The 1981 film Kaalia was a big commercial success. It cemented the status of Amitabh Bachchan as a popular star, and his increasing identification as the ‘angry young man’ of Hindi cinema with a stream of similar roles. Director Tinu Anand‘s first outing with the star, but not his last, would include many popular songs…
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When the film Meri Surat Teri Ankhen was released in 1963, the already venerable Ashok Kumar had been a leading man in Indian cinema for nearly three decades. He would go on to act for an equal number of decades after this point, so this could be seen as a middle point in his career.…
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There isn’t enough that can be said about SD Burman‘s talent as a music director. He brought to it an old-school class and memories of folk music and classical music, while also imparting it with a surprising modernity. What he also did on occasion was to sing his own songs for films, with a voice…
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Hindi films have always been very fond of having songs which have a hidden meaning to the audience and some of the players on screen, but seem perfectly innocent to everyone else. I’ve spoken before of the typical Hindi film party song, with words that do everything from profess love to mock the antagonist of…
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By the end of the 70s, Amitabh Bachchan was the undisputed king of Hindi cinema and he had settled into a comfortable niche of angry action hero and romantic rogue that worked out quite well for him with almost every outing. Kaalia, released in 1981, was another in this line of Amitabh starers, along with…
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Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi is the first Hindi film I remember seeing in its entirety. I’m sure there were others before then, but this one made an impact as a film, something separate and different from all that other stuff on TV. That effect was in no small part because of the songs. As an…
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