MY FAVOURITE FIVE


 BEN-HUR – English
(William Wyler)

Ben Hur the 1959 epic masterpiece historical drama was set in ancient Rome stars Charlton Heston in the title role of a rebellious Israelite Jew who takes on the Roman Empire during the time of Christ.   

With largest sets ever built for a movie, the film was the most expensive ever made at that time. The movies contains the most famous and breathe taking action sequence of all times, the nine minutes chariot race which could not ever be recreated and has no match even in this digital age.       Apart from this the forts under construction, the battle ships, their rowing and ultimately destruction all were picturised in a grand manner.   

It won a record breaking 11 Oscars, including Best Picture, Director, Actor, Supporting Actor, Cinematography, art direction, special effects, which record it held upto 38 years when it was equaled by Titanic in 1997.    Even after six decades, one could enjoy this movie and awe struck by the magnitude and grandeur of the movie

MUGHAL-E-AZAM – Hindi
(K. Asif)

Mughal-e-Azam, the all the time super hit epic, directed by K. Asif, which was in the making for decades and ran into huge financial crisis while under production, was ultimately released 1960.   It featured Prithviraj Kapoor as Akbar, Dilip Kumar as Salim and Madhubala as Anarkali,  all of whom put up their best act together to make it memorable and all time great Hindi/Indian movie.     The confrontation scenes and dialogues between Prithviraj and Dilip Kumar were a treat to watch and cassettes and CD of the dialogues are still in great demand.   The story revolves around the love of Salim for Anarkali, which is disapproved by Akbar leading to the war of words and actual war.      No effort was spared in making this masterpiece and despite mounting budget, to such an extent that the sets built for the famous song sequence ‘Pyaar kiya to darna kya’ has costed as much as making a movie at that time.    

But the labour of love has not disappointed the producer and director, as the movie broke all records and was the highest grosser for many years to come and ranks in top 10 Hindi/Indian movies of any person.  

  

DAANA VEERA SOORA KARNA – Telugu

(N.T. Rama Rao)

DVS Karna, the 1977 Telugu mythological movie was produced, directed and acted by the legendary Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao (NTR).    Taking few episodes from Mahabharat, this story of DVS karna was woven which was an experimental effort of NTR to depict the character of Durvodhan in a non-negative manner.       It was first and probably the only movie in which Duryodhan was shown as intelligent, logical, shrewd, good strategist, administrator and Ruler.     In the confrontations with Krishna, he logically explains why he doesn’t want to give any land to Pandavas and justifies all his acts and deeds.   Many felt that the movie should have been named after Duryodhan rather than Karna.    

NTR, the multi talented legendary star of Telugu film industry, who mastered in essaying mythological characters, has made a great experiment and took great risk of essaying three different mythological roles of Krishn, Karn and Duryovhan in this movie and it is a tribute to his talent that he has pulled off brilliant performance specially in the role of Durvodhan.    The Dialogue penned by Kodaveeti Venkatakavi have been delivered by NTR in his typical `pure chaste Telugu (gradhikam) style which floored one and all and till date remain as bench mark.    For the first time dialogues of a Telugu movie were released in audio cassettes and till date they are in great demand.   Besides the three roles he produced and directed the movie as well.    

With a running time of 4 hours and 17 minutes it is the longest Indian movie and out of this NTR is there for 4 hours length of the movie which too is a world record and to hold the interest and attention of audience for such long time is no less an achievement

Though made at a shoe string budget of Rs. 10 lakhs in record 43 days to beat Krishna who making Kurukhestra with almost similar theme, it was a massive commercial hit collecting Rs, 2 cores.   It remains a jewel in the crowded crown of NTR.

SHOLAY – Hindi

(Ramesh Sippy)

Sholay – the 1975 all time record breaking blockbuster was produced by GP Sippy and Directed by his son Ramesh Sippy.   The  simple story of retired police officer hiring two petty thieves to catch the dreaded dacoit Gabbar Singh has heavily barrowed from many western movies and Hindi movie `Mera Gaon Mera Desh’.      But the biggest congregation of stars, well defined roles to each and every character, best performances put in by all actors, whatever may be the length of their characters, highest production values, never seen technical fineness, elaborately mounted action scenes with the help of Hollywood technicians, great music by RD Burman all worked in making it as biggest blockbuster of all times.     

It was the first Indiann film presented in 70 mm and six track stereophonic soundtracks.    The Hollywood technicians engaged did a great job in mounting action scenes in a grand scale specially the train chase scene which could not be re-created till date even by movie with bigger budgets.    

Though there were so many stories of various alternative stars considered for various characters including Danny for Gabbar Singh, the stars ultimately selected suited the roles to the T, specially Amjad Khan as Gabbar Singh.

Sholay broke all records with Golden Jubilees in 60 centers, Silver Jubilee in 100 centers and an unbelievable 5 years run in a Mumbai Theater.   By many counts, Sholay still remains as the most successful movie of all times in India

ENTER THE DRAGON – English

(Robert Clouse)

Enter the Dragon, 1973, Bruce Lee starrer directed by Robert Clouse, is Hong Kong martial arts action film produced by Hollywood’s Warner Brothers in association with Golden Harvest (which later made many martial art movies with Jakie Chan)

Enter the Dragon is probably the first Hollywood movie, which is purely based on martial arts, which catapulted Bruce Lee to a cult figure, but alas he died a week before the release of the movie and could not live to see what a blazing trial he left behind.  

   

The never-before-seen elaborately mounted action scenes using slow motion and Chinese martial arts and the immortalization by legendary Brucee Lee have been lapped up by audience all over the world and not only Enter the Dragon was a huge success all over the world but also made the way to hundreds of Chinese/Hong kong/Hollywood martial arts movies to follow even till date.     Jakie Chan, who was one of the stuntmen who worked in this movie, went on to become another cult figure after Burce Lee in martial arts action movies

A movie which tops the list of action movies of any person, is still popular with Seattleite channels, which show this movie very often.

Those that almost made

• Gone with the Wind – Victor Fleming
• Guns of Navarone – J. Lee Thomson, Alexander Mackndrick
• Gundamma katha – Telugu – Kamalakara Kameswara Rao
• Pushpak – Silent movie – Singeetam Srinivasa Rao
• Mera Naam Jokar – Raj kapoor

S. PRABHAKAR