Six decades have passed, but Hindi Cinema will always look back at the year 1965 with pride. The momentous year saw milestone musical movies and the breakthroughs of emerging legends.
From Waqt to Guide: 60 Years Ago-The momentous year that was 1965
The highest grossers
Waqt
BR Films’ Waqt, directed by Yash Chopra and produced by elder brother B.R. Chopra, was Hindi cinema’s first multi-star film after the landmark Mother India in 1957. Planned earlier as a film that would star Prithviraj Kapoor and his three sons, Raj, Shammi and Shashi, the film finally cast Balraj Sahni, Sunil Dutt, Raaj Kumar and Shashi Kapoor (who was then on a contract with BR Films) in those roles. The reason was simple: the film was a lost-and-found drama, and Chopra was told that as it had scenes where they came together on-screen in various combinations without recognizing each other, it would not hold as the familial resemblance in the Kapoors was too strong!
Again, the obvious choice for the music were Shankar-Jaikishan, favourites of Raj and Shammi, but S-J’s refusal to work with Chopra’s ‘in-house’ lyricist Sahir Ludhianvi saw the baton passed to their hit Gumrah music director Ravi.
With the iconic ‘O meri zohra zabeen’ by Manna Dey leading the score and Asha Bhosle’s ‘Aage bhi jaane na tu’ becoming the other philosophical perennial, the music became a big factor in the Golden Jubilee success of BR Films’ first color offering.
Sadhana and Sharmila Tagore were the heroines and the film’s theme was the ‘Supremacy of Time’. And Salim-Javed have openly said that their script for Yaadon Ki Baraat was a mix of Waqt and Zanjeer!
Jab Jab Phool Khile
Jab Jab Phool Khile remains the evergreen Mills & Boon-like romance with Nanda cast—again after Mehndi Lagi Mere Haath (1962)—opposite Shashi Kapoor by Raj Kapoor’s secretary-turned-producer Hiren Khera. The evergreen romance was the first color film that shot Kashmir into prominence as a gorgeous location.
The film was directed by Suraj Prakash (Khera repeated this director, composers Kalyanji-Anandji and lyricist Anand Bakshi too). K-A and Anand Bakshi hit A-grade big-time finally with this Golden Jubilee, which was the inspiration for 1996’s biggest hit, Raja Hindustani, and whose climax was emulated in another blockbuster, Dil (1990). Both these blockbusters went on to become the biggest hits of those respective years, with Nadeem-Shravan’s ‘Pardesi pardesi jaana nahin’ (Raja Hindustani) admittedly inspired by ‘Pardesiyon se na ankhiyaan milaana’, just one delight in the all-hit score of the classic.
At third place was another Kalyanji-Anandji musical romance, Himalay Ki God Mein, featuring Mala Sinha and Manoj Kumar. Manoj had told me that more than the Sadhana-centric Woh Kaun Thi? (1964), it was this film that propelled his journey to top star status. Once again, Anand Bakshi was the lyricist, though only of four of the seven songs—the others were penned by Indeevar and Qamar Jalalabadi.
Kalyanji-Anandji also won the Cine Music Directors’ Association’s award for the score, making a whopper impact as the award was presented by their own fraternity. This in many ways justified producer Shankerbhai Bhatt’s shift from Shankar-Jaikishan in their earlier Manoj-Mala success, Hariyali Aur Rasta, to the younger duo. And soon, Manoj was to sign them for his directorial debut, Upkar!
Arzoo
The fourth biggest hit of the year was Arzoo, a romantic musical that also had Kashmir as its prime location. Written, produced and directed by Ramanand Sagar, the Rajendra Kumar-Sadhana film had evergreen music by Shankar-Jaikishan. Buzz is that Jaikishan composed all the six hit songs by Lata Mangeshkar and Mohammed Rafi (the duo had split then), but when he had gone overseas, Shankar had to be called in to create ‘Jab ishq kahin ho jaata hai’ (Shankar was also not recording with Lata then) rendered by Asha Bhosle and Mubarak Begum. And Shankar asked for the sum Jaikishan got for composing the six other songs in the film!
Feroz Khan got his first hit in A-grade films here, though it still took him time to become a top-grade hero.
Guide
Guide , the Vijay Anand-directed masterpiece, became the fifth biggest hit of the year. Starring Dev Anand, Waheeda Rehman and Kishore Sahu in key roles, the movie was like a compendium of replacements and seemed to summarize the saying, “All’s well that ends well!” Producer (also) Dev Anand first made its English version, based on RK Narayan’s novel, directed by Polish-American director Tad Danielewski, which flopped. Chetan Anand was busy with Haqeeqat, his 1966 classic, and turned down the Hindi remake.
Raj Khosla stepped in, but did not want Waheeda Rehman as lead. Saira Banu and Vyjayanthimala were considered, but finally Khosla exited and Vijay Anand stepped in with Waheeda entering the movie. Shailendra stepped in when Hasrat Jaipuri (originally signed) spoke derogatively about a ‘pimp’s story, and S.D. Burman replaced a song with ‘Din dhal jaaye’ when Vijay Anand was not happy with the earlier one! The music, arguably, remains the career-best work of S.D. Burman.
Other significant movies
The Madras (as Chennai was known then) melodrama Khandaan featured Sunil Dutt and Nutan. Bhappi Sonie delivered the first of his four films with Shammi Kapoor in the musical romance, Janwar. Manoj Kumar and Nanda featured in two films, the suspense thriller, Gumnaam, based on Agatha Christie’s ‘And Then There Were None’, and the flop, Bedaag. Lootera marked the debut of future multi-star filmmaker Raj Kumar Kohli as producer of a Hindi film and had a hit score by Laxmikant-Pyarelal.
Manoj also acted in and wrote Shaheed¸ which won the President’s Silver Medal, and after watching the film, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri inspired Manoj to write his pathbreaking Upkar. Another hit was the candy-floss Mere Sanam (also shot in Kashmir) whose mainstay was its music—9 hit songs composed by O.P. Nayyar for Biswajeet, Asha Parekh and Mumtaz. Dharmendra, Meena Kumari and Raaj Kumar starred in the hit melodrama. Kaajal. R.D. Burman made his debut as actor (it was his second film as composer) in Mehmood’s horror comedy, Bhoot Bungla, which also was the first directorial of the comedian himself. Teen Devian, on the other hand, was said to be Dev Anand’s unofficial debut as director, though Vijay Amerjeet was credited with the direction.
At the 13th National Film Awards, the award for First, Second and Third Best Feature Film in Hindi went to Shaheed, Oonche Log and Guide respectively. Oonche Log was a commercial failure, but the music and crime story were very impressive and this was a remake of Phalke Laureate K. Balachander’s play, Major Chandrakanth.
And last but emphatically not the least, the formidable talent that was Sanjeev Kumar, the first to win two National awards for Best Actor (that too within three years, in 1971 and 1973) made his lead debut in Nishaan, in a dual role.
More Pages: Guide Box Office Collection
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