25th anniversary of Sridevi, Anil Kapoor and Urmila's 90s blockbuster: Judaai

A surprise blockbuster that no one saw coming, Judaai opened 25 years ago today - with a shaky curtain. 

A questionable plotline, Sridevi's marriage to the film's producer shrouded in mystery and bad-press (trust me, we were there - it was controversial as hell and made international headlines, let alone tabloid) and a oh-hum stale pairing for the 12th - and final - time of Anil Kapoor and Sridevi, slightly shrill music (though two of the songs stayed on top of the charts from an equally controversial Nadeem Shravan), the ingredients for the pot-boiler could have worked wonders or seen the triumvirate of stars' shine dim further. Would the magic of the gifted Sridevi, Anil Kapoor and Urmila Matondkar work? No one knew.  

There are no guarantees in Bollywood, "the only thing we know is, we know nothing."   

After a lukewarm opening, with word-of-mouth, the film sailed through the box-office as the seventh biggest hit of the year. 

Things all just fell into place; Urmila - fresh off the success of Rangeela - the chartbuster Mujhe Pyar Hua Allah miya stayed on the Number 1 slot for aaaaaaaaaaaages, a stellar supporting cast led by Paresh Rawal, Johnny Lever, Upsana Singh and Sridevi's tour-de-force performance yanked the movie off the tepid reviews and made it a blockbuster - the film went on to make nearly five times the budget and the producer and distributors sighed in relief. 

A film that belonged to the leading ladies - both actresses received great press for their performances on-screen and double nominations; Sridevi for Best Actress and Urmila for Best Supporting Actress. Anil Kapoor said then and recently, had it not been a home production, he would not have taken up the part in a thankless role where he had no scope to shine. 

Truth be told, as marvelous as Sridevi is, the middle-class wife selling her husband for cash to a rich NRI plotline just didn't work for many. Esp the the poison-pens waiting to write Sridevi's epitaph back in '97. 

Bollywood essentially is suspended reality, and we just buy into the lip-syncing, the dancing-in-the-streets choreography, the absurd theatrics and the florescent technicolour wonders that camouflage harsh reality of life in aamchi Mumbai, so why not find the applause in the implausible plotline? Switch the gender and a rich guy buying a wife for the evening, set in Vegas, was made into a Hollywood blockbuster Indecent Proposal - so why not a similar albeit Bollywood-ised version of the same tale - but with spiffy dance numbers in the streets of Vegas?! 

To further belabour the point, if you read The Week or India Today back page stories, crazier tales have emerged from within the 28 states. Perhaps that's why the premise didn't seem completely absurd in the second and third tier cities which helped Boney rake in the big bucks... 

The comedy and some of the songs have aged well, other parts haven't. If you see the film telecast or on OTT platforms, you'll end up going along for the ride... Even years later, the film does well in TRP ratings. 

Left: Boney Kapoor, Sridevi, Anil Kapoor and Urmila on the sets of Judaai.

Obviously we have a massive archive of images and features on the film here. 

Left: This prescient pull quote from Filmfare back in 1997. Anil Kapoor, "As things stand today, Judaai will be my last film with Sridevi."