started being made. But, I think it is a case of life imitating art than vice- versa. Having said that it is a fact that Guru Dutt died shortly after making this film and thus KKP remains his last masterpiece and I think its commercial failure can be attributed to one of those rare occasions when the AUDIENCE got it wrong as the film may have been ahead of its time and has since been widely considered to be one of the best and most important films made in India The obvious comparisons with Fellini's 8 ½ are to be expected but to my mind they are unwarranted. Both were different films made for very different audiences. This is a great film in its own right- one of the best Hindi films ever- a bona-fide masterpiece by the prodigiously talented albeit flawed genius called Guru Dutt