It’s been 42 years since one of Bollywood’s greatest films, Sholay, had released. The film was much talked about at the time of its release, mainly due to its star cast with superstar Dharmendra headlining the cast, along with Sanjeev Kumar, Hema Malini, Jaya Bachchan, Amitabh Bachchan and the debutante, Amjad Khan. It’s a widely known fact that upon release, the film was a disaster of epic proportions, initially. The film was trashed by most of the film critics and audience showed no interest in this western curry served by Ramesh Sippy as they picked Jai Santoshi Maa over it. This led the makers and all the actors involved, think they have burnt their hands with this one. However, it was after disastrous first two weeks that the film picked up and as they say, rest is history.
Sholay then went on to create several records and even ran for five years at the Minerva theatre in Mumbai. The film released on August 15, 1975, an Independence Day releases which created history.
Talking about the lackluster reviews it received, we stumbled upon an old newspaper paper cutting that carries a review of the film. As has been reported all these years, this review did trash the film but what surprised the most was the fact that this review not once mentioned Amitabh Bachchan’s name. In the whole review, he’s been referred to either as ‘Dharam’s co-killer’ or ‘Dharam’s friend.’ It’s shocking and funny enough to see that Bollywood’s biggest superstar, Amitabh Bachchan, wasn’t even mentioned once by his name in what can be called the biggest hit of his career. I can’t think of any reason his name wasn’t even mentioned in the review. Though at the time of the film’s release, he wasn’t as big a star as Dharmedra, he was known and successful enough to get credit where it’s due. In fact, even Amjad Khan, who was a newbie back then, is mentioned here, though again shockingly his act wasn’t considered as menacing. And now his Gabbar Singh is considered as the greatest villain in the history of Indian cinema.
Check out the review of Sholay below:
And in today’s time, such is the craze of this 1975 classic that when it was released in 3D in 2013, I remember catching a show in a packed theatre.
Films will come and go, Sholay will forever remain the greatest film in the history of Indian cinema…