Vintage cheese.

 Half Ticket (1962) is a bit older than the Bollywood movies I'm familiar with, but it does have an absurd premise and a cast which includes some of my favorite supporting actors.  How could I resist?

Vijay (Kishore Kumar) is the youngest son of industrialist Lalchand (Moni Chaterjee) and he's clearly supposed to be a charming free spirit, but most of the time he's an annoying twit.  After a series of Vijay's wacky and allegedly hilarious pranks, Lalchand has had enough, and decides to marry off his wayward son.  A match is quickly arranged, and then Lalchand agrees to allow his son, the notorious prankster who does not want to get married, to meet with his potential father-in-law alone.   This turns out to be a bad idea, as Vijay promptly torpedoes the match. Furious, Lalcjhand tosses him out of the house.

Vijay wants to travel to Bombay, but he can't afford a full price train ticket, so instead he disguises himself as a child, a process which involves plying an actual child with candy and ice cream and then stealing his clothes.  (There are elements of this movie which . . . have not aged well.  At all.)  It's an absurd plan, and it starts to fail almost immediately, since the man at the ticket desk is not willing to sell a ticket to an unaccompanied child, even an unconvincing one.  Luckily for Vijay, passing stranger Rajubaba (Pran) intervenes, claiming to be "Munna's" uncle, and Vijay gets his half ticket.  Unfortunately, Rajubaba is secretly a diamond smuggler, and has planted a large gem in Vijay's pocket in order to get it past the station police.  

Vijay spends his time on the train acting like an exaggerated caricature of an obnoxious child, while trying to avoid the creepy older guy who is posing as his uncle and showing a strange fascination with his pockets.  (As I said, certain elements have not aged well.)  After giving Rajubabu the slip, Vijay sneaks into the private room of Rajnidevi (Madhubala), who is happy to shelter the weird kid for the night.

Once in Bombay, Vijay stops acting like a child (hooray!) and instead starts looking for a job.  Of course, it's a big city, times are hard, and he's still an annoying twit, so it takes a few tries.  Meanwhile Rajubabu and his girlfriend Lily (Shammi) are combing the city, looking for Vijay and the diamond that he does not know he has.  There are disguises and counter-disguises (at one point Pran puts on a grey fake beard and wig, and winds up looking uncannily like his future self; I've never seen old age makeup get that close to the way the actor will eventually age) and chase scenes and Vijay keeps bumping into Rajnidevi without either of them realizing that she is the potential bride he ran away from.

I am happy to suspend my disbelief and pretend that there are people who are fooled by Kishore Kumar pretending to be a child, but even if you are willing to accept the ridiculous premise, the plot doesn't really hang together.  But that's okay, because this is a farce; the plot is only there as a vehicle to get the characters into absurd situations.

Half Ticket was a big hit when it came out, but that was nearly sixty years ago, and the movie is definitely a product of its time.  Still, I can see traces of how Sixties Bollywood evolved into the Bollywood I know; while Vijay was completely over the top, he's clearly an ancestor of Shah Rukh Khan's carefully polished comic persona.  And there were some familiar faces.  I'm actually a big fan of Pran (a Pranatic, if you will) so it was a delight to see him being young and suave, along with a ridiculously young Helen in a surprisingly wholesome item number.