A country hick finds that honesty won't get him far in the city in Raj Kapoor's delirious underdog tale, informed in equal parts by India's post-Partition urban realities and Frank Capra's joyful thirties comedies. The vagabond Kapoor (in full Chaplinesque tramp persona) rises from the gutter to the penthouse with no help from the government, but through a life of crime. Will the love of an idealistic teacher (Nargis) and his memories of the camaraderie of his homeless friends return him to an honest life? Shree 420 lovingly pictures the two sides of India's divide, with both the teeming slum's “government's pavement” and the elite's smoky cabarets and gambling dens providing equally spectacular settings for romance, comedy, and song numbers. The proudly patriotic, bouncily hopeful tune Mera Joota Hai Japani, sung by Kapoor's wandering, battered tramp (“My shoes are Japanese, my pants are English, and my hat is Russian, but my heart is Hindustani”), became an unofficial anthem across much of India, while another-picturized on Kapoor and Nargis as they share a rain-soaked walk across the city-captures all the magic, mystery, and romance of the Kapoor ideal.