It is a difficult enough task to make multi-starrer films in
India – the pay packets of the stars being what they are, one can imagine
producers bursting a spleen or having a heart attack when told of the number of
stars in any given film.
But even though it is difficult, having three or even four
stars in a movie is pretty much par for the course for producers with the available
resources. Mehboob Khan’s “Mother India” was probably among the first of the
lot, then there was Ramesh Sippy’s “Shaan” coming right down to Karan Johar’s
soppy family drama, “Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gum.”
But we are not looking at these kind of multi starrers here. I
am talking about films where the director has very cleverly, within the
confines of his story, managed to include numerous film stars into a film’s
scene or in a song. The latest one was Farah Khan’s “Om Shanti Om,” where she cleverly
drew on her experience as a dance choreographer to have almost the entire film
industry shaking a hip to the song “Deewangi Deewangi.”
She had probably been inspired by Manmohan Desai‘s wonderfully
executed “John Jaani Janardan,” from the movie “Naseeb.” The peculiarity of this movie was that it was
already a multi-starrer, boasting a star cast that had the following names:
Amitabh Bachchan, Rishi Kapoor, Shatrughan Sinha & Hema Malini among
others. And Pran (Just as his name appears in numerous credit titles).
But even with all these stars, Manmohan Desai had another
cinematic ace up his sleeve. Very smartly, he threw a lavish party to celebrate
the golden jubilee of one of his films (Does it matter which one, since almost all
his movies were jubilee hits!). But what was interesting was his meticulous
planning for capturing this song on to celluloid. Cameras were strategically
placed to capture the entry of the stars, extras were hired to recreate the
frenzy of an autograph-hungry crowd.
And in a stroke of genius, he integrated some of the most
memorable imagery from Bollywood of the past into the song. While Amitabh
Bachchan played the part of a subservient waiter in the song, singing John Jaani
Janardan…Manmohan Desai assigned iconic scenes to some of the other stars.
Dharmendra was depicted as the macho he-man, Shakti Kapoor shown as the sleazy
character he was associated with. And in a masterstroke, he got the great
showman, Raj Kapoor to perform with an accordion in hand at the exhortation of
his eldest son, Randhir Kapoor.
When the movie released, the song itself was worth the price
of the ticket – and audiences went crazy seeing so many stars, all in the
confines of a song.
The earliest film however, to depict so many stars, all within
one scene of a film, was the 1950 film, “Kaala Bazaar.” It was also the film
which had the unique distinction of having the three Anand brothers, Dev,
Chetan and Vijay acting in it.
Since the film was the story based on the black marketing of
movie tickets, Chetan Anand, the director of the film, planned and executed an
ingenuous plan. He got Dev Anand to attend the movie premiere of “Mother India”
with a movie camera in hand. Dev Anand stood outside the venue and began recording
footage of the galaxy of stars that came to watch the premiere.
He captured on film, actors like Dilip Kumar, Rajendra Kumar,
Guru Dutt, Nargis and Nimmi, the trio of singers, Mohammad Rafi, Lata
Mangeshkar and Kishore Kumar, comedians like Mukri, film directors like Sohrab
Modi, and many others.
When
Vijay Anand, the director of the film, saw the footage, he was overjoyed. They
had the arrival of the virtually half the movie industry on film. And when he
edited the film, he used all the footage to recreate the scene of a movie
premiere in progress, where the crowd goes into raptures on seeing the stars.
And Dev Anand mingles among them doing what else? The black marketing of movie tickets.
The clip you will watch here is the song "John Jani Janardhan" from the movie Naseeb, directed by Manmohan Desai. It is always good fun to watch for its overall choreography of its galaxy of stars.
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