Sholay

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For other uses, see Sholay (disambiguation).

Sholay (Flames)
Directed by	Ramesh Sippy
Produced by	G.P. Sippy
Written by	Salim Khan, Javed Akhtar
Starring	Sanjeev Kumar, Amitabh Bachan, Dharmendra, Hema Malini, Jaya Bhaduri, Amjad Khan
Music by	Rahul Dev Burman
Cinematography	Dwarka Divecha
Release date(s)	1975
Running time	188 min / India:204 min (director's cut) / USA:162 min
Country	India
Language	Hindi
IMDb profile

Sholay (Hindi: शोले, Urdu: شعلے) (advertised in English as Embers, Flames, or Flames of the Sun) is one of the biggest blockbusters in the history of Bollywood, (India's Mumbai film industry). It was released in 1975 and starred Sanjeev Kumar, Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bhaduri, and Hema Malini. Amjad Khan, who played the villain of the piece, held his own against some of the biggest stars in 1970s Bollywood cinema.

It is the highest grossing film of all time in India. It has earned Rs. 2,134,500,000, equivalent to US $ 50 million,^[1] after adjusting for inflation. In 1999, BBC India declared it the "Film of the Millennium"; in 2005, the judges of the 50th annual Filmfare awards called it the best film of the last 50 years.

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 in one Mumbai theatre, the Minerva.

Contents 1 Synopsis 2 Credits 3 Production 3.1 Inspiration 4 Response 4.1 Awards 4.2 Legacy 5 Soundtrack 6 Trivia 7 Notes 8 References 9 External links

[edit] Synopsis

A retired police officer, Thakur Baldev Singh (Sanjeev Kumar) gets two convicts, Jaidev and Veeru (Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra), to capture Gabbar Singh, a bandit chief who has been terrorizing the small village of Ramgarh. Gabbar massacred the Thakur’s entire family (with the exception of his daughter-in-law, who was not at home at the moment) and mutilated the Thakur. Unable to take revenge himself, Thakur Baldev Singh must recruit help and turns to the two ne'er-do-wells.

Once in the village, the cynical young Jaidev and Veeru find themselves growing fond of the villagers, taking pity on their sufferings under dacoit tyranny. Some of the villagers evoke more than fondness: both Veeru and Jai fall in love. Veeru is attracted to Basanti (played by Hema Malini), a feisty young woman who makes her living driving a tanga, or a horse-cart. Jai is drawn to Radha (Jaya Bhaduri), the reclusive widowed daughter-in-law.

Bloody clashes between Jai, Veeru, and the bandits follow. After much sorrow and suffering, the bandits are slain.

The film has two known endings. The original ending (shown in the Eros-released DVD) has Thakur baldev Singh killing Gabbar Singh, trampling him with spike-soled shoes.The Censor Board of India, The C.B.F.C. (Central Board of Film Certification) , however, found the ending unacceptable as they thought that Police officers or even ex-police officers, should not be shown to commit murder. A new ending was filmed, in which the police arrest Gabbar Singh in the nick of time. Several other, smaller, changes were made, as well.

Barring the ending, the two versions of the film are mostly the same. In 2006 the remake Ram Gopal Varma Ke Sholay will be ready

[edit] Credits

Cast

• Sanjeev Kumar as Thakur Baldev Singh
• Dharmendra as Veeru
• Amitabh Bachchan as Jaidev
• Amjad Khan as Gabbar Singh
• Hema Malini as Basanti
• Jaya Bhaduri as Radha
• Iftekhar as Radha's father
• Jagdeep as Surma Bhopali
• Asrani as the comic jailor
• Viju Khote as Kalia
• Mac Mohan as Sambha
• A.K. Hangal as the blind imam
• Sachin as Ahmed, the imam's son
• Leela Mishra as mausi, Basanti's aunt
• Satyen Kappu as Ramlaal (Thakur's servant)
• Helen as the sexy Gypsy dancer
• Jalal Agha as a Gypsy singer

Crew

The film was produced by G.P. Sippy and directed by his son Ramesh Sippy. It was written by scriptwriters Salim-Javed. R. D. Burman contributed the music. Anand Bakshi was the lyricist. It was the first Hindi (and possibly Indian) movie to have a stereophonic soundtrack.

[edit] 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. The filmmakers had to build a road from the Bangalore highway to Ramnagaram 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).

[edit] Inspiration

Critics and movie-goers agree that the film was not totally original.

• It drew heavily upon the conventions of Western films, especially Sergio Leone's spaghetti Westerns. The massacre of a family near the beginning of the film is similar to a scene from Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West as well as a scene from John Ford's The Searchers.
• 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 first film to show a village hiring mercenaries to protect itself from bandits was the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. Hollywood remade Seven Samurai as The Magnificent Seven in 1960, fifteen years before Sholay.
• Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) featured two appealing outlaws, just like Jai and Veeru.
• Critics also cite the Indian films Mera Gaon Mera Desh (1971) and Khote Sikkay (1973) as possible inspirations.
• 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.
• The music for the song "Mehbooba" was "inspired" by a Western tune, "Say You Love Me" by Demis Roussos, a singer-songwriter of Greek origin.
• There is a scene in Sergio Leone's For A Few Dollars More (1965) in which an outlaw, El Indio, loads a gun and threatens to kill another man. This is said to have inspired the Sholay scene in which Gabbar Singh threatens to kill his rebellious followers.
• The protagonist of the western One-Eyed Jacks (1960) played by Marlon Brando has a double-sided coin which he uses to his advantage much like the Jaidev character in Sholay.

[edit] Response

Box-Office Gross :

Nett Gross: Rs. 15 crores ( $ 3.4 Million)

All time Adjusted Nett Gross: Rs. 157 Crores ($35.2 million) ALL TIME TOP GROSSER IN INDIA.[1]

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Sholay was released on 15 August 1975 in the Bombay region. Audiences were light at first, and the critics were harsh.

• The critic K.L. Amladi of India Today called the film a "dead ember" and added, "Thematically, it's a gravely flawed attempt."^[2]
• Filmfare said that the film was an unsuccessful mincing of Western style with Indian milieu, making it a "...imitation western—neither here nor there."^[2]

Trade journals and columnists called the expensive film a flop ^[2].

Then a curious thing happened. The cinema halls started to fill up. People weren't buying tickets in advance — at the start — but they were coming to the theatre to see a film that their friends had liked. Before long, the film became a popular craze. All shows were sold out.

• Ticket scalpers could get outrageous prices for tickets.
• At some theaters, the queue to ticket counters stretched more than a kilometer.^[2]. Fans stood in line during monsoon rains to buy tickets.
• There are some fans who saw the film thirty, forty, even a hundred times.^[2]

Watching Sholay in theatres became something like a karaoke experience. Many fans in the audience had memorized all the dialogues and spoke them out loud, in chorus with the characters in the film. Some fans had even memorised the sound-effects.^[2]

Ten weeks after its release, the film was declared a superhit. On 11 October, 1975, the film was released in several other Indian film distribution districts. Sholay grossed about 35 crore rupees in its first run, a record that remained unbroken for the next nineteen years. Sholay ran for more than five years. At Mumbai's Minerva theater, it was shown in regular shows for three continuous years, and then in matinee shows for two more years. Even in 240th week of its release, Sholay was packing the theaters.

Sholay is the all time highest grosser in india with 157 crores gross till date.

[edit] Awards

When it was first released, Sholay won only one Filmfare award: film editor M. S. Shinde won for Best editing. He had edited 3,00,000 feet of film into 20,000 feet of theatrical release. ^[3] After the censors mandated cuts, the film was 18,000 feet and ran for 3 hours and 20 minutes.

The initially-ignored film had its revenge at 2005's 50th Filmfare Awards, when it received an award as the Best Film of 50 Years. Ramesh Sippy was there to receive the trophy.

[edit] Legacy

Sholay has inspired many imitations, in cinema and television, and has spawned a whole sub-genre of films whimsically dubbed Curry Westerns as a tribute to Spaghetti Westerns. None of them has had the success of the original film. The latest attempt to trade on Sholay's fame is a Ram Gopal Varma film, still being cast, which was announced as being "in the spirit of Sholay". The producers of original movie are threatening to sue for copyright violation.

The stars of the film appeared in other films; they did not seem to be limited by their roles in Sholay. However, some of the supporting actors never escaped the shadow of their hit film.

Amjad Khan, who played the bandit chief so brilliantly, had an undistinguished film career afterwards^{[citation needed]}. He played Gabbar Singh again in the 1991 Ramgarh Ke Sholay, a parody. He also reprised the role in a commercial for biscuits.

Comedian Jagdeep, who played Soorma Bhopali in the film, also attempted to capitalize on his Sholay success; he directed and played the lead role in the 1988 film Soorma Bhopali; Dharmendra and Amitabh also appeared.^[4] The film was not a success.

Sholay is out of the theaters, but thanks to television, VCRs, and DVDs, it is widely available and still extremely popular. In the year 1996, "Sholay" was first shown on the Indian government-run Doordarshan television channel; streets were virtually empty during the show. ^{[citation needed]} Young Indians who had not been born when Sholay was released will still have seen the film and know the dialogues and characters.

[edit] Soundtrack

R. D. Burman, who composed the music for the film, was one of the most sought after composers in 1975, when the film was released. However, out of the twelve soundtracks he composed that year, Khushboo and Aandhi were critical successes and Deewar and Khel Khel Mein mild commercial hits. No other Burman film soundtrack that year attained the resounding critical and commercial success of Sholay.

The songs picturized in the film were the following:

1. Jab Tak Hai Jaan, sung by Lata Mangeshkar
2. Koi Haseena, sung by Kishore Kumar and Hema Malini
3. Holi Ke Din, sung by Kishore Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar
4. Yeh Dosti, sung by Kishore Kumar and Manna Dey
5. Mehbooba Mehbooba, sung by Rahul Dev Burman

A qawwali, Aa Shuru Hota Hai Phir, was also recorded, but it was never picturized or released.

However, at the time, the songs from Sholay attracted less attention than the dialogues — a rarity for Bollywood. This prompted the producers to release audio-cassettes with only dialogues.^[5]

Another aspect of the soundtrack that was widely appreciated and has gone through a number of re-releases were the instrumental scores. The title track, which has a particular emphasis on acoustic guitar and brass sections is still well anthologized and is an example of Burman's foray into fusing Indian sounds with Latin and Afro-Cuban elements. Burman also created some disparate segments including a sparse track to augment the ferocity of Gabbar Singh amidst the desolate location and one to highlight the Thakur's shock at seeing his family exterminated.^[6]

Among the songs, two versions of Yeh Dosti were released, an extended version which was cited as the "happy version" and a shorter one called the "sad version". For many years this device became a mainstay of Hindi film soundtracks, with the sad concise version of the "happy song" played during the sad scenes.

No mention of the soundtrack is complete without a discussion of Mehbooba Mehbooba. This song displayed Burman's impressive vocal skills as a singer, and courage to introduce gypsy elements into Indian film music, as a composer. This song has been highly anthologized, remixed, and recreated. A notable recent version being one created by the Kronos Quartet for their Grammy-nominated album You've stolen my heart.^[7]

[edit] Trivia

• A remake starring Amitabh Bachchan, Mohanlal, and Ajay Devgan is expected to be released in May 2007.
• Sanjeev Kumar wanted to play Gabbar Singh, but the producers insisted that he play the police officer.
• Dharmendra was interested in playing Gabbar Singh, but changed his mind when Ramesh Sippy told him Basanti was to be played by Hema Malini.
• The director's original choice for Jaidev too was different. Shatrughan Sinha was almost signed, when Amitabh convinced the producers that he would be the right choice.
• The producers wanted Danny Denzongpa to play the bandit chief, but he was committed to Feroz Khan's "Dharmatma". Amjad Khan was a second choice.^[8]
• The scene in which Thakur's family is killed was cut by the censor board; the murder of a small child was deemed too horrific to show.
• The film sparked two real life romances. Amitabh married Jaya Bhaduri, who played the widowed daughter-in-law, in 1973, during the filming. Dharmendra married Hema Malini in 1980, five years after the release of the film.
• Amjad Khan prepared to play a bandit chief by reading a book titled Abhishapth Chambal, which told of the exploits of Chambal dacoits. The book was written by Taroon Bhaduri, who happened to be the father of Jaya Bhaduri.
• The screenwriters, Salim-Javed, named Veeru and Jai after a couple of Salim's college friends.^[9]
• According to some sources Sholay has always been the number one grossing film of all time, in the Indian film industry.^[10] Hum Aapke Hain Kaun is ranked fourth followed by Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, Mughal E Azam and Mother India are second and third respectively.
• From September 1st through the 5th, 2006, the Walter Reade Theater of New York City's Lincoln Center, held screenings of "Sholay." The film is said to be one of the favorite's of the Theater's program director, Richard Peña.

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Sholay at the Internet Movie Database
• Raheja, Dinesh. Why Sholay is a Cult Classic Rediff.com.
• BBC Asian Network
• University of Iowa article
• Sholay Photostory with trivias