Numero Unos - A survey of the top hit films: 1960s

Vi segnalo l'articolo Numero Unos - A survey of the top hit films: 1960s, di Rajiv Vijayakar, pubblicato ieri da Bollywood Hungama. Nel 1960 il campione d'incassi è Mughal-E-Azam, uno dei più sontuosi successi della storia del cinema indiano. Una curiosità: il numero uno del 1964, Sangam (di Raj Kapoor), è la prima pellicola hindi ad includere numerose sequenze girate all'estero, precisamente in Italia, Francia e Svizzera. 

'The Top Guns

The kind of wide variety we saw in the (...) '50s continued, reflecting how audiences could be demanding. The winners of the '60s were:

Mughal-E-Azam, a historical romantic epic (1960)

Ganga Jumna, a 'dacoit' [bandito armato] drama (1961)

Bees Saal Baad, a supernatural thriller (1962)

Mere Mehboob, a Muslim social and romantic triangle (1963)

Sangam, a romantic triangle (1964)

Waqt, a social (1965)

Phool Aur Patthar, a social (1966)

Upkar, a patriotic social (1967)

Ankhen, an espionage action thriller (1968) and a tie between

Do Raaste, a family drama [1969]

Aradhana, a love story (1969)

The epic beginning

The beginning of this decade was anything but modern. Mughal-E-Azam was the legendary love story of Anarkali and Prince Salim last seen in the 1953 topper Anarkali, but the K. Asif epic was conceived and executed on a mammoth scale. The attention was shared not just by the lovers but by the father-son tussle between Emperor Akbar, enacted magnificently by Prithviraj Kapoor, and a defiant Salim essayed by Dilip Kumar. The ethereal Madhubala played the courtesan and the music by Naushad (including the opulent background score) was also on an epic scale.

Everything about Mughal-E-Azam was grand and had blockbuster written all over, including the advance booking queues (people slept on the pavements outside the main Mumbai theatre the previous night!) and the premiere (where the film's prints arrived on an elephant). Incredibly, though everyone still prefers the black-and-white classic over the abridged colorized version released in 2004, the fact remains that even the latter modernized avatar proved a hit, when released in Diwali week and pitted against contemporary films starring Shah Rukh Khan (Veer-Zaara) and Akshay Kumar (Aitraaz)! So in 1960, one can understand why the nearest contenders - Barsaat Ki Raat, Kohinoor, Chaudhvin Ka Chand and Jis Desh Men Ganga Behti Hai - simply did not stand a chance!

The trailblazers

After this came an array of trailblazers. Dilip Kumar's home production, Ganga Jumna, directed by Nitin Bose, made the Bhojpuri dialect used in the film so popular that it almost single-handedly fathered the Bhojpuri film industry that is so huge today, even in some international pockets. It is a combination of the success of this film and the request of India's first president Dr. Rajendra Prasad that made possible the first Bhojpuri film, Ganga Maiyya Tohe Piyari Chadhaibo released in 1962. Ganga Jumna was the first time that two real-life brothers - Dilip Kumar and Nasir Khan portrayed reel brothers who were pitted against each other. Deewaar was just one of the many Hindi and regional films inspired by this classic, despite the mixed element of the powerful mother from Mother India, the 1957 topper.

And if Biren Nag's Bees Saal Baad set into motion the supernatural trend in the real sense, with Woh Kaun Thi? and many other small and big films as the direct consequences of its 'haunting' success, H.S. Rawail's Mere Mehboob and Raj Kapoor's Sangam together gave new boost to the romantic triangle as a foolproof formula for big-time success. Rawail himself tried to reprise his film with disastrous results as the 1982 Deedar-E-Yaar. Sangam was, of course, the first Bollywood film to be extensively shot abroad, in Italy, France and Switzerland.

After the 1950s Mother India, the 1960s Waqt directed by Yash Chopra for producer-brother B.R. Chopra was Hindi cinema's first multi-starrer film. It also became the first contemporary lost-and-found drama of a family torn asunder and reunited in the last reel and remains a benchmark blueprint for this genre. Ramanand Sagar's Ankhen, along with 1967 blockbuster Farz, set into motion a temporary trend of spy dramas that however died down after films in subsequent years like Humsaya and Shatranj bombed.

New brands

If Bees Saal Baad introduced Bengali boy Biswajeet to Hindi cinema, it was the 1966 Phool Aur Patthar directed by O.P. Ralhan that made Dharmendra a big star six years after his debut. As the hunk with a heart of molten gold, he instantly became branded as the He-Man, a firmly-etched image even today. Phool Aur Patthar dared have the hero strip to the waist to show his brawn, and also kept him away from lip-synched songs.

Upkar, in turn, entrenched Dharmendra's good friend and co-struggler Manoj Kumar as Mr. Bharat, the man who epitomized the idealistic Indian. It also marked his official debut as director (after ghost-directing Shaheed) and changed the image of Numero Uno screen baddie Pran to a sympathetic character. It was the start of a Mr. Midas phase in Manoj's career that lasted till 1981 and included the 1974 Numero Uno hit Roti Kapada Aur Makaan.

The tie between two films both starring the new young heartthrob Rajesh Khanna at the end of the decade heralded a paradigm shift to come in the '70s in Hindi cinema. Kaka (as he came to be known) became the new icon, riding in on the wings of the Kishore Kumar chartbuster Mere Sapno Ki Rani from Aradhana. Raj Khosla's Do Raaste, the less costly film of the two, matched Aradhana in box-office grading and the actor formed super-successful pairings with Mumtaz and Laxmikant-Pyarelal with it just as he struck a fruitful association with Sharmila Tagore, director Shakti Samanta and R.D. Burman, who had assisted Aradhana's composer, his father S.D. Burman. The two films heralded the shifting of these two directors best known for crime-related genres to socials, but most importantly, with his songs in both these films, Kishore Kumar became a frontline playback singer for the first time and the prime voice for Rajesh Khanna, now touted as India's first Superstar and a Phenomenon'.

Vedi anche:

- Numero Unos - A survey of the top hit films: 1950s. Il testo raccoglie i link a tutti gli articoli della serie.

- The underrated sixties in films, 10 agosto 2012

Numero Unos - A survey of the top hit films: 1950s

Questa mattina Bollywood Hungama ha pubblicato Numero Unos - A survey of the top hit films: 1950s, di Rajiv Vijayakar, il primo di una serie di sette articoli dedicati ai titoli campioni d'incasso della cinematografia hindi suddivisi per decennio. Si parte dagli anni cinquanta. L'India ha da poco conquistato l'indipendenza e subito le atrocità della partizione. Le pellicole di critica sociale vanno per la maggiore. Raj Kapoor è il nome più sfavillante. Le sceneggiature con protagoniste femminili non spaventano il pubblico ma anzi incendiano il botteghino. Mother India, un classicone da paura, entra nella cinquina dei migliori film stranieri agli Oscar (e verrà sconfitto da Le notti di Cabiria di Fellini).

'The 'rolls' of honour

Amazing but true: the biggest hit of the very first year under discussion - 1950 - was Filmistan's Samadhi, a thriller set during India's freedom struggle, narrating a claimed real-life incident in the life of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. And what a wide variety we saw in the Numero Uno hits of this decade, when India was just celebrating the joys of newfound Independence and yet recovering from the aftermath of Partition traumas and facing new problems and internal socio-political conflicts! The nine other winners of the '50s after Samadhi were:

Awaara, a social (1951)

Baiju Bawra, a musical with a historical base (1952)

Anarkali, a historical romance (1953)

Nagin, a costume fantasy (1954)

Shree 420, a social (1955)

C.I.D., a crime thriller (1956)

Mother India, a social (1957)

Madhumati, love story based on reincarnation (1958) and

Anari, a social (1959)

The common thread

The only surefire common thread that ran through all these films was their huge connect with the audience regardless of genre, proving that the ticket-paying viewer was extremely smart in demanding variety and standout fare. Significantly, five of the ten films were produced by just two banners: Filmistan (Samadhi, Anarkali, Nagin) and R.K. Films (Awaara, Shree 420). Raj Kapoor, producer-director and actor of the latter two films, was also the hero of Anari. Together, these three films best epitomized the brand image Raj successfully created for himself - of the Chaplin-esque underdog. Ashok Kumar was a producing partner with Filmistan in Samadhi and Guru Dutt, also an actor-filmmaker, produced C.I.D. but did not star in it. And even in later decades, home productions of stars garnered a significant chunk among BO toppers!

Though the top hits indicated the superstar status of Ashok Kumar and the new Trinity of Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar (Madhumati) and Dev Anand (C.I.D.), it was always the film that made the star: Bharat Bhushan's (and even Meena Kumari's) innings took off only with Baiju Bawra. Sunil Dutt, Rajendra Kumar and Raaj Kumar broke through with Mother India, while Waheeda Rehman made her debut in a negative role with C.I.D.. Even Bina Rai really hit big-time with Anarkali, while leading man Pradeep Kumar set off on the highway to stardom with his two consecutive Numero Unos: Anarkali and Nagin, incidentally the last two highs in the career of common director Nandlal Jaswantlal who had started out in the silent era! It is interesting to see that the '50s had the maximum female-centric super-hits: besides Anarkali, there were Nagin and Madhumati (both Vyjayanthimala) topped by Mother India with that ultimate protagonist - a strong, rooted Indian woman who could be Lakshmi, Saraswati as well as Durga when needed - immortalized by Nargis. Raj Kapoor and Nargis led the star-roster with three films each, two of them (Awaara, Shree 420) as co-stars. 

The final common factor to all films was their popular music scores. (...) It showed how music would always be the major factor in giving a film both a great 'opening draw' and also a second-time watch repeat value. (...)

Leading the pack

Mother India's success was a spectacular, Technicolor trouncing of 1957 heavyweights like Naya Daur, Pyaasa, Do Aankhen Barah Haath and Tumsa Nahin Dekha to clinch the top spot. No other year in the '50s had such serious competition, and that music alone never made any film a blockbuster was borne out by the superior soundtracks of all those near contenders! Ranking among Hindi cinema's all-time biggest blockbusters, Mother India, in an era when movie tickets cost a rupee or less, did a business of Rs 4 crores [1 crore = 10.000.000]! The film, produced and directed by Mehboob Khan as an updated remake of his '40s film Aurat, is the only one in this elite list to make it to the Oscars shortlist for Best Foreign Film.

Setting trends and a pattern

There seemed to be a clear preference for socials with messages in the prevalent euphoric yet confused and thus turbulent society where films had to reflect realities and yet offer relief from everyday problems. Even Baiju Bawra, Anarkali and C.I.D. commented on society, and only Nagin and Madhumati were about only entertainment. If this decade saw filmmaking legends like Raj Kapoor (Awaara and Shree 420), Vijay Bhatt (Baiju Bawra), Bimal Roy (Madhumati) and Mehboob Khan (Mother India) earn new laurels, it also witnessed the career breakthroughs of future aces like Raj Khosla (C.I.D.) and Hrishikesh Mukherjee (Anari). Kapoor, in particular, maintained an incredible record of at least one Numero Uno film for each of his active five decades: before Awaara there had been the path breaking Barsaat in 1949, and he was to follow up with Sangam (1964), Bobby (1973) and Ram Teri Ganga Maili (1985)!

Awaara is, as we know, the first Indian film to make a solid mark outside the country: its music, like the movie itself, became a rage in Russia and many other nations to the extent that the names Raj Kapoor and Nargis and the song 'Awara Hoon' became synonyms for India and were akin to magic wands that opened doors and hearts for touring Indians! Baiju Bawra, on the other hand, gave an impetus to the use of simplified Indian classical music in cinema, and Nagin and Madhumati were the respective forerunners of many later fantasies about snakes in human form and reincarnation dramas.

There were some truly piquant trivia: Madhumati's climax was rehashed in Om Shanti Om, the top hit of 2007, while Anarkali's tragic love for Prince Salim would be depicted again in an all-time hit just after this decade ended - Mughal-E-Azam in 1960. Shashi Kapoor, a child star in both Samadhi and Awaara, was to feature in just two multi-hero films later in this elite list: Waqt and Roti Kapada Aur Makaan. Shree 420 was recycled as Shah Rukh Khan's Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman and Deewaar was admittedly part-inspired by Mother India. And yes, funster Mehmood had a tiny standout cameo as a hired killer in C.I.D.!'.

Vedi anche:

- Numero Unos - A survey of the top hit films: 1960s, 4 luglio 2012

- Numero Unos - A survey of the top hit films: 1970s, 11 luglio 2012

- Numero Unos - A survey of the top hit films: 1980s, 17 luglio 2012

- Numero Unos - A survey of the top hit films: 1990s, 5 agosto 2012

- Numero Unos - A survey of the top hit films: 2000s, 10 agosto 2012

Awaara entra nella Top 100 di Time

Richard Corliss ha aggiornato con venti nuovi titoli la lista dei 100 migliori film selezionati da Time, lista compilata a partire dal 1923, anno di nascita della rivista. Awaara di Raj Kapoor è fra questi. Nella motivazione si legge: 'Raj Kapoor was the great star-auteur of India’s postcolonial golden age of movies - Cary Grant and Cecil B. DeMille in one handsome package. The ’50s films he headlined and directed became huge hits not just in his newly freed homeland but also across the Arab crescent from Indonesia to North Africa. Kapoor, who modeled his screen persona on Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp, was 26 when he filmed Awaara (The Tramp). A pompous judge (Kapoor’s father Prithviraj) disowns his wife (all-time Indian cinema mom Leela Chitnis) when some months after being kidnapped she returns pregnant; his baseless suspicion is that the bandit she’s been with is the father. In ignominy and in secret, she bears the judge’s son (Kapoor), who is raised a vagabond and, decades later, goes on trial before the judge. Sensational revelations! As Kapoor sees it, the wellspring of these torrents of guilt is a society divided into Brahmins and outcasts. Beyond the social finger-pointing, Awaara is a glistening showcase for Kapoor and the great India siren Nargis (his lover onscreen and off); it features a sadistic-sexy beach scene and a dream sequence that starts in delirium and revs up to delicious. And of course it’s a musical, whose main song, “Awaara Hoon,” by the famed Shankar-Jaikishan duo, soared to the top of the pop charts in India, the U.S.S.R. and China'.

Raj Kapoor: retrospettiva a Londra

Il British Film Institute ha organizzato un'interessante retrospettiva dedicata al leggendario attore e regista Raj Kapoor. Dal 4 al 29 febbraio 2012 verranno proiettati a Londra numerosi titoli della filmografia di Raj Kapoor.