Awaara is a social melodrama set, as are the majority of Indian films, to music. It features an intricate plot, elaborate production numbers (including one dream sequence in which Indian divinities and western notions of heaven and hell combine to out-camp Hollywood's best efforts) and an all-star cast that includes India's leading star, Raj Kapoor, who also directed the film; his father, Prithviraj Kapoor; and the popular Nargis.
“Even on earth,” writes J. Hoberman in the Village Voice, “Awaara's set design comes from outer space.... (But) for all this kitsch-in-sync nuttiness, Awaara is a serious movie. Written by the left-wing cineaste K.A. Abbas, it argues for precedence of environment over heredity, indirectly attacking the hypocrisies of caste. Kapoor...is a vulnerable Clark Gable with a gift for physical comedy. He plays an interesting good-bad guy, the abandoned son of a wealthy magistrate who grows up in the gutter to become an unwilling thief. Without realizing his identity, Kapoor falls in love with his father's ward. She discovers the truth of his origins...and, at the film's courtroom climax, forces the old man to recognize that this ‘tramp' is his son. By then it is too late....”