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Entertainment EYE SEPTEMBER 03, 2021 | The Indian Eye 36

boLLYWood Legends series

looking back at the Golden age of

one and only amitabh Bachchan

Our Bureau edies Padosan, Parwana fea-

Mumbai tures Big B in one of his most
underrated performances.
he years of 1970s and
1980s, when Amitabh • majboor (1974): Salim-Javed’s
TBachchan dominated the clever adaptation of the
screen, gave us some of the fin- Charles Bronson thriller Cold
Sweat featured Amitabh Bach-
est films, starting with Zanjeer, chan as a man who owns up to
Abhimaan, Namak Haraam, a murder he did not commit.
Deewaar, Trishul, Sholay, Kabhi The film directed by Ravi Tan-
Kabhie, Don, Kaala Patthar,
Chupke Chupke, Amar Akbar don has many twists and turns
Anthony and many more. that keep us glued to the end.
• Benaam (1974): Based on
Alfred Hithcock’s The Man
the year 1981 saw six dle-of-the-road and commercial that, “Not many know that my Who Knew Too Much this

bachchan releases (bar- Hindi cinema, doing most of first ever job was in Kolkata in underrated thriller directed
the heavy lifting and proving, in 1962 where I worked in coal by the highly underrated Na-
saat ki ek raat, naseeb, the end, his own inherent ver- mines for 7-8 years. A lot has rendra Bedi had the Big B
silsila, kaala, Yaarana satility and talent for switching been changed in the city. Many and Moushumi Chatterjee as
between genres — sometimes flyovers have been made now. I a working-class couple whose
and Laawaris). Four of in the same film! He had been love eating puchka pani opposite only child is kidnapped after

these, naseeb, Yaara- dubbed a ‘one-man industry.’ to Victoria memorial.” Even last they witness a murder. The
film had a terrific theme song
A couple of years earlier, he year, Amitabh on his game show
na, kaalia and Laawaris, had done Kaala Patthar, which Kaun Banega Crorepati spoke composed by R D Burman and
sung by Narendra Chanchal.
were among the year’s is now a cult classic. Released about working in a coal mine. • Wazir (2016): Written by pro-
On the work front, Amitabh
in 1979, Kaala Patthar featured
top grossers reaffirming Amitabh as a former Indian is currently hosting the 13th sea- ducer Vinod Chopra, along
with Abhijat (Munnabhai)
bachchan’s status as a Navy Captain who worked in son of Kaun Banega Crorepati. Joshi Supriya Kelkar and
mines. The film also starred He will also be seen in Chehre,
box-office king. Shashi Kapoor, Shatrughan Jhund, Brahmastra, and May- Suketu Mehta this is quite
Sinha, Sanjeev Kumar, Rakhee, day. Recently, he completed the comfortably the best Amitabh
Brooding and long-limbed Parveen Babi, Neetu Singh, first schedule of Vikas Bahl-di- Bachchan thriller in years.
like a basketball player, Big B Prem Chopra among others. rectorial, Goodbye. Moreover, Our heart never stops leaping
was doing a lot of the latter in Directed and produced by he will also feature in the Indian into our mouths at the twists
Naseeb, Laawaris and Kaalia. Yash Chopra, the screenplay adaptation of Nancy Meyers’s and turns that the characters
Three of 1981’s most popular of action drama was written by 2015 Hollywood film The Intern. encounter in their journey to-
hits, this masala bonanza was Salim-Javed. It was a critical- wards an apocalyptic finale.
typical of the period. The same ly acclaimed movie. Sharing a big b’s FiVe toP • Badla (2018): Amitabh Bach-
year, Bachchan teamed up with picture collage of Kaala Pat- thriLLers chan plays Badal Gupta, a
all his favourite directors, Yash thar reently, the actor wrote, • parwana (1971): In this hotshot lawyer on the verge
Chopra in Silsila, Manmohan “42 years of Kaala Patthar .. !!! pre-Zanjeer suspense thriller of retirement who has nev-
Desai in Naseeb and Prakash phew !!! Been a while .. and so Amitabh Bachchan was cast as er lost a case. Badal goes for
Mehra in Laawaris. many incidents in the film from an obsessive lover who decides the kill when he is invited to
With them, he had struck a my personal experiences when I to eliminate his object of ad- look into a case of a murder
winning combo starting from worked in the Coal Dept of my oration’s father when the old accused, a nonchalant im-
the 1970s. The Bachchan of Na- Calcutta Company, my first job man refuses to let his daughter perturbable married woman
seeb, Laawaris and Kaalia is so before joining the movies .. ac- marry the stalker. The elabo- named Naina Sethi (Taapsee
different from the one of Silsila tually working in the Coal mines rate murder-alibi plan was to Pannu) whose morals are so
that you might mistake him for in Dhanbad and Asansol ...” die for. Directed by Jyoti Swa- reprehensible they make In-
having a split personality. He In an old interview with a roop who made one of Indian drani Mukerjea seem excus-
was the fulcrum of both the mid- leading daily, Amitabh revealed cinema’s most successful com- ably misguided in comparison.

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