MANAMA, 2 March 2005 — Indian movie classic “Mughal-e-Azam” failed to impress many in Bahrain. After a miserable showing to mostly vacant seats at the Awal Cinema, the film ran its last show yesterday.
Mughal-e-Azam, a black and white movie that created history in 1960 for grossing astronomical sums of money, was relaunched in color late last year. It had a very successful rerun in India where it ran for over 100 days in many cinemas. Mughal-e-Azam tells the story of a doomed love affair between a Mogul prince and Anarkali, a courtesan.
Joseph, an usher at the Awal Cinema, said it was very disappointing to see such a great movie as Mughal-e-Azam fail. “The younger generation does not really know Dilip Kumar or Madhubala. The film is too slow for them.”
Surprisingly, a majority of the small audience comprised young people. They watched the movie with great enthusiasm — clapping, whistling and making witty comments all the way. “I came here to see my paternal aunt, Nigar Sultana who plays Bahar (a villainous vamp) in the movie. And I brought my friends along,” Sumeha, an Indian IT worker, told Arab News. “My aunt unfortunately died two years ago of leukemia, she couldn’t see herself in color..”
Rafeya was there from Alkhobar to see the movie. “It was worth the trip, the wait and the money. I had seen Mughal-e-Azam on television before, but seeing it in color and on a big screen was a fantastic experience. And I loved the dialogues between Prince Saleem (played by Dilip Kumar) and King Akbar (played by Prithvi Raj Kapoor). I wish they restore and relaunch more Indian classics in the future.”
Nasr Moazzam, a Pakistani expatriate, was seeing Mughal-e-Azam for the first time. “I thoroughly enjoyed it and for a slow movie the three hours went pretty fast. But what amazed me was that I had thought this was a Dilip Kumar movie, hearing raves about his acting from childhood, the surprise package for me was Prithvi Raj Kapoor (Akbar). He was the most outstanding character in the movie. I loved his acting.”
Mughal-e-Azam was the most expensive movie of its time. K. Asif, the director-producer, spent a whopping 15 million rupees and spent 500 working days making it. The movie created history by grossing 1.7 million rupees per territory, which was unheard of in the 1960s, when the best movies made 300,000-400,000 rupees. People had stood in queue for two and three days to buy a ticket in the first days when the movie opened.
The movie’s melodious songs by Naushad are still popular 45 years on. Classical singer Bade Ghulam Ali who rendered Tansen’s voice in the movie charged 25,000 rupees for a single song when famous singers such as Muhammad Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar were only paid 300-400 rupees.
In spite of its popularity, realistic scenes and great acting and direction, Mughal-e-Azam never bagged a single film award.