Loha garam hai

Every few years I get the itch to watch the movie 'Sholay.'  Since its release in 1975, I might have watched it a dozen times; but who is counting?

I get a similar itch to watch The Godfather, Casablanca and the Telugu Gundamma Katha (Taming of the shrew-ish plot).

"Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

"Leave the gun, take the canoli."

"Loha garam hai, maar hathoda."

Lines like these make the entire movie come rushing through the mind with all the related emotions.  No wonder that these movies cause a mental itch once every so often!  Thus, every year I watch one of these movies in a spontaneous manner.

This week, I watched Sholay and followed it up by reading in one sitting, the book by Anupama Chopra on the making of the movie.  The author is a graduate of Northwestern University and is the spouse of a Bollywood director who has made recent blockbusters of his own -the movie 3 idiots and so on.  (The book did have one un-politically correct term that is mentioned in the passing while describing the making of Westerns in Hollywood.  That remark made me cringe. But I don't think it was glaringly obvious).

The shortest description I could give of Sholay is this:  A curry-western worthy of Sergio Leone that has elements of Seven Samurai, which forever changed Indian movie making and idiom.

Here are six anecdotes from the book that I found fresh and interesting:

Amjad Khan lucked into the role of Gabbar Singh

The actor who iconically played the villain clearly modeled his character after  the character of El Indio in a Clint Eastwood's Dollar trilogy, For A Few Dollars More.

He nearly did not get the part.  Danny Denzongpa was already cast.  But Denzongpa was shooting the remake of The Godfather set in Afghanistan and had to give this project up.  Amjad Khan bumped into the one of the script writing duo on the streets of Mumbai, who then thought he would be a good replacement for the part.

But then flight delays on his trip to his first shoot nearly cost him his role in the movie.


Water tank scene

Dharmendra's best scene atop the village water tank was written at the last minute.

Javed Akthar was to deliver the script of the scene and did not get around to it due to other writing demands in the same movie.  Finally under pressure, he wrote it resting a piece of paper on the hood of a car before boarding his flight.  Every line of dialogue in this scene rolls off so easily to fans!

The making of Casablanca has similar tales to tell.  Umberto Eco's very well written 1985 essay on Casablanca narrates how the script writers were making up the story and dialogue as they went along.  The writers themselves did not know how Casablanca plot would end.

Indian Emergency and Censorship

The 'emergency' under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was just initiated in 1975.  (I have very vague personal recollection of this as a kid).  The Indian Film censor board felt quite empowered to tell artists what they could and could not say.

Ramesh Sippy, the movie's director was dismayed when the entire ending was asked to be re-done so that the police would not be portrayed as ineffective and that no man was above the law; especially a policeman.

So while the movie was playing in theaters in the 1970s, the ending was as the Censor Board dictated.  Now, 40 years later, both versions are available on video.

Timing of the train

A scene that carries forward the lead romance called for a train to be running alongside the 'tanga,.'  the horse buggy that the heroine Hema Malini rode.  The lyrics called for it too.  However the shooting was in a remote village and the train would come only once so often and its schedule was unreliable.

It took forever to prepare, rehearse, be ready and shoot the scene when the train showed up.

Who is the experienced actor here?

Actors Sachin and Mac Mahon

Amitabh Bachchan who was just kicking off his legendary movie career (he had not had his first hit yet and had 10 straight flops), was to pick the young Sachin off his horse.  Sachin was playing dead.

Bachchan was giving instructions to Sachin on how to play dead on the horse, so that when he lifted him off the it and laid him on the ground, the effect would be real on film.

Sachin responded easily to the instruction.

Later Amitabh asked Sachin how long he had been acting.  Sachin replied, "oh! about 60 movies."  He had been acting since he was a child.

Sambha

Sambha played by actor Mac Mahon was despondent because all but one of his scenes lay on the cutting room floor.  In the scene that remained, he is asked to cite how much reward the government has placed for the capture of Gabbar Singh and he replies, "Rs. 50,000."

Mac Mahon was so dejected that he asked the director to just cut him out entirely.  The director assured him that he was very important to the movie and establishing the central character in the introductory scene.

Many many years of acting later, Mac Mahon finds himself being referred as Sambha.  And when fans want his autograph, they ask it to be signed as Sambha.

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Fabulous movie.  Rewarding book.

I await the next itch.