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| Best Actress win for Sridevi; Lamhe |
For the n'th time, let me state, Lamhe was not a flop. It just wasn't as big a hit as Chandni and got a little trounced by a film that no one saw as a threat; the (rather mediocre to be fair) hit that was Phool aur Kaante. Made on a budget of ₹2cr, Lamhe made ₹3cr. A more than healthy profit. Trouble is of course, it was being compared to the runaway success of Chandni, made at a modest ₹2.8 crore, which had the Box office turnover of a whopping ₹17.2 crore!
Yash Chopra famously went into a mild depression of sorts when the film's box-office reports were initially trickling in. Dilip Kumar famously went to visit him often to break the spell. He was so glum, Chopra didn't even attend Filmfare awards for the first time in the show's history, despite the film having a record number of 13 nominations. And possibly for the last time in Filmfare history, a tepid box-office film walked away with all 5 of the major awards, while the bigger hits were left without trophies. Lamhe even went on to win Best Film, Actress, Dialogue, Story and Comedian. In our humble opine; it should have won for Best Choreography (Saroj Khan's most eclectic work), Best Supporting Actress (Waheeda Rehman should just keep winning awards for merely existing - we are blessed to be around in her time), Best Costume (which was not yet a category in Filmfare - but thankfully Neeta Lulla was recognised by the National Awards), Best Music (still get chills when I hear the intro of wind and music in Morni), Best Playback singer (Hariharan - that velvet versatile voice), they should have given Lataji a special award (hell, if they can do that was Hum Aapke Hain Kaun...!), Best Cinematography (how gorgeous and contrasting did London and Rajasthan look?!), and controversially, as Anil Kapoor's most understated performance, he should have won for Lamhe (and not the pandering, over-the-top Beta--that was Madhuri's win and film all the way tbh).
Was glorious to watch the show again to see stars when they were mysterious superstars, not these dime-a-dozen on Instagram wannabes. Zoya Akthar and Farhan Akhtar--oh those OG nepo babies!-- looked like enthusiastic high school kids when they picked up the award for writer Honey Irani, who was a no-show at the event despite writing Lamhe so beautifully and si sensitively. One wrong note or pitch and it could have gone horribly wrong, but it didn't. Despite what some of the audience said back then... Today, we look back at it as a classic. In the 90s, it was the biggest hit on Laser Disc (remember those?!), which ushered in the era of the DVD. I remember paying a FORTUNE for my Lamhe laser; $100. Which was big money back then, as it is now.
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