Wednesday, 22 January 2025

Rare stills: Sridevi and Sunny Deol in Chaalbaaz: Lost in The Cut


Rare stills: Sridevi and Sunny Deol in Chaalbaaz: Lost in The Cut!

A lot of little skits and comedy scenes were shot for the film, this one sadly ended up on the cutting room floor. Sridevi and Sunny were perfect comedy foils - alas only one of them recognised it. 

Sridevi looks so cute in the high ponytail and fringe - all the 80s fashion rolled into one! 


Disco dancing with Sridevi in Telugu cinema

 

Sridevi dancing away in Telugu films. 

Sridevi and Kamal Haasan: 16 Vayathnile's Artistic Poster

Sridevi and Kamal Haasan: 16 Vayathnile's Artistic Poster

Tuesday, 21 January 2025

Sridevi's Khuda Gawah promo shoot

Ah, the 90s, fringe dyed short perm. 

Gorgeous cognac eyed Sridevi. Yes, we know they are her lenses, but Sri looks great here. 

More from this shoot (with Nagarjuna, who famously said about Sridevi, "She's the most...") in the archive here
 

Nagarjuna and Sridevi in Govinda Govinda aka The Great Robbery

Released on 21 January 1994, ie 31 years ago today, I loved parts of this Telugu film Govinda Govinda a lot, but especially the song Andamma Andamma - where you can just look at glorious Sridevi all the livelong day! 

Sung so beautifully by SP and Chitra... its easy on the ears and visually so simple, but so stunning. 

The film was (poorly!) dubbed into Hindi as The Great Robbery--before people realised that investing in a stellar dubbing team would have more fruitful returns! 
 

Divine Roles of Young Sridevi: And the confusion of chronology

Sridevi started acting at a tender age, often in mythological films as a divine phenomena. With her gorgeous cherub face, expressive eyes, ease on camera, she was born to play roles in costume dramas - which she did often as a child artist. 

Not only did she start acting in Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu films as Lord Muruga, or Lord Krishna, she began showing acting chops and a proclivity for a non-stop work ethic that would be astounding, and impossible today -- heck, child-labour laws wouldn't allow it! 

It also started the trend of inaccurate information and images - of which we are also guilty of. In earlier post, we were misinformed and therefore wrong in publishing and broadcasting here that the images of Sridevi in Kumara Sambhavam were of Thunaivan - both films released a few months apart in 1969!

Since a well-informed viewer corrected us, we've amended the page - but not before damage was done. Now there are other sites that have taken this misinformation and its gone viral. We've seen the ripples go far and wide as TV shows, film channels have taken the wrong film image and credited it with another. Fact checking gone for a toss... 

Sigh.. 

So here's a correct chronology of young Sridevi, as a child artist, from her initial batch of films. From her first baby steps as a child artist, age six, in her first-ever film, the Tamil classic, Thunaivan (1969) onwards. Or so we thought... 

In an interview, Sridevi stated that she first started acting at the age of four. Sridevi was born in August of 1963. The film Thunaivan started production in 1967, and the film released on 4 July 1969 - when Sridevi was still five-years-old! So she was right - even though the film released when she was six, she is not wrong when she said that she started acting at the age of four! This is where date, month and year of release suddenly becomes important when you're trying to have the most comprehensive - and accurate - site dedicated to an Indian icon! 

Now to get even more confusing, in TV interviews, Sridevi often said she played Lord Muruga in her first film Thunaivan which released in 1969. However, the Tamil costume drama Kandhan Karunai released in 1967 and you can clearly see young Sridevi in the movie. She might have forgotten the chronology of her own films as she was but a child... and who keeps track of dates and times at that age?! 

We also noticed in a TV interview Sridevi says that her first Hindi film appearance was in Julie (1975), when in fact, Sridevi appeared briefly, as a child artist, years before in the Hindi film Rani Mera Naam in 1972! She might have forgotten, as most audiences did as this was a super flop from the 1970s. 

Our attempts to illustrate and list in chronological order Sridevi's staggering filmography with absolute accuracy continues.... Slowly! 


Jayalalithaa with young Sridevi in the Tamil film Kandhan Karunai (1967)


Sridevi, 5, as a child artist in her first Tamil film Thunaivan (1969)



Sridevi, 6. in her first Malayalam film Kumara Sambhavam (1969)


Sridevi, 9, in the Tamil film Agathiyar (1972)


Sridevi, 12, as a child-artist in the Telugu film Yashoda Krishna (1975)

TBT: Throwback Tuesday: Sridevi and Boney Kapoor at the Airport

Sridevi and Boney Kapoor back in 2007
TBT: Throwback Tuesday: Sridevi and Boney Kapoor at the Airport