Page 10 - Seniorstoday April 2022 Issue

Middle-of-the-road cinemas
Commercial Hindi cinema goes totally berserk
people of three different faiths—hence
the title. It had bonkers scenes like the
three (Amitabh Bachchan, Vinod Khanna,
Rishi Kapoor) brothers giving blood to
an old woman (Nirupa Rai) unaware that
she is their mother, or the blind mother
miraculously getting her sight back
after a devotional song, and Anthony’s
hilarious drunken scene in front of
the mirror. Logic out, audience in, and
years of preposterous, anything-goes
filmmaking that gave commercial cinema
a bad name.
10
Golmaal (1979):
Hrishikesh Mukherjee did not start out
making comedies, but ended up directing
charming slice-of-life films that had modest
budgets and were often successful even
without stars. He was the leader of the
middle-of-the-road cinema, along with
Gulzar, Basu Chatterjee and Sai Paranjpye;
and this Amol Palekar-Utpal Dutt comedy
of errors was this style of cinema at its best—
that pleased the audience, yet did not stoop
to conquer. For Hrishida fans it is always
a toss-up between Golmaal and Chupke-
Chupke (cast of stars playing against type)
for all time favourite comedy.