Indian popular cinema was held to be imitative of Hollywood until fairly recently when its methods became the subject of deeper scrutiny. Most films, even when they 'borrow' from non-Indian models, need to integrate the borrowed motifs within Indian filmmaking conventions if the film must be successful. The paper looks at how Indian popular cinema responds under a single parameter regarded as crucial by Hollywood: that the narrative should be tightly constructed as a chain of causes and effects. The paper analyses the philosophical issues underlying Indian popular cinema's 'episodic' structure. It compares Josef Von Sternberg's The Blue Angel (1931), with V. Shantaram's Pinjra (1972), an admittedly ingenious remake of the former.