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Muqaddar Ka Sikander

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009
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Muqaddar Ka Sikandar is a 1978 Indian Hindi film. When it was directed by Prakash Mehra, it stars Amitabh Bachchan in his 3rd out of 6 films with Prakash Mehra to date. The films also stars Vinod Khanna, Raakhee Gulzar, Rekha and Amjad Khan. It was remade into the Telugu film Prematarangaalu (1980).

Synopsis

Orphaned and abused at a very young age, a young boy faces the harsh side of life as he struggles to make a living by slaving day and night. He gets empathy from a little girl, Kaamna, in whose house he works. Her dad, Ramnath, does not like him, and asks him to leave. He is adopted by a Muslim woman, Fatima, who decides to name him Sikander. Shortly thereafter, Fatima dies, leaving young Sikander with the responsibility of looking after her daughter, Mehroo. Years later, Sikander has grown up (Amitabh Bachchan) and amassed a fortune by turning in smuggled goods to the police, and getting generous rewards. He has still not forgotten Kaamna (Raakhee) from his childhood. He finds out where she lives, and buys the house right opposite hers. He meets her, but she rejects him. He starts to drink and frequent a prostitute by the name of Zohrabai (Rekha). Due to his frequent visits to Zorabhai’s brothel he becomes the arch-enemy of criminal Dilawar (Amjad Khan) who thinks Sikander loves Zorabhai and wants to steal her away from him. However Sikander loves only Kaamna. With the help of his friend, Advocate Vishal (Vinod Khanna), Sikander writes a love letter to Kaamna. Sikander finds out that she has received the letter, and has acknowledged his love. He is delighted. When he goes to meet her, he finds her in Vishal’s arms, and again his world is shattered. He turns his attention to Zohrabai, only to find that she has killed herself. Sikander must now decide to end Vishal’s life or kill himself in order to forget Kaamna.

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Satyam Shivam Sundaram

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009
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Satyam Shivam Sundaram (meaning, “Truth is God and God is beautiful”) is a 1978, Raj Kapoor-directed film starring Shashi Kapoor and Zeenat Aman.

The film had to face a stiff battle in getting past the Indian Film Censor Board for some of its risque scenes. The film did average business at the box office.

Plot

The movie is set in a village where the heroine, Zeenat Aman, lives with her father, and the hero, Shashi Kapoor, comes as an engineer to oversee and build a major dam. The girl is tall, very attractive and also god-fearing, she goes to the temple daily and is a very good singer. The hero falls in love with her, and asks her father permission to marry her. However, she is scared of the marriage.

Since she was a child she loved three things. God, Music and Dancing. Growing up she was happy until that fatal moment as a young child when she was burned by a pot of oil on one side of her face. This destroyed her entire life but she never lost faith.

She is beautiful, but only on one side of the face. The other side had been scarred and disfigured by her child hood injury. She keeps that part of the face hidden by a veil using her sari palloo. She is afraid that he will turn away when he sees her gruesome side of the face.

Music

Laxmikant-Pyarelal‘s music won the Filmfare Best Music Director Award. Lata Mangeshkar lends her voice to the Satyam Shivam Sundaram song (main theme), which was among the chart-toppers of the year.

Various recent music groups from both India and the United States have re-done the theme song from the movie, such as Thievery Corporation and Sheila Chandra. Also, many variations of the song have been made (e.g. the original version is considered, in Indian music, a Bhajan, but Lata Mangeshkar has also made a bhangra-like version, a different style).

Awards and nominations

  • Filmfare Best Music Director Award-Laxmikant-Pyarelal
  • Filmfare Best Cinematographer Award-Radhu Karmakar
  • Filmfare Nomination as Best Director-Raj Kapoor
  • Filmfare Nomination as Best Actress-Zeenat Aman
  • Filmfare Nomination as Best Lyricist-B.P. Narendra Sharma for the title song “Satyam Shivam Sundaram”
  • Filmfare Nomination as Best Male Playback Singer-Mukesh for the song “Chanchal Sheetal”

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Hum Kisi Se Kum Nahin

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009
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Hum Kisi Se Kum Nahin is a 1977 Indian Hindi movie. The 1977 was movie produced and directed by Nasir Hussain. It became a “super hit” and took the third top spot at the box office in 1977.

The movie stars Rishi Kapoor, Zeenat Aman, Kaajal Kiran, Tariq (actor), Amjad Khan, Om Shivpuri, Jalal Agha and Tom Alter. Rishi Kapoor plays a cabaret singer, Rajesh, whose father has a heart attack while transporting the family’s wealth, which has been converted into diamonds and hidden in a leather belt, from Africa to Delhi. The diamond-filled belt disappears and Rajesh is approached by two mysterious men who tell him that the diamonds are being held by a wealthy man named Seth Kishorilal. They propose that he kidnap Kishorilal’s daughter and hold her hostage in exchage for the diamonds. Tariq has a subplot where he plays the Kaajal’s childhood love.

Although Tariq earned a Filmfare nomination as Best Supporting Actor, he and Kaajal Kiran never had such a big hit ever again. This was Kaajal Kiran’s film debut, and a critic commented that she was “no Asha Parekh.” (Parekh had debuted in Hussain’s Dil Deke Dekho (1959) and became a huge star.)

The music of this film was given by Rahul Dev Burman for which he received a Filmfare Nomination for Best Music. The music dominated the year’s charts. The movie’s main claim to fame then is the resurgence of Mohammed Rafi as a top male playback singer. His unforgettable singing for “Kya Hua Tera Wada” won him the National Film Award for Best Male Playback Singer and the Filmfare Best Male Playback Award. In 1970, Kishore Kumar had taken the top spot from Rafi, and R.D. Burman used him nearly exclusively, for all of his films. But with “Hum Kisi Se Kum Nahin,” Hussain insisted on equal distribution of songs between Kishore Kumar and Rafi, so each got four songs. Kishore Kumar rendered the famous number “Bachna ae Haseeno” in this movie for Rishi Kapoor. Years later, Rishi Kapoor’s son Ranbir Kapoor acted in a movie named “Bachna ae haseeno”.

For Nasir Hussain also, this was the height of his success, he had at that time an unbroken string of huge hits strecthing back to the 1950s, but as a director he never had such a big hit ever again. It was only with Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak directed by his son that his production house had a hit again.

Awards and nominations

  • 1977 National Film Award for Best Male Playback Singer for Mohammed Rafi
  • 1977 Filmfare Best Male Playback Award for Mohammed Rafi
  • 1977 Filmfare Best Cinematographer Award for Munir Khan
  • 1977 Filmfare Best Art Direction for Shanti Dass
  • 1977 Filmfare Nomination for Best Music-R.D. Burman
  • 1977 Filmfare Nomination for Best Supporting Actor–Tariq (actor)

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Amar Akbar Anthony

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009
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Amar Akbar Anthony is a 1977 Bollywood film about three brothers separated during their childhood who grew up in three different homes, adopting three different religions.

The film was directed by Manmohan Desai and starred three actors, of them included Amitabh Bachchan (as Anthony Gonsalves), Vinod Khanna and Rishi Kapoor. Each of the three heroes had an affiliation with a heroine, which included Parveen Babi, Shabana Azmi and Neetu Singh. Nirupa Roy, Pran and Jeevan were supporting actors. The music was written by Laxmikant-Pyarelal. Kishore Kumar sang for Amitabh Bachchan, and Mohammed Rafi sang for Rishi Kapoor. The soundtrack was one of Mukesh’s last soundtracks with Laxmikant-Pyarelal. Anand Bakshi was the lyricist.

The film was later remade in Telugu as Ram Robert Rahim (1980).

Popularity and awards

The film was received well by Bollywood audiences and still is extremely popular. Amitabh Bachchan won his first Filmfare Best Actor Award for his work. Laxmikant-Pyarelal received the Best Music Director award. It sealed Manmohan Desai’s reputation as an exceptional masala (film genre) film director.

Cast

  • Amitabh Bachchan … Anthony Gonsalves
  • Vinod Khanna … Inspector Amar Khanna
  • Rishi Kapoor … Akbar Allhabadi/Raju
  • Parveen Babi … Jenny
  • Neetu Singh … Dr. Salma Ali
  • Shabana Azmi … Laxmi
  • Nirupa Roy … Bharati
  • Pran … Kishanlal
  • Jeevan … Robert
  • Ranjeet … Ranjeet

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The Chess Players

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009
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Shatranj Ke Khilari (The Chess Players) is a 1977 film by Bengali director Satyajit Ray, based on the short story of the same name by Munshi Premchand, featuring the actors Sanjeev Kumar, Saeed Jaffrey, David Abraham and Tom Alter. Richard Attenborough plays the role of General James Outram, and Amjad Khan plays the role of Avadh king Wajid Ali Shah. Unlike most of Ray’s films, the dialogue in the film is in Urdu and Hindi.

The film is set in 1856 and shows the life and customs of 19th century India at the eve of the Indian rebellion of 1857, and importantly the politics of colonial expansion by the British East India Company and the deluded divisions of Indian monarchs.

Ray was so impressed with Amitabh Bachchan that he decided to use his voice as commentary in Shatranj Ke Khiladi since he did not find any suitable role for him.

Story

The film shows in parallel the helpless, historical drama of the Indian kingdom Awadh (whose capital is Lucknow) and its Muslim king Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, who is captured by the British alongside the story of two chess-obsessed noblemen. Nawab, artist and poet, no longer in command, could do nothing but cry in poetic fashion, because the British had already signed with him a treaty of protection. Parallel to this drama is the personal (and sometimes humorous) tale of two rich noblemen of this kingdom, inseparable friends, who became passionately obsessed with the game of shatranj,(chess), neglecting their wives. The role of Captain Weston, so British in his ways, but in love with Urdu poetry, is also worth noting.

In the last scene, after which Mir shoots at Mirza and complains out loud “I won’t have a partner to play chess with”, Mirza responds to him “but you have one in front of you!” (thus making him understand that he forgives him) and he finally concludes that “after nightfall, we will go back home. We both need darkness to hide our faces.”

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Julie

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009
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Julie is a 1975 Hindi film that starred Laxmi in the title role. It also starred Nadira, in an award winning role, and Sridevi as a child star. The film became a box office hit.

Julie was also a musical hit, with award winning music by Rajesh Roshan which won him the Filmfare Award for the year. It had one of the first English language songs in an Indian film – My Heart is Beating, sung by Preeti Sagar.

It is a rare Hindi film based around an Anglo-Indian family.

“Julie” was the remake of Malayalam hit Chattakari (1974) that also starred Laxmi. She would star in yet another remake, the Telugu film, Miss Julie Prema Katha (1975). In 2006, “Julie” was remade in Kannada with Ramya in the title role, and Dino Morea as her lover, though the film wasn’t a success.

Plot

This film depicts the restrictive social conventions regarding intercaste marriage and unwed motherhood in India. Julie (Laxmi) is a Christian Anglo-Indian girl with a loving, but alcoholic father (Om Prakash) and a religiously devout mother (Nadira), a younger brother and sister (Sridevi). She falls in love with her best friend’s (Rita Bhaduri) brother Shashi Bhattacharya (Vikram), a Hindu boy, and she has a passionate encounter with him, which leaves her pregnant. He goes away to college, not knowing about her condition. Her mother is distraught when Julie tells her about the pregnancy. They don’t tell the rest of the family. Her mother thinks about getting Julie an abortion, but a devout Christian (Ruby Myers) talks her out of it. Julie is sent away to have her baby in secret. The rest of the family is told that Julie got a job. After the baby’s birth, Julie’s mother arranges for the child to be left in an orphanage, and demands that Julie return home and forget about the baby.

When she comes back home, her father has passed away. She is now the primary earner in the family. Later, she runs into her Hindu boyfriend and tells him everything. He asks to marry her, but his mother objects to the mixed marriage. She blames Julie for seducing her son and having the baby. Julie’s mother doesn’t want the marriage either, as it will represent a mixed-caste marriage, and she wants to return to England. However, the wisdom of the boyfriend’s fatherUtpal Dutt prevails as he confronts the mothers’ prejudices regarding caste and religion, and urges both to accept the baby boy. The film ends with the mothers offering their full blessings to the young couple, and Julie’s mother promising her grandson she will “never leave him.”

Awards and nominations

Bengal Film Journalists’ Association Awards for “most outstanding work of the year”–Laxmi-[2]

Filmfare Best Actress Award –Laxmi

Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Award –Nadira (actress)

Filmfare Best Music Director Award –Rajesh Roshan

Filmfare Nomination for Best Female Playback Singer — Preeti Sagar for the song “My Heart is Beating”

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Chupke Chupke

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009
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Chupke Chupke (translation: Hush-Hush) is a 1975 Indian film comedy starring Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan, Sharmila Tagore, Jaya Bachchan, Om Prakash, David, Asrani and Keshto Mukherjee. The movie, a remake of the bengali hit Chhadmabeshi, was directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee with music composed by S.D. Burman.

Plot

Professor Parimal Tripathi (Dharmendra) is a botany professor who falls in love with and marries Sulekha (Sharmila Tagore). Parimal loves playing pranks and is the antithesis of regular professors. Sulekha, on the other hand is in awe by her jijaji (brother-in-law) Raghavendra (Om Prakash). She considers her jijaji to be a person of high intellect and looks upon him as her idol. Parimal develops an inferiority complex thanks to Sulekha’s excessive praise of her jijaji and decides to prove that he is also just as smart. Jijaji’s pressing need for a driver who can speak pristine Hindi provides the perfect opportunity for Parimal to enter into his life. Parimal decides to become Pyaremohan Illahbadi, a motor mouth driver who pretends to hate the English language and speak only Hindi. So begins the comedy of errors, as Parimal and Sulekha play prank after prank on the unsuspecting jijaji.

First they pretend that Sulekha is not happy in her new marriage, then they put across the impression that Sulekha is having an affair with Pyaremohan, and if that was not enough they get Parimal’s long time friend Sukumar Sinha (Amitabh Bachchan), who is also a Professor, but of English literature, to temporarily act as Parimal and portray him as a serious and boring lecturer, the complete opposite of Parimal’s character. Pyaremohan’s excessively refined Hindi, his habit of correcting jijaji’s usage of the language and his persistence in getting jijaji to teach him English all serve to irk jijaji to no end and provide for many laughs. Towards the end, Sukumar falls in love with and ends up marrying Vasudha (Jaya Bachchan) who at first believed he was Parimal, Pyaremohan reveals his true identity and jijaji finally admits that he too can make mistakes. The film revolves around the resolution of these funny mishaps.

Music

The music for the film was given by Laxmikant Pyarelal, with lyrics by Anand Bakshi. The movie has a number of memorable songs such as “Chupke Chupke”, “Sa Re Ga Ma”, “Abke Sajan Sawan Mein”.

Degrees of separation

This film is one of two released in 1975 to cast Dharmendra and Amitabh together, the other being Sholay. Apart from these, Ram Balram was the only other film that the two starred in together, if one does not count Dharmendra’s guest appearances in Andha Kanoon and Naseeb, and Amitabh’s cameo in Guddi.

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Sholay

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009
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Sholay (English: Embers or Flames) is an Indian Hindi Western film by Ramesh Sippy. It is the biggest hit in the history of Bollywood, India’s Hindi film industry. Released on August 15, 1975, it starred Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan, Hema Malini, Sanjeev Kumar, Jaya Bhaduri and Amjad Khan. The movie, shot in the rocky terrain of Ramanagara in Karnataka,[1] is the story of two hired hands, trying to capture a ruthless dacoit by the name of Gabbar Singh.

Sholay is the highest grossing film of all time in India. It has earned Rs. 2,36,45,00,000, equivalent to US$ 60 million, after adjusting for inflation. When first released, the film was declared a commercial disaster. Word of mouth convinced movie-goers to give the film a chance and soon it became a box-office phenomenon. It ran for 286 weeks straight (more than five years) in one Mumbai theatre, the Minerva. Sholay racked up a still record 60 golden jubilees across India and doubled its original gross over reruns during the late 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s. Sholay was the first film in the history of Indian cinema to celebrate silver jubilee (25 weeks) at over a hundred theatres across India.

In 1999, BBC India declared it the “Film of the Millennium”; Indiatimes movies ranks the movie amongst the Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films. In that same year, the judges of the 50th annual Filmfare awards awarded it with a special award called Filmfare Best Film of 50 Years.

Production

The film was a lavish production for its time. It took two and a half years to make; it went Rs. 300,000 over budget. Much of the film was set in the rocky terrain of Ramanagaram, a village near Bangalore, Karnataka. The filmmakers had to build a road from the Bangalore highway to Ramanagaram for convenient access to the sets.

In fact, one part of Ramanagaram town was renamed “Sippynagar” after the director of the movie. Even to this day, a visit to the “Sholay rocks” (where the movie was shot) is offered to tourists travelling through Ramanagaram (on the road between Bangalore and Mysore).

Influences and allusions

The movie drew heavily from the conventions of Western films, especially Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns and John Sturges’ The Magnificent Seven. Sholay’s extensive use of slow-motion in shoot-outs was influenced by the westerns of Sam Peckinpah, films such as The Wild Bunch (1969) and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973) The film also alludes to Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, which shows a village hiring mercenaries to protect itself from bandits, and was source to above mentioned Western remake The Magnificent Seven. The Hollywood movie, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) featured two appealing outlaws, similar to Jai and Veeru.

Gabbar Singh was modeled on a real-life dacoit of the same name who menaced the villages around Gwalior in the 1950s. He terrorized the local police. Any policeman captured by the real Gabbar Singh had his ears and nose cut off, and was then released as an object lesson to other policemen.

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Jai Santoshi Maa

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009
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Jai Santoshi Maa is a 1975 low-budget Bollywood film that became one of the top blockbusters of all time. Santosh? M? (also called Santoshi Mata or Santoshi Maa), a goddess of satisfaction, was not widely known prior to the release of this film, but immediately after the release, became a huge phenomenon. Usha Mangeshkar, sister of Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle, sang the devotional songs for the film.

Release and response

This low-budget film with forgotten stars and unknown actors unexpectedly emerged as one of the highest-grossing releases of 1975—sharing the spotlight with the likes of Sholay and Deewar. This bewildered critics and intrigued scholars (resulting in a modest literature on the film as a religio-cultural phenomenon), but made perfect sense to millions of Indian women, who loved its folksy story about a new “Goddess of Satisfaction,” easily accessible through a simple ritual (which the film also demonstrates). A classic example of the “mythological” genre—the original narrative genre of Indian-made films—and one of the most popular such films ever made, it gave a new (and characteristically Indian inflection) to the American pop-critical term “cult film,” for viewers often turned cinemas into temporary temples, leaving their footwear at the door, pelting the screen with flowers and coins, and bowing reverently whenever the goddess herself appeared (which she frequently did, always accompanied by a clash of cymbals). Despite tacky sets and the crudest of special effects, the film features a well-crafted script, with witty dialogs that abound in cultural references, and its devotional songs are extremely catchy (for years they could be heard blaring from temple loudspeakers all over India). Overall, the film has a charmingly playful quality, especially in its (often comically unflattering) portrayal of divine personalities, which is characteristic of folk Hinduism.

The screenplay is based on a vrat katha: a folktale (katha) meant for recitation during the performance of a ritual fast (vrat) honoring a particular deity and undertaken in order to achieve a stated goal. The Santoshi Ma vrat seems to have become popular in north India during the 1960s, spreading among lower middle-class women by word of mouth and through an inexpensive “how-to” pamphlet and religious poster of the goddess. However, the printed story is very sketchy and the film greatly embellishes it, adding a second narrative to its tale of a long-suffering housewife who gets relief through worshiping Santoshi Ma.

Awards and nominations

  • BFJA Award for Best Male Playback Singer (Hindi Section) –Pradeep for the song “Yahan Wahan”
  • BFJA Award for Best Female Playback Singer (Hindi Section)–Usha Mangeshkar“
  • Filmfare Nomination for Best Female Playback Singer–Usha Mangeshkar for the song “Main To Aarti”

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Deewaar

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009
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Deewaar, or Deewar is a classic Indian movie, directed by Indian director Yash Chopra. Built upon the angry young man persona of Amitabh Bachchan, the movie came at a time when the lofty heights of freedom movements were dashed by the stark reality of corruption that had steeped into society. The story is unique because of the inherent moral ambiguity in the leading character; Bollywood films usually portray an unreal distinction between good and evil.

It is remembered for its powerful dialogue (Salim-Javed) and performances by the lead actor Amitabh Bachchan who was ably supported by Shashi Kapoor, playing the role of his younger brother. Amitabh Bachchan’s character, Vijay Verma, is said to have been based on the life of the Bombay (Mumbai) gangster, Haji Mastan Mirza. Deewaar followed Zanjeer, another path breaking movie for Amitabh Bachchan, though he lost the Filmfare Best Actor award to Sanjeev Kumar(Aandhi) that year.

Indiatimes Movies ranks Deewaar amongst the Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films. The film became a “superhit” at the box office in 1975, ranking in at number 4.

The film was later, remade in Tamil as Thee (1980) starring Rajnikanth, Suman and Sripriya, and Telugu as Magaadu starring NTR and Ramakrishna.

Cast

  • Amitabh Bachchan … Vijay Verma
  • Shashi Kapoor … Ravi Verma
  • Nirupa Roy … Sumitra Devi (Mother)
  • Neetu Singh … Veera Narang
  • Parveen Babi … Anita

Credits

  • Director: Yash Chopra
  • Producer: Gulshan Rai (Trimurti Films)
  • Writers: Salim-Javed
  • Art Director: Desh Mukherjee
  • Chief Asst. Director: Ramesh Talwar
  • Editor: Pran Mehra
  • Lyrics: Sahir Ludhiyanvi

Awards and nominations

  • Filmfare Best Movie Award- Gulshan Rai – Producer
  • Filmfare Best Director Award- Yash Chopra
  • Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award – Shashi Kapoor
  • Filmfare Best Story Award – Salim Khan & Javed Akhtar
  • Filmfare Best Dialogue Award – Salim Khan & Javed Akhtar
  • Filmfare Best Sound Award – M.A. Shaikh
  • Filmfare Nomination for Best Actor-Amitabh Bachchan
  • Filmfare Nomination for Best Supporting Actress-Nirupa Roy

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