Seventh Heaven : Satte Pe Satta

Revisiting Seventh Heaven..

Satte Pe Satta

Released 40 Years back on 22.1.82.

Satte Pe Satta is an iconic classical musical comedy in a truly commercial format.

Satte Pe Satta's cast included the top stars of the decade: Amitabh Bachchan, Hema Malini and Amjad Khan, with an able supporting cast.

The story revolves around seven brothers (Bachchan, Sudhir, Indrajeet, Kanwaljeet, Shakti Kapoor, Paintal and Sachin) who live in a farmhouse and are ignorant about the rest of the world. Filthy, ill-mannered and unsophisticated are words that would best describe them. Named after the 7 days of the week ( Som, Mangal, Budh, Guru, Shukra, Sunny and Ravi)

They find love and support in the form of Hema Malini's character Indu who is to be Ravi's (Bachchan) lady love. After a lot of drama, the brothers accept her and, more importantly, she accepts them.

The other brothers fall for 6 girls they spot on a beach. These girls ( Asha Sachdev, Prema Narayan, Aradhana, Rajni Sharma, Madhu Malhotra and Nazneen) have the job -- to look after Ranjeeta, who can't walk and is dependent on a wheelchair. Her uncle, Amjad Khan, wants to kill her and inherit her wealth.

The desperate, lovelorn brothers kidnap the girls one night. This gives Khan an idea as to how he can kill Ranjita. He replaces Bachchan with a lookalike, Babu (Amitabh again). But all's well that ends well as Babu undergoes a change of heart and finds love with the very lady he was sent to kill.

Satte Pe Satta has right doses of humour, music and action. Director Raj Sippy handled the characters with expertise. Though there were a lot of them, no one looked out of place. Amjad Khan was the perfect choice as there weren't many villains who could match Bachchan's charisma.

Who in a double role, is a treat to watch. He shows three shades in the movie: the rowdy eldest brother, a sophisticated husband madly in love with his wife and the taciturn villain Babu who is shaded in grey. Even his hair and eyes are coloured grey!

Ravi's drunken scene with Amjad Khan can be compared to the one in his earlier film, Amar Akbar Anthony. It was so difficult that it was not dubbed and the voice recorded in the original shoot was used in the movie. You can even hear the camera whirring in the background!

Apart from Amitabh Bachchan the other star of the movie is Pancham in a Saptam mood.

R.D.Burman composed eight near-perfect tracks for the film. Even the background score is one of the best ever in Indian films. Every appearance by villainous Babu from his entry on screen is accompanied by a unique sound. Annette (a singer in RD's group) used to gargle to create the sound and it's echo effect.

Pyar humein kis mod pe is a treat both for the eyes and ears. The tempo of the song builds beautifully to first show the brothers' despair as they pine for their respective lady loves and then their excitement as they make their way to kidnap the girls. Jhuka ke sar ko is a sweet number done in the Western-musical format, interspersed with dialogues. Check out the mouth organ prelude of Zindagi milke bitaayenge played by Pancham (Burman) himself. He was fond of the instrument and also played it for his father's song Hai apna dil toh aawara (Solva Saal, 1958). Mausam mastana is another rare song . Other chorus songs include the voices of lyricist Gulshan Bawra, Sapan and Basu (assistants to the composer) and Pancham himself.

Dilbar Mere is considered one of KKs best ..The song is also interesting as it marks the change Amitabh's character undergoes to impress Hema.

The title song is also a treat. Note how Shakti Kapoor's character's stuttering speech is used in the songs. It shows the director's and composer's effort at detail.

Support came from Vijayendra Ghadge, Sarika ( The hospital scenes introduction of Hema Malini to Amitabh are so well depicted )

The bond between the brothers has been scripted very well.The brothers use a string of weird words 'Chain kulee ke main kulee kee chain' in order to gather strength at the time of crisis.( aptly used in the climax)

The comedy sequences are hilarious especially the visit of Hema to the farm house as a nurse and subsequently as a wife where she sees the reality of the 7 brothers.The dinner table scene from Satte Pe Satta was evidently one of the film's many highlights. Here, the band of six brothers can be seen attacking the food cooked by Hema Malini's character. Funnily, the six brothers do not jump on to eat the food until Amitabh Bachchan's character walks in and gets food for himself first. This scene is the trigger point for the six brothers to leave their unhygienic and unsophisticated lives behind.

The sets were beautifully created to suit the rustic environs. Raj Sippy's direction showed sophistication. His handling of the script showed maturity. There was never a point in the movie where the audience lost attention. This venture was is and remains a complete entertainer.

The Lost Diva Parveen Babi

"KOI ISS LIYE PEE RAHA HAI KI AAJ DOSTON KE SAATH HAI, AUR KOI ISS LIYE PEE RAHA HAI, KI AAJ DOST SAATH NAHI". – PARVEEN BABI AS ANITA IN DEEWAR (HER ENTRY)

That's Parveen Babi for you.

Hard to believe it's 17 years she passed away in to eternity.

Though she is often reduced to the pejorative term diva, as if being a beautiful presence on-screen requires no talent at all. It would be cruel not to pay tribute to her characters. For example, let us consider the other female star of the 70s – Zeenat Aman. Zeenat was also an emblem for the unabashed female sexuality. In contrast, Parveen Babi’s characters have no backstory. There is no redemption arc needing to justify why she is what she is.

She was often considered to be Zeenat Aman's rival owing to their sex-symbol tag. In fact, she acted alongside Zeenat Aman in Ashanti (1982) and Mahaan (1983). Even in hero-centric films like Deewaar (1975), Shaan (1980) and Namak Halaal (1982), she made her presence felt with her serene aloofness. She even stole the thunder from her co-star Hema Malini in Manoj Kumar's Kranti (1981)

Parveen Babi is somewhat of a byword for tragedy in Bollywood; a star who everyone recognises, but nobody fondly remembers. Few, if any, look beyond the shallow sympathy her story of mental illness and failed relationships evoke. Fewer still acknowledge that under this div(a)ine halo, she was a strong person. She was a survivor and still passed away a schizophrenic.

Amitabh Bachchan co-starred with Parveen Babi in eight films - Majboor, Deewaar, Amar Akbar Anthony, Shaan, Kaalia, Mahaan, Khud-daar and Do Aur Do Paanch apart from Namak Halaal, Suhaag and Sesh Premee where they were not cast opposite each other.

Parveen also starred in offbeat films like Vinod Pande's Yeh Nazdeekiyan (1982) and Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Rang Birangi (1983) which is a personal favourite.

In retrospect, Parveen Babi’s characters are a natural extension of her real-life persona. Albeit the word ‘bold’ has lost its meaning due to chronic overuse over the years, I believe she is the true owner of the title. In a country where personal issues are shushed down to present a veneer of normalcy, she chose to be open and vulnerable. She might have become immortal on the silver screen. Yet, she left with us the image of a strong, vulnerable, fragile, and indeed, mortal woman.

She graced the TIME magazine cover too.

Sadly Mahesh Bhatt under the name of Biographical cinema has depicted his relationship with her in Arth (1983) wherein the character of the other woman, played by Smita Patil, was based on Parveen.

He made Phir Teri Kahani Yaad Aaye in 1993.

In 2006 a year after she passed he made Woh Lamhe... (2006) based on his life with her.

Now again he has made a serial on Voot " Ranjishe Sahi" in 2022.

Time now that she is left alone in peace.

The Adaptive SHOLAY

#BollywoodHollywood

Episode 2

Today would like to move on to the 70s.

A Movie which was talked about after this series debuted

SHOLAY

Before going in to this let me share you some Trivia

Mera Gaon Mera Desh (1971)

Khote Sikkay ( 1974 )

Pratigya ( 1975 )

Sholay ( 1975 )

The premises of these films is same.

It is quoted that MGMD is the germ of Sholay. However looking closely we will see that Pratigya is more so based on Mera Gaon Mera Desh .

Khote Sikkay and Sholay have a similaSikkey.

Both inspired by the Western genre, complete with horses and ponchos. It has a similar plot to Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai as well as The Magnificent Seven, while Feroz Khan's character is similar to the "Man with No Name" stock characters in Kurosawa's Yojimbo and Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy

( Gabbar, Jabbar, Jagga)

Now it is a known fact that The Magnificent Seven is an official Adaptation of The Seven Samurai

There are 7 protagonists.

In Khote Sikkay they are five and in Sholay Two.

Later Adaptations include

Aandhi Toofan 1985 ( Two Protagonists)

Karma 1986 ( Three Protagonists )

Army 1996 (Five Protagonists)

China Gate 1998 ( Nine )

So on Seven Samurai / Magnificent Seven there are 6 popular movies and many more.

So coming to the point the Wild Western theme of a team or group coming together to save a village / town.

Seven Samurai:

This is a Japanese film ( not Hollywood for the Technically Specific).It is not easy to say anything new about the one of the most analyzed and scrutinized movies of the film history. Nevertheless, and despite being eventually only repeated, it shall be mentioned that movie has a simple but very engaging story - a group of peasants, representing a village, periodically stormed by gang of bandits, looting their crops and other possessions, hires a veteran samurai, who gathers six samurais to protect a village from the cruel bandits. As the samurais teach the natives how to defend themselves, the village is attacked by a pack of 40 bandits to help them protect the village.

The Official Remake of this film was 

The Magnificent Seven (1960 & remade in 2016.

A gang of bandits led by Calvera (Eli Wallach) periodically raids a poor Mexican village for food and supplies. After the latest raid, during which Calvera kills a villager, the village leaders decide they have had enough.They approch Chris Adams (Yul Brynner), a veteran Cajun gunslinger, for advice. Chris suggests they instead hire gunfighters to defend the village, as "men are cheaper than guns." At first agreeing only to help them recruit men, Chris eventually decides to lead the group. Despite the meager pay offered, he finds five willing gunmen. They are the gunfighter Vin Tanner (Steve McQueen), who has gone broke after a round of gambling and resists local efforts to recruit him as a store clerk; Chris's friend Harry Luck (Brad Dexter), who assumes Chris is hiding a much bigger reward for the work; the Irish Mexican Bernardo O'Reilly (Charles Bronson), who has fallen on hard times; Britt (James Coburn), an expert in both knife and gun who joins purely for the challenge involved; and the dapper, on-the-run gunman Lee (Robert Vaughn), plagued by nightmares of fallen enemies and haunted that he has lost his nerve for battle. On their way to the village, they are trailed by the hotheaded Chico (Horst Buchholz), an aspiring gunfighter whose previous attempts to join Chris had been spurned. Impressed by his persistence, Chris invites him into the group. 

They save the village but not before 4 of them perish .

As the surviving three ride out they say..the farmers won we lost.

Now if I analyse all the Bollywood remakes..this will go on.

The story of SHOLAY is folklore as also the other films mentioned.

In each version of this story, many of the details have been changed — the location, the particulars of the villain’s plot, the mix of characters who make up the team of protectors — but the bones remain the same: A bad guy threatens a small town; the villagers hire a wandering protector who gathers a motley crew of fighters; the fighters fortify the town; there’s a protracted assault; some of the fighters die; the village is saved.

In SHOLAY this is limited to Two.

So it won't be wrong to say that SHOLAY finds inspiration from these classics.

In the age of franchise sprawl, where movies must juggle stories and subplots that cross over multiple films and where filmmakers are always trying to stay one step ahead of online fans with shocking plot developments, that’s an art that’s largely disappeared. But the timelessness and influence of Seven Samurai , Magnificent Seven and Sholay is a reminder that simple stories haven’t lost their power or relevance: Sometimes the most satisfying stories are the ones that don’t surprise you at all.

Hope this comparison of Adaptations works and is likes by the followers and Critics of SHOLAY.

Ek Haseena Thi : 18 years of the Thriller

As we hear Ek Hasina Thi ..

Images of Karz come immediately into one's mind and eyes.

But in 2004 Sriram Raghwan Directed Ram Gopal Verma's Ek Haseena Thi came..

When I saw it for the first time on 17th January (Saturday) ,I was stunned by the impact.After many days I found a thriller which could match any too grade thriller.

Sarika (Urmila) is a beautiful woman who works at a travel agency in Mumbai and lives alone. She is wooed by Karan (Saif), a businessman, who seems to be coming to her aid in difficult times. Although Sarika is careful and distant at first, she soon falls in love with Karan and starts dating him. One day, Karan asks Sarika to expect a guest, a friend of his who is arriving to Mumbai to catch a flight. The strange man arrives and leaves his suitcase at Sarika’s place in order to run an errand. Sarika is shocked to discover on the news that the man was a criminal and was killed by police. A phone call arrives from Karan in which he tells her to get rid of his suitcase and make sure not to mention Karan’s name to the police. Things quickly get out of hand when police catch Sarika red-handed with the suitcase and arrest her. What follows is Sarika’s realization of Karan’s betrayal, her efforts to get out of jail and how she will revenge him. (Elements of If Tomorrow Comes enter the script and keep one enthralled.)

Ek Hasina Thi can be divided into three parts. The first one is a love story with its own quirks. The second part comprises a jailbreak story, while in the third part, Sarika settles scores with Karan Singh . Sarika in prison is someone we had never seen before.

The end and the final frontier for Karan needs to be seen..The rats playing a main role.

Raghavan's stunning directorial debut 'Ek Hasina Thi' keeps you at the edge of your seat from the very beginning. It is gripping, well paced, wonderfully acted and terrifically executed. The screenplay is excellent and the editing is superb. With this and followed by 'Johnny Gaddaar'(2007), Raghavan seems to have mastered the thriller genre. Not only does he maintain the element of suspense so well (which is a crucial ingredient for a successful thriller), but his films (at least the first two) are solidly written and filmed. The background score and cinematography are very effective. Saif Ali Khan is very good as the caddish, smoothtalker who finally manages to charm the innocent Sarika. Saying more would be revealing too much about the character. Seema Biswas is great as the brutal cop who has a strong hatred towards criminals and Pratima Kazmi has already mastered the role of a queen pin. Yet, where performances are concerned, 'Ek Hasina Thi' belongs to Urmila Matondkar.

We had seen Urmila Matondkar showcase her versatility in several films before Ek Hasina Thi. But it was in this one that we saw her change completely in the same film. In the first half, she tries to decipher Karan only to be his victim. She is a naive girl who is terrified of a rat in her kitchen and gets scolded by Karan for being frightened of a mouse which has since fled. But she changes so much that she smashes a rat with her food plate when in jail, reveals what she has turned into. The fear in her eyes when she saw a rat in her kitchen is replaced by the lust to exact revenge from Karan. The execution of the final scene, in which Sarika avenges her ordeal, is something one can only expect from Urmila Matondkar.

The film has synchronised back ground music by Amar Mohile and just two songs one Neend Na Aaye by Pt Jasraj and the other Title track.

I will rate this film as one of the best thrillers ever .

Hard to believe it's 18 years old today.

Mera Saaya

Yesterday got to see Mera Saaya on Tata Sky Classic. Having seen it many times there wasn't any surprise element but I thought of writing about it.

I had last year written about the Lady in White adaptations which lead to Guru Dutt's shelved Raaz and adapted by his protege Raj Khosla as Woh Kaun thi and the first of his Triology with Sadhana.

Second was Mera Saaya in 1966 and later Anita in 1967

Common between the stand-alone films is the way Khosla most effectively uses Sadhana as an enigmatic catalyst who gets the plot moving. In all three films, Sadhana is the key to solving the mysterious events taking place around the leading men.

(Manoj Kumar Twice and Sunil Dutt in Mera Saaya ).

Mera Saaya is a clear adaptation of the Marathi film Pathlag (Chase ).

Thakur Rakesh Singh (Sunil Dutt), a lawyer who has gone abroad for higher studies, rushes back home to his ailing wife Geeta (Sadhana), who dies in his arms. Shattered, he cremates her, builds a memorial for her and mourns her. One day, the police contact him. They’ve arrested a woman from a gang of dacoits who claims to be his spouse. When he meets the woman (Sadhana again), he is gobsmacked: she is a dead ringer for his wife. When efforts to prove her identity land up in court, she seems to know all the details of their wedded past, including the most intimate ones.

The Courtroom drama has all of us at tenterhooks and we hoped  that the beautiful tragic Sadhana in the dark coloured saree is indeed speaking the truth.

I found Mera Saaya pretty fast-paced and I would keep on going back and forth mentally as the film moves between the past and present sprinkled with hints and mysteries.

The suspence opens up at the end and till then the film keeps one enthralled.

The Romantic sequences are depicted in flash back with the melodies of the magician Madan Mohan. Mera Saaya is one of his definitive scores. The songs, written by Raja Mehdi Ali Khan, are beautifully composed, be it, the soulful Aap Ke Pehloo Mein Aakar Ro Diye, the playful romantic ditty Nainonwali Ne Haay Mera Dil Loota, the ultra romantic Nainon Mein Badra Chhaye or the saucy Jhumka Gira Re ( Asha Bhonsle in her only song). The title song Tu Jahan Jahan Chalega is haunting and atya with you..even 56 years later.

On the acting front While Sunil Dutt flawlessly plays the devoted husband mourning for his beautiful wife and is disarray as he sees her alive but can't accept he, it is Sadhana who owns Mera Saaya. Playing her second double role after Woh Kaun Thi?, she not only looks beautiful but also brings grace, dignity and even cheeky humour to her role as the ideal wife.

A beautiful movie ..

Hard to choose the best from the Triology..

(Anita will be the distant third ..)

Best Song :

Even more difficult

Mine : Naino main Badra Chaaye.

Analysis of a Failure : Imaan Dharam

Analysis of a Failure.

Imaan Dharam

After Sholay in August 1975

there was a hiatus of almost a year and half before Imaan Dharam came in January 1977.

The film was announced right after Majboor by Producer Premji and in a way was a most awaited film as it was their next after Deewar and Sholay.Amitabh had consolidated this position in 1976 with Hera pheri, Adalat, Do Anjaane  and Kabhi Kabhi. Add to that Shashi Kapoor, Sanjeev Kumar and Rekha and Imaan Dharam was expected to be a blockbuster.

Ace Art director Desh Mukherjee debuted as a director.

Ahmed (Amitabh Bachchan)and Mohan (Shashi Kapoor) form the principal cog in this story of two con men who make a living by testifying falsely in petty court cases.

They have a foster sister Shyamlee ( Aparna Sen) who is blind.

She has a sympathetic Sanjeev Kumar as Kabir who wishes to accept her as she is.

Kabir's father is a black Marketeer and anti-national and on his sons insistence is ready bro surrender which his partners (galaxy of negative role veterans) Amrish Puri, Prem Chopra, Sudhir , M.Shetty and McMohan cannot digest and get him murdered and his son Kabir is arrested for the same (?). The two false witness Ahmed and Mohan testify that they are eye witness and Kabir is sentenced.

However soon later they realise that he is the paramour of their foster sister.

They then reform and the predictable plot moves to find the real murderer.

The players in this drama head to a common destination where the heroes and the villains settle the issue once for all. As always, the police arrives when it is all over with ‘Inspector’ Jagdish Raj bringing the curtain down.

There are sub plots like there is a Sikh major Balbir Singh (Utpal Dutt), not to forget Barkat Chacha (Gajanan Jagirdar) and Govind Anna (Shreeram Lagoo), who is head of the construction workers whose daughter Rekha has a love angle with Mohan.

We also have Jenny ( Helen) who hires Ahmed to act as her daughter's father.

Ahmed comes to Jenny’s rescue and adopts her child. Now Jenny has a dark past and obviously she must exit the story line. So she is administered a spurious drug, promoted by Kabir’s fathers company. The characters seem to run into each other. Like Shetty, who first attempts to rape the blind Shyamlee, then murders Jamuna Das, and gives away all the secrets in a dying statement. 

Amitabh and Helens relationship kind off reminds one of the Amitabh Parveen relationship in Deewar. ( Infact Parveen was the first choice at launch but she later opted out and the role was given to Helen on Salim's insistence).

Sometimes, even a fabulous cast fails to carry a film. An enviable line-up, assembled with the aim to reap riches at the box office, comes a cropper after initial promise. That it peters into a tame and predictable climax, where the heroine flexes her muscle power ala her man, is a let down. The mediocre plot loses direction in the second half when the director looks to get over the agony.

All religions are promoted in the film and soon later in 1977 came another landmark film with Religious Integration..Amar Akbar Anthony.

Imaan Dharam did not have the finesse of a Prime Salim Javed script.. it carried the consept of secularism too far. Their trademark fluidity was missing and was replaced by exaggeration.

The film opened to packed houses but the euphoria fizzled out in less than a fortnight.

This was a setback to the charismatic duo who issued a full page advertisement in Screen..

"Imaan Dharam is an answer for all Criticism'.

Strange but true.

Comments Solicited.

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Some trivia and image input from Biography " Written by Salim Javed " by Diptakirti Chaudhuri

Amrish Puri

Today is the death Anniversary of a great actor with an envious baritone Amrish Puri.

He started his career in itsy bitsy roles in early 70s.

However he got his due when Shyam Benegal took him for the raw Zamindar's role in Nishaant.

In his over 30-year career as an actor, Amrish Puri did over 200 films. In his early years, most of the work he did was either quality-oriented work  for  directors like Shyam Benegal and Govind Nihalani or commercial potboilers for all top banners where he used his powerful voice and screen presence to accentuate the cinematic  definitions of evil. Amrish Puri’s truly productive phase as Bollywood’s most dependable character actor, or actor of character, began in the 80s. Vidhaata and Ashanti were his major hits  but it was Mogambo that gave him the face that went on to live with him.

How things change..

In Dostana 1980 he played Balwant Singh a co Villian ( if not henchman ) to Prem Chopra.

8 years later in 1988 came Shahenshah where he played JK  and Prem Chopra had a secondary role as Bank Manager Mathur.

In 1992, Puri  chanced on  huge commercial success with Phool Aur Kaante. Though this was the launchpad for Ajay Devgn, it was Puri who stole much of the dubutant’s thunder as the good-natured don who wants to win his  estranged son’s respect back. Puri admitted this film was a turning point in his career

During the same year that Phool Aur Kante brought grey glory into Puri’s black persona, he went out-and-out positive in Priyadarshan’s Muskurahat, a wonderfully heartwarming story of a sullen old man, and a young woman who brings a smile to his frowning face. Priyadarshan went on to cast Puri in most of his Hindi films.

His foray in Hollywood with Indiana Jones and the temple of doom was also a success as Mala Ram Tantrik.

His best phase as an actor came as the NRI father in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jaayenge (1995)

And followed up with Pardes in 1997. He was a disciplinarian with principles that the new generation finds impossible to uphold.. honestly he did put Shahrukh in the shade in both the films.

Another feather is Ghaatak, that featured him as the eccentric idealist (a role that Puri patented) from Uttar Pradesh as father to Sunny Deol.

In one of his last roles in a negative Charecter in Nayak he Excelled as the Chief Minister.

His role in Mujhse Shaadi Karogi was also appreciated.

Seldom, ever did an actor other than the leading man acquire the respect and command of Amrish Puri.

(Possibly Pran and Amjad Khan before him).

His grand son Vardhan Puri made his debut last year.

Iam sure up from heaven he must be saying

Mogambo Khush Hua.

Or Dong Kabhi Wrong Nahi Hota.