Amitabh Bachchan is a legendary Indian Actor. He gained popularity in the early 1970s for films such as Zanjeer, Deewaar, and Sholay, and was dubbed India’s “angry young man” for his on-screen roles in Bollywood.
Bachchan has won numerous accolades in his career, including four National Film Awards as Best Actor and many awards at international film festivals and award ceremonies. He has won sixteen Filmfare Awards and is the most nominated performer in any major acting category at Filmfare.
Deewaar is often considered a ground-breaking cinematic masterpiece. But, today we will discuss about one of his most talk film “Silsila”. This was the last movie of Amitabh Bachchan and Rekha. Despite neither confirmed the rumoured link, they were never paired again and unlikely to feature together in the same movie.
Let’s discuss some of the intresting information about this movie:
There were several cast changes for this movie. The original star cast was Amitabh Bachchan, Padmini Kolhapure and Parveen Babi. Then Smita Patil replaced Padmini Kolhapure before finalising with Jaya Bachchan and Rekha, who had been recommended by Amitabh Bachchan.
Amitabh Bachchan was deeply involved with the music of this film. This resulted in the Holi song “Rang Barse”, which was sung by Amitabh Bachchan and composed by his father Harivansh Rai Bachchan.
The song Dekha Ek Khwab was shot in Amsterdams famous garden Kuekenhoff. It was Amitabh who suggested they shoot the song there. He had been there for a visit years earlier. A unit of 15 people flew down for the shoot. The top best hotel Okura was booked for the film unit. Amitabh and Rekha got into a small lovers argument. Rekha asked for a few retakes while filming the song. Amitabh was standing next to the camera man and said “Saali Take Pe Take Mangti Hain”. Rekha got offended and the moment the shot was over , went outside and wept loudly. The entire unit could here this. Amitabh tried to reconcile with her, but she would have none of it. Rekha asked Amitabh how he could insult her like this in front of the entire unit. The unit had to pack up for the day causing heavy losses.
After the film flopped, Yash Chopra and Amitabh Bachchan had a very bad falling out. Years later when Toofan and Jaadugar released, Yash Chopra in the print stated that Amitabh Bachchan was a professionally dishonest actor . Yash stated that Amitabh played a magician in both movies but failed to tell Manmohan Desai and Prakash Mehra about this. This angered Amitabh and he retaliated in the print very badly. He stated that when Yash Chopra decided to remove Parveen Babi and Smita Patil from Silsila, he asked Amitabh to break the news to them. Amitabh stated that both heroines were on the sets wearing make up when Yash asked Amitabh to go tell them that the cast had been changed. Amitabh angrily asked where was Yash Chopra’s professional honesty then? He reasoned that Yash Chopra should have told them himself. Amitabh then stated that Gulshan Rai and Yash Chopra had a falling out due to financial problems. Amitabh hinted that Yash had been dishonest with Gulshan and took alot of money. Amitabh went on to say that Yash Chopra had cheated his own staff. Yash owed Romesh Sharma money and several others money. Where was Yash Chopra’s professional honesty then.
As Yash Chopra used to take Amitabh Bachchan in every films, which ended with Silsila, Yash Chopra got another Hero and worked with him in every film, Sharukh Khan.
