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‘Chalte chalte yuhi koi mil gaya ttha’, ‘Thare rahiyo ho baqe yaar re’, ‘Inhi logon ne le lee na dupatta mera’, ‘Aaj hum apni duawon ka assar dekhenge’, ‘Chalo dildar chalo chand ke paar chalo…’and then there were the sublime solos by Lataji that were not in the film: ‘Tanhai sunaya karti hai, Pyare babul tumhari duhai’ and ’Pee ke chale’….Every song by Lataji in Pakeezah is an exquisite jewel in the croon.

To imagine this ageless ode to romance and music without that voice is as inconceivable as Agra without the Taj Mahal. Director Kamal Amrohi’s son Tajdar Amrohi said, “It was always my Choti Ammi (Meena Kumari) and Lataji in Pakeezah. If either one of them said no, Pakeezah wouldn’t have happened.”

Lataji who sang the immortal songs of Pakeezah reveals that there is a whole album of her songs in Pakeezah that never made it into the film.

New Delhi, May 1 (Ians) More than three decades before Aamir Khan’s train stunt in “Ghulam” (1998), this actor, renowned for his natural performances, had already done such a hazardous exploit, not just a daredevil challenge on the screen, but to inject reality into the scene and save the filmmaker the “bother of back projection”.

Balraj Sahni also involved Meena Kumari in his risky ruse in “Pinjre ke Panchhi” (1966), which — in another strange resemblance with Aamir’s film — was shot at Khandala. The scene had her walking on the rail tracks in a bid to commit suicide, even as he ran after her and managed to pull her aside from the rushing train at the last minute.

The filmmaker only wanted shots of him running after her and pulling her away; those of the were to be juxtapositioned. Sahni, however, knew that a train would pass the spot soon, and if they moved fast,...

Mumbai, March 24 (Ians) Actress Ankita Lokhande went down memory lane and recalled her conversation with late Bollywood star and former beau Sushant Singh Rajput about his 2015 film ‘Detective Byomkesh Bakshy’.

Talking to Ians about the world of cinema giving different learnings, producer Sandeep Singh said: “ ‘Mughal-e-Azam’, ‘Mother India’, ‘Do Bigha Zamin’, ‘Deewar’, ‘Mandi’, ‘Mausam’ and ‘Aandhi’ taught us.”

” ‘Satya’ gave us a different world and so did ‘Bandit Queen’, which gave us a completely different world (onscreen).”

Chiming into the conversation, Ankita said: “I just remembered something, when ‘Byomkesh Bakshy’ released, then Sushant used to say that today people wouldn’t understand the film, but there will be a time when people will understand this kind of cinema.”

‘Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!’ is directed and co-written by Dibakar Banerjee, which is based on the fictional detective Byomkesh Bakshi, created by the Bengali writer Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay.

Sushant Singh Rajput died by suicide...

Mumbai, Aug 30 (Ians) Writer K.A. Abbas did not take much notice of the nondescript-looking man accompanying Raj Kapoor to his house to hear the story for a film.

After listening quietly to the over two-hour-long rendition, this man only said that it was a good story. Is that all, asked Kapoor noticing the bemused Abbas.

“Gardish mein hoon, aasman ka taara hoon,” he then responded.

Abbas, taken aback, told Kapoor that he had spent two-and-a-half hours telling his story and his unknown visitor had perfectly summarised it in one phrase.

The “nondescript man” was Shailendra, whose 100th birth anniversary falls today (August 30). Just one film old at this meeting, he would go on to become Hindi cinema’s most exemplary, innately-gifted yet self-effacing lyricist, whose songs like “Awaara hoon”, “Mera joota hai Japani”, and “Hothon pe sachai rehti hai” that made Indian film music popular across the world.

While his...

The Criterion Channel has unveiled their March 2021 lineup, which includes no shortage of remarkable programming. Highlights from the slate include eight gems from Preston Sturges, Elaine May’s brilliant A New Leaf, a series featuring Black Westerns, Ann Hui’s Boat People, the new restoration of Ousmane Sembène’s Mandabi.

They will also add films from their Essential Fellini boxset, series on Dirk Bogarde and Nelly Kaplan, and Luchino Visconti’s The Damned and Death in Venice, and more. In terms of recent releases, there’s also Matthew Rankin’s The Twentieth Century and Claire Denis’ Let the Sunshine In.

Check out the lineup below, along with the teaser for the Black Westerns series. For weekly streaming updates across all services, bookmark this page.

The Adventurer, Charles Chaplin, 1917

Bandini, Bimal Roy, 1963

Behind the Screen, Charles Chaplin, 1916

Black Jack, Ken Loach, 1979

Black Rodeo, Jeff Kanew, 1972

Blood Simple, Joel and Ethan Coen,...

Amidst a flood of remakes in Bollywood the recent news about the remake of Bimal Roy's timeless classic Do Bigha Zamin (1953) is heartening because the movie is a milestone and a 'Must Watch' for today's younger generation, who unfortunately are being dished out mindless and absurd remakes like Himmatwala! According to latest news actor RajKumar Yadav, who rose to fame with movies like Kai Po Che! and Shahid has been roped into play the protagonist in the remake which was excell...

<div>Stepping out of Mumbai and Delhi's streets and lanes which have been shown in films over and over again, Bollywood is now romancing Kolkata and its Victorian aura still intact in some places. After the just-released Kahaani where Vidya Balan traversed through the length and breadth of the city searching for her missing husband, two other big-budget films, due for release later this year, have focused on the metropolis and West Bengal.</div><div></div><div>Priyanka Chopra and Ranbir Kapoor, two of the most bankable actors in Bollywood, shot for more than a month recently in the city and in the hills of Darjeeling for the Anurag Basu directed murder mystery Barfee. Ranveer Singh and Sonakshi Sinha, on the other hand, will recreate the old-world charm of West Bengal in Lootera, a romantic period film set in the 1950s. It was shot recently in the natural surroundings of the picturesque Purulia district, 295kms from Kolkata.