Released 40 years ago today, we're remembering the all-star cast of the film Jaani Dost led by Dharmendra, Jeetendra, Parveen Babi and newcomer to Bollywood, a 20-year-old Sridevi.
Jaani Dost was made in two versions; one in Hindi and the other in Telugu as Adavi Simhalu. Both Sridevi and Jaya Pradha were signed as the heroines in each film - but a few things went awry in production.
Ramesh Sippy (Jeetendra's brother-in-law, not the director of Sholay) was the film's distributor in Bombay (pre-Mumbai!). He suggested they drop one of the heroines because having two Telugu heroines in the film would make it look like too much of a South Indian film, not a Bollywood musical. But who gets cut and replaced in the film? They decided to retain Jaya Prada due to her being familiar with the Hindi audience after the smash hit Sargam, while Sridevi was a new face with a Hindi flop behind her (Solva Saawan). Having worked with Sridevi in Himmatwala, Jeetendra and director K. Raghavendra Rao (a long standing patron of Sridevi who worked with her in 24 films since her childhood), insisted Sridevi stay. The distributors argued that Sridevi could not speak a word of Hindi and it was Jaya who should stay.
As fate would have it, Jaya Prada was removed and Rekha was signed! Jaya Prada of course hit out at her loss of remuneration and spoke to the press about unprofessionalism in Bollywood. Meanwhile, it what would have been a first for Hindi audiences to see Rekha and Sridevi together on the big screen came to naught; legend has it, Rekha was thrown out of the film due to her bad behaviour and unprofessionalism towards director Dasari Narayan Rao on the sets of Asha Jyoti (1981). Eventually Parveen Babi was signed - which then became one of the last films she appeared in before leaving Bollywood.
Those days of Jeetendra, Kader Khan, Shakti Kapoor were staples in Hindi remakes of South Indian films. Jaani Dost followed Himmatwala (the biggest hit of 1983), after that came Justice Chaudhary and then Mawaali in the same year. All three films were directed by the "Manmohan Desai of the south", K. Raghavendra Rao. They weren't great cinema per se, but money-makers who put the 'business' in show-biz.
Upon re-watch, the film isn't much - but Sridevi is hella cute in the movie. And then there's the monkey.
The producer hired a chimp named Lulu from Texas. Her trainer Mike came along with her to India as Lulu would only listen to his every word and command. Lulu charged Rs5 lakhs for the film - a whopping amount when lead actors of Bollywood made anywhere between Rs1-2 lakhs! Leading ladies made even less!! The conversation about pay parity wasn't even a notion back then.
Archive of images from the film
Jaani Dost here.
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