When remaking classics was the easy way out!

The recent ‘Simmba’ trailer has got more eyeballs for the fact that it seems to be heavily inspired by Telugu film ‘Temper’, which has NTR is lead. In fact, for some time now south movies are being remade into Hindi and though not so noticed Hindi films are getting remade in south too, in case you are not aware ‘A Wednesday’, ‘Tumhari Sulu’ and a few others have been attempted down south already.

There was, however, a time in the 80s, which was heralded by the potboiler makers of that decade. They recycled a long forgotten or not so forgotten Bollywood classic again into a superhit and in the process, we got some of our biggest stars of the 80s, who reinvented their career and some of the biggest production houses of today found roots then through these movies. These movies were then, interestingly dismissed as flukes by critics but today they are all classics we swear by.

It all started with the unexpected super success of ‘Pyar Jhukta Nahi’, Mithun’s career was almost over and the heady days of ‘Disco Dancer’ were long forgotten. The movie was a remake of the 1977 classic ‘Aa Gale Lag Jaa’. This film was produced by an unknown name then KC Bokadia. The movie smashed one record after the other and not just became the biggest hit of 1985 but started a golden run for Mithun at the box office, which at one point of time made him next only to Amitabh. As amazing coincidences go you will again find shades of ‘Pyar Jhukta Nahi’ in ‘Raja Hindustani’, the Aamir Khan superhit.

Mithun’s second contribution to this trend was the revenge thriller called ‘Aandhi Toofan’, completely inspired by ‘Sholay’. This one had Hema Malini playing the role of Thakur and the director in an interesting twist had the villains as a biker gang. The film had Mithun and Shatrughan Sinha in a “Jodi” that looked heavily inspired by ‘Jai and Veeru’. The movie did not please the critics but rocked the box office. This one was the second production attempt of a man called Pahlaj Nihalani, he found his way from this movie.

Paap Ki Duniya: Pahlaj Nihalani once again produced a movie, which was heavily inspired by the Manmohan Desai classic called ‘Parvarish’. Where a bandit kidnaps and exchanges his son with the son of a cop. This was the classic story of good finally winning against the bad. It had Sunny Deol and Chunkey Pandey playing the two lost sons. The movie was one of the biggest hits of that year.

Mitti Aur Sona: Pahlaj Nihalani could not have more of the remake formula and nor did the audience appear thirsty, this one was also a surprise hit for Chunky Pandey as a solo hero. This one was a remake of the Navin Nischol starrer called ‘Hanste Zakhm’ and Bappi Lahiri’s songs were party favourites.

Mr. India: A very few would know this but this biggest classic from the science fiction genre of the 80s was inspired by ‘Mr. X in Bombay’, a Kishore Kumar classic. Salim-Javed had to struggle to find a hero for this one and even Amitabh rejected it. And the story finally found a taker in Anil Kapoor and this one launched Boney Kapoor into one of biggest producers of the then Bollywood.

Teri Meherbaniyan: The 80s had a competition of milking old stories between KC Bokadia and Nihalani and this one was from Bokadia. This superhit, where a dog avenges his master’s death from his killers was heavily lifted from Yash Chopra superhit ‘Noorie’. As coincidences go, in both the movies the leading lady was Poonam Dhillon. This one also started the trend of one compulsory animal in a lot of movies to come. Labrador as a must have pet trend can be blamed or credited to this movie.

Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak: The biggest contribution to remake “banao paisa kamao” trend of the 80s came from Mansoor Khan. It launched a smiling young man on the screen who rules till date – Aamir Khan. The film found its inspiration from the other Bollywood classics like ‘Laila Majnu’ and ‘Heer Ranjha’ where the primary plot point was the death of the couple in the climax as the “zaalim zamaana” won’t agree. We will need three pages to write about the careers this one launched.

- cinemawaalebaba. blogspot.com