Sholay needs no introduction. Bollywood’s biggest blockbuster is indeed a movie no Indian would want to miss. Sholay’s wholesome package of action, drama, romance, and comedy is every filmmaker’s envy.
Released on India’s independence day in 1975, each of the characters of Sholay has been iconized in Indian film history. Besides this, the film’s dialogues, screenplay, acting or characters are also class apart. There are umpteen reasons why millions of Indians will pick Sholay as their all-time favorite. There is and there will never be a film as great as Sholay.
BBC India called ‘Sholay’ the “Film of the Millennium” in 1999. The film also topped British Film Institute’s all-time poll of the best Indian films. Critic Anupama Chopra called the film the gold standard in the Hindi cinema, in her book “Sholay: The Making of a Classic“. Even Film Maker Shekhar Kapur in the same book said “There has never been a more defining film on the Indian screen. Indian film history can be divided into Sholay BC and Sholay AD“.
As Sholay celebrates 45 years of its release this August 15th, here are 19 facts and trivia which are equally as interesting as the movie that will make you want to watch it one more time.
- Several filmmakers had rejected the story of the film before it was accepted by Ramesh Sippy. The screenplay of Sholay was originally a four-line snippet created by writers Salim-Javed.
- It took two and a half years to make Sholay. The film’s shooting started on 2nd October 1973 and released on 15th August 1975.
- The song “Yeh Dosti” took 21 days to shoot. Also, 20 days of shooting was done for the scene where Radha, played by Jaya Bhaduri, lights a lamp. Likewise, it took 40 retakes before the scene featuring the line “kitne aadmi the” was finalized.
- The cost of the film went over-budget which was all paid off when the film was screened for 25 weeks in over 100 cinemas. In Mumbai’s Minerva theatre, Sholay ran for over 5 years uninterrupted, with a digitally remastered version in 2004.
- While the original film was made with a budget of 3 crores, 25 crores were spent for the 3D version that released in January 2014.
- There was actually a dacoit named Gabbar Singh around Gwalior in the 1950s who used to cut off the noses and ears of policemen!
- Danny Denzongpa was the first choice for the character of Gabbar Singh. Actor Amjad Ali Khan who played the iconic role of Gabbar was almost dropped from the film. The scriptwriter Javed Akhtar wasn’t very convinced by Amjad’s voice but Amjad was ultimately chosen and the rest is history.
- Likewise, Shatrughan Sinha was initially considered for the role of Jai and Dharmendra wanted to play Thakur. He settled on playing Veeru only after he found out that he was to be paired with Hema Malini.
- Salim Khan originally wanted Dilip Kumar to play the role of Thakur. However, he turned it down saying the role was too limiting after hearing the script.
- Dharmendra’s love for Hema Malini was evident throughout the film. During the shooting, he would pay the spot boys to spoil his scenes with Hema Malini so retakes would be required. After 5 years of its release, Dharmendra and Hema got married.
- Amitabh Bachchan married Jaya Bachchan 4 months before the film went on floors. Jaya was even pregnant with Shweta Bachchan during the filming, which resulted in shooting delays many times.
- Thakur’s character was originally supposed to be a retired army officer which was changed to that of a police officer after the makers thought that getting the requisite permissions would be difficult.
- Mac Mohan’s character, Sambha, had only one line in the film, but he made an irreplaceable place in people’s hearts as Sambha.
- Some of the characters of Sholay were based on Salim-Javed’s real-life friends. Jagdeep’s character Soorma Bhopali was named after a real-life person named Soorma who was a forest officer from Bhopal and an acquaintance of Jagdeep. Similarly, Jai and Veeru were named after the film’s scriptwriter Salim Khan’s college friends — Veerandar Singh Bias and Jai Singh Rao Kalevar.
- As the film was shot in Ramnagar, Karnataka, the town, about 50 km from Bangalore is still called Ramgarh as mentioned in the film. Even the rocks around the area referred to as “Sholay-rocks” have become an attraction.
- Sholay was the first Hindi film on 70 mm and the first to be made with stereophonic sound as well.
- The Censor Board of India asked Sholay’s makers to re-shoot the ending and several scenes because they were thought to be “extremely violent”. Its original ending showed Gabbar being killed by Thakur and the edited version was shown to the audience for the first 15 years after its release. In 1990 the original uncut version became available to the public.
- Although Sholay has been revered as the best film, it won only one Filmfare award for Best Editing! That year, Sholay lost the Filmfare awards to another blockbuster of Amitabh, Deewar.
- After the film’s release, critics dubbed the film ‘end of Bollywood’. It took weeks for them to change their judgment.
How many times have you watched Sholay?