Shalimar(1978)- Krishna Shah’s gift to hindi films!
Shalimar (Hindi) aka Raiders of Shalimar Aka Raiders of sacred stone (English) was made and directed by Krishna Shah(KS). KS had directed before “Rivals” and “The River Niger” in Hollywood and then he made a film by combining hindi film actors with hollywood actors and technicians. KS had obtained his graduation degree from Bombay before he went to study in Yale and UCLA. He tried to make a true combination of Hollywood and Hindi film Industry and conceptualized Shalimar. Later he made a unique styled Documentary on Hindi cine world “Cinema Cinema” which is not completely a documentary as characters like actress Kim are part of the story and Amitabh, Dharmendra etc come on screen to tell about film making in India. Though his both the efforts in Hindi cinema were not appreciated much in India. Later he got engaged in animation films and Co produced animation film “ Ramayana – The legend of Ram” in 1992. It was a good effort to bring the epic in animation. In 2000 he again produced an animation film based on Ramayana
“The Prince of Light” which was praised in animation category at several film festivals. His documentary cum film “Cinema Cinema” on hindi cine world requires a good review.
He produced and directed his first and last Hindi feature film “Shalimar”. Perhaps this was the first film advertised at huge level in India in electronic media, print media and through other means. It was advertised as “ Krishna Shah ka Shaandar Shaahkaar – A never seen before, magnum opus by Krishna Shah. A pictographical novel based on the film was published. Curiosity level was really high before the film was released because of the high profile advertisement.
He brought in Rex Harrison [Oscar winner for leading role in “My fair Lady(1965)], John Saxon (Enter the Dragon) and Sylvia Miles (Sleeping beauty) from Hollywood to club them with Dharmendra, Zeenat Aman, Shammi Kapoor, O.P.Ralhan. Premnath, Aruna Irani, Shetty and Dr Sriram Lagu had small roles in the film. Those who dont know about OP Ralhan- he directed Dharmendra in Phhol aur Patthar a film which made Dharam ji a big star. OP made another different film Hulchal which needs a full post.
Shalimar – Film starts with a inside scene of a club and Dharmendra (SS Kumar) is lying on his chair behind the counter having golf cap on his head. Aruna Irani is singing and dancing on the floor. Song is “One two cha cha”. Couples are dancing with her and camera goes to Premnath (Raja Bahadur Singh) involved in gambling. Bahadur Singh loses the money and his heart sinks and he falls down on the floor. Kumar (Dharmendra) picks him up and asks Aruna Irani to continue the song. Kumar supports Bahadur Singh and goes out of club to go to the hospital and when they reach near the car, somebody shoots at them and Bahdur Singh is injured at his shoulder and became unconscious. Kumar checks Bahadur Singh’s pockets and finds a letter from some Sir John. Letter contains the invitation for Bahadur Singh to go to Island owned by Sir John (Rex Harrison). Kumar admits Bahadur Singh in hospital and goes to owner of his club, Seth Tolaram ( Sriram lagu). There he finds that he has been suspended from his services as his club is going under loss. He realised that TolaRam’s man had fired to kill him and not to Bahadur Singh. He become angry and says to Tolaram that he will return their 10 lacs Rupees.
Kumar changes in to get up of Sikh son of Raja Bahadur Singh and reaches to the Island of Sir John. There he meets Romeo (O. P Ralhan), Dr Dubari( Shammi Kapoor), Columbus (John Saxon) and Countess (Sylvia Miles). He also meets there his ex girl friend Sheela (Zeenat Aman) also as personal nurse cum care taker of the Host -Sir John (Rex Herrison). Kumar tries to befool Sir John and asks him to give 10 lack Rupees as enemies will kill his father Bahadur Singh. Sir John denies to give the money.
Sheela recognises Kumar inspite of his get up of a Sikh man. She scolds him that he is trying to cheat everyone.
Sir John tells Kumar the talent of everybody present and invited there and Kumar become astonished to know that Romeo, Columbus, Countess and Dr Dubari are world famous thieves though people know them as rich people. Sir John himself is a big criminal and is known as head of thieves. Now they ask Kumar’s talent and soon he realises that he cant make them fool and removes his beard and turban and reveals his identity as SS Kumar a small thief of Bombay.
Sheela tells everybody that Sir John is dying from cancer and Sir John says that before he dies he wants to give one of his most precious thing to the deserving person. He reveals that he has obtained Shalimar- the Ruby diamond of more than 1200 carates. He says as only four people are the kings of thieves so Shalimar should go to any of them. All people ask him whom he has chosen as the master of Shalimar? He replies that whoever successfully steals the Shalimar from his occupancy. Then he asks about Kumar as he is not an invited fellow there. After some discussion Kumar gets two votes in his favour and two people protest his presence. Kumar tries and gets vote of Dr Dubari also in his favour and he is also allowed to participate in the game of stealing.
Sir John shows them the Red Shalimar and all the security system he has arranged for the safety of Shalimar. They discuss history behind Shalimar. Sir John says that first time its mentioned when Alexender came to India. Romeo says that it goes back to 3000 years in to the vedic age. Dr Dubari says Chandra Gupta maurya had obtained the Shalimar from Selyukas along with his daughter and he has seen such an inscription on a stone. Later Shalimar was lost in the time and Britishers found it and grandfather of Columbus obtained it when he was serving Tipu Sultan. Then again Shalimar was lost till it was found in the personal collection of a billionaire living in USA and from there Sir John stole it.
Same evening begins the Game of stealing the Shalimar. Columbus has got first chance. He projects that he is lame because he lost power of his one leg in an accident. He is mute also and cant speak and uses sign language for communication which only Kumar understands.
Countess is world renowned trapeze artist.
Who gets success in stealing the Shalimar?
There are several twists in the story and what happens there at that remote island is better to see in the film.
Sheela is ex girl friend of Kumar who had left Kumar after seeing him sleeping with an American lady. At Sir John’s island they meet and both try to be friendly. On one evening he is sad and occupied with old memories. Sheela leaves him saying she will be back after some time and Kumar sings one of the most beautiful song sung by Kishor Kumar- Hum bewafa hargij na the. Anand Bakshi has done wonders in this song by his words. Hardly mood of story and feelings of the characters can be caught with such command. Kumar knows he did not cheat Sheela. He had circumstances under which he was compelled to behave in such a manner. Sheela understands that Kumar cheated her.
He sings :
Hum bewafa hargij na the par ham wafa kar na sake
Hamko mili uski saza jiskee khata ham kar na sake………
Tumne jo dekha suna sach tha magar kitna tha sach ye kisko pata….
Jane mein tumhe koi dhokha diya jane tumhe koi dhokha hua.
This song perfectly delivers the confusion lies between the relations of kumar and Sheela.
Film has another song sung by Lata – ainaa wahi rehta hai chehre badal jate hain.
And then sweet song – Shalimar mera pyar Shalimar . This song is played all over the film. Then there is very long song sung by Rafi. Nag Devata. R D Burman has given nice music and if hur hurr kind sounds were not included with song Hum Bewafa na the then it could have been one of the top five songs of Kishor Kumar.Dharmendra looked extremely handsome in the film. Film was made in English also and he has put off his shirt at least four times for the scenes and what an appearance at the age of 43. He performed well in this role and did full justice. Krishna Shah has taken some different kind of acting from Dharmendra. His character is also not similar to the roles he was playing at that time in films. A scene is there where he goes to Sheela’s room where she quarrels with him and scolds him for cheating her and when he is leaving the room she asks” Do you still need Sheela”
Dharmendra returns from the door and says “ Naaa!I don’t need this Sheela who has charmed a dying old man to get his wealth”. Dharmendra’s way of saying this dialogue, his facial expressions, his body language, are very different. This also tells his range in acting. When Director is from different class of acting then he also does experiments. Have not seen the English version of Shalimar and it would be nice to see Dharam ji in fully English film but he delivers his English lines very well in Hindi version also.
In another scene he teases Sheela again at the door of the room and disturbs his hair to say “ Tonight you will see ghosts in dreams”.
He has wonderful screen presence.
Zeenat Aman did not look glamorous or beautiful and rather looked ill in first half of the film. Perhaps she was ill during shooting of the film. But in several scenes she also acts unlike her other films.
Problem lies in the continuity of story. Editing of film could be better to make film a true thriller. film could have been a sleek film if Director was cutting it short. Perhaps English version is shorter and can be better than hindi version.
Kadar Khan had wrote the dialogues for Hindi version and though he did good job but at a place he has inserted a long monologue for Dharmendra where he talks about cruelty of riches in the world infront of Rex Harrison. Dialogues are completely out of concern here.
Kadar Khan has dubbed for Rex Herrison also and this is a known fact that Kadar Khan has always been in awe of dialogue delivery style of Dilip Kumar and he does it here with full liberty. He truly imitates Dilip Saab’s style of dialogue delivery here.
Film was not a huge commercial success and it could have been a better film if story and editing were taken care of properly. Character development needed more attention and audience don’t know whats happening between Kumar and Sheela. At times she is projected as a person who is being cheated and at times she is so professional and greedy. Her character takes about turns very easily. Parts of tribals could have been reduced in the story to make film more concentrated on adventure related to Shalimar. At that time fight between Sharmendra and Shetty used to be a must on screen and Shetty is fight master here.
People should watch this film to know the efforts of Krishna Shah who tried to make a film with Hollywood actors in India with Hindi film stars in lead roles.
And its a rare film in filmography of Dharmendra. Thanks to Krishna Shah to make this film.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Hey! But there were some really amazing scenes in the film.
The one where the Daimond is shown for the first time, the camera pans slowly towards the diamond and the theme “Mera pyaar shalimar” plays in the background. One of the best shots ever in bollywood.
The theme song itself is a masterpiece. It is as gud as any bloody theme of Good,Bad ugly or Mackennas gold any bond movie. RD proves he is can be truly international and beyond.
Dharmendra looked marvellous in the movie. Otherwise y wud the goddess HEMAMALINI fall for an already married guy? He really personifies “Cool fire” in the movie.
The story line is amazing. An ageing god of international thiefs calls his competeitors to decide the heir of SHALIMAR and later on discloses that is was a cunning move to end the fear of losing the the daimond.
But, lot of places the film lacks money and fails to provide the BIG & RICH canvas the plot needs.
This is one movie which shud be really remade.
Sudhir:
Yes Music by RD Burman is really wonderfull even background music is very good. I am not sure if english version of Shalimar was having these songs in the film as we see in Hindi version. Story line is very good as far as stealing part of Shalimar is concerned but Tribal part hinders tha pace of the film. Sir John says he rescued 45 tribals but we see a full army of tribals working as slaves for him. In Hindi version of film, continuity is broken at some parts. But overall its a worth watching film which leaves a sad feeling inside that it could really have been a masterpiece. Dharmendra did not look that dashing and stunning in 1973 in Chupke Chupke aur Seeta aur Geeta as he looks here in 1978. A true International appearance. Physically he looks better or equal to Bonds of those days.
Yes you are right Shalimar should be made again and perhaps Krihsna Shah himself should do it.
Yaa Dharmendra looked really gud. I have heard that he was listed in Top 5 best looking men in the world by some magazine those days.
Again, if Krishna shah is one guy who can write a story like Shalimar, he is one damn creative and intelligent man. Probably becoz of some other issues (shah has to ans himself!) the movie didnot end up the way it could have had. He has not made many movies as well. He shud try and makes movies in India now. Bollywood has some producers who dont mind putting crores into a project if it is interesting. Indian films are a rage in other parts of world as well. He can get the admiration and reward he deserves.
Sudhir:
Perhaps it was Vogue magazine which included Dharmendra among 10 most handsome men in the world in late 60s.
We only can hope that Krishna Shah turns his creative attention towards Hindi cinema once again. Time is ripe for his kind of cinema.
@RK
No surprise! only you could have written this post at PFC.
I was in my early teens when I first watched this movie on a T.V channel
Vinayak: thanks for your kind words. Yes Shalimar was telecasted rather early on doordarshan. I could not get a chance to see english version of Shalimar, that shd be bit better as its shorter so perhaps some unnecessary parts are deleted there. Film is a different film and dont know how but except Shammi Kapoor, every single actor has acted differently and this is Krishna Shah’s touch.
Have been searching his docu-film ” Cinema Cinema” but to no avail till now.
Had seen it also on DD.
Vinayak:
I am referring to the docufilm which Krishna Shah made in 1979 which had Kim in lead role. Not the Kim Sharma but Kim, who was paired with Danny in few films like Bulandi, and his directorial debut , Phir wahi raat, then she was opposite Mithun in Disco Dancer.
I have no idea abt 1997’s film.
Okay.I somehow mixed the two movies up.