- A review in Filmindia, Nov. 1959: "(This) is an utterly undistinguished picture ... a depressing, incoherent tale boringly told."
- Guru Dutt to his assistant Raj Khosla during the premiere at Maratha Mandir, Mumbai: "Raj, it’s a stillborn child."
- Dutt in a Filmfare interview, 1963: "It was good in patches. It was too slow and went over the heads of audiences."
- The film’s original Cinemascope negative was damaged. Only a few scope prints survive, two at European TV stations.
Kaagaz Ke Phool was the film where Guru Dutt foresaw his own death. This brooding study of the declining fortunes and doomed love of an ageing filmmaker could have easily played out as a sentimental soap opera. Instead, Dutt’s intensely personal cinematic sensibility, the vivid imagery of cameraman V.K. Murthy and the haunting lyrics of Kaifi Azmi make Kaagaz... a beautifully understated tragedy. Much of Kaagaz... mirrors Dutt’s own life, his unhappy marriage with Geeta Dutt and his undefined...
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