Excerpt: Mr.India Silver Jubilee Party: Did you know pre-fame pre-films Salman Khan attended?

 

Excerpt from Cine Blitz back in 1988, long before Salman Khan made an entry into films, he entered the Mr.India silver jubilee party on behalf of his father, writer Salim Khan. The soon to be superstar was such an unknown back then, the magazine spelt his name wrong, as "Salmaan"! 

"I expected Salmaan [sic], Salim's son to bash up Anil Kapoor at the party, because a few days back, Anil had made a pass at his girlfriend. But Salmaan disappointed me. He had not come to pick a fight, only the trophy. He was representing father Salim, who has co-scripted Mr.India with Javed. But on stage, Anupam the compere, gave the complete credit of Mr.India to Javed. Now Salmaan, has not one, but two scores to settle with Anil Kapoor. En route to their honeymoon, I saw the Reddy's - beanpole Sanjay and bashful Aparna, who are currently the guests of Yash Chopra, with Pam Chopra at the Mr.India party...."

TBT: The first review of Mr.India: Anil Kapoor and Sridevi's first blockbuster: Shekhar Kapur's Classic

The principal photography of Mr. India began on 6 July 1985, and the film finally released on 25 May 1987 ie 37 years ago today!!

A rare find (left), and major throwback, the early reviews of the experimental, high-concept film that became an all-time favourite of a generation, Mr.India. 

I believe this was published in Filmfare magazine back in 1987. Excerpt;

Desi Superman

Mr India heralds a new hero who does the disappearing act to turn the tables on the enemies of the nation. And has a lot of fun in the process. 

Too much pre-release hype can boomerang. So much was promised by Mr India--the last Salim-Javed script to be directed by Shekhar Kapur who had Masoom to live up to. The story is a judicious mix of many imported and indigenous elements not taking itself too earnestly thought all those elevating sentiments of patriotism, of the common man fighting the internal and external enemies are present. These cliched props of sentiment, suitably updated to keep nice with the times are as inevitable as that deadly foreign hand insidiously working to destabilise our country. In fact, Mr India repeats the destabilising mantra with such repetitive run that you wonder if Salim-Javed and Kapur are not having you on. Besides, there is this uncanny anticipation of the current scenario--the villain Mogambo who wants to destroy India prior to conquering it and struts about like a megalomaniac in a blond wig and an outlandish uniform embroidered with zari dragons and stomping along on cowboy boots. He also demands the Nazi salute. This composite bad man is modeled on those extravagantly mad villains who make the Bond films such fun. Mr India could have been high camp but the production company of Kapoor and Kapur (Boney Kapoor and Shekhar Kapur) believes in marathons of stretching a gag till it snaps with a rebounding effect. They don't believe brevity is the soul of wit. 

Mogambo only provides the outlandish extravagance demanded by the scale of the film. They couldn't have Krypton and Gene Hackman. So they settle for a mad Mogambo (Amrish Puri) doing a parody of a latter day Chengiz Khan who has read Indian history very assiduously. To counter his diabolical plans for India is another avatar of Brahmachari. Arun Verma (Anil Kapoor) doesn't have Shammi Kapoor's breezy vitality but he tries hard. And comes up with an over-grown boy scout charm. He runs an orphanage on lots of love and very little money made form giving music lessons. The gaggle of youngsters are not individualised except for the cherubic Tina--finally made into a sacrificial lamb to feed Arun's righteous anger and pull our heartstrings. There is also the bespectacled Jugal, a sly conspirator who knows that the mysterious hero Mr India is none other than the harmless Arun bhaiyya. Kapur is marvelous with children even en masse. They are endearingly believable not the revolting moralists wished on us in film after film prattling high sermons in childish lisps. 

The film is undoubtedly Sridevi's. As Seema, the intrepid reporter of the 'Crimes of India', with an editor who is being driven mad by the vagaries of Bombay telephones, she is equal to any occasion. Initially, she's prickly with the children till they melt her heart which should've turned into stone if she were a rime reporter worth her typewriter. She sizzles as Miss Hawa Hawaii, cabaret dancer extraordinaire doing a combination of belly dancing and other gyrations born of the choreographer's fevered imagination, with élan. Even if it is an overweight élan. The director gives her the privilege of a Chaplin homage. The set piece in a tough gambling joint where Seema goes on rampage a la Charlie is not strictly necessary for the plot but is a loving homage to slapstick. Can a Hindi heroine escape drenching, even if she is number one? The I love you number is a blue one--literally as well as in its orgasmic writing by the lovelorn heroine. To balance this is the sprightly parodic medley of past hits, quite amusing. More amusing than Roshanlal of Buniyaad trying to date the events through his offkey rendering of popular film songs. Here, it is an occasion for self-congratulatory nostalgia for Laxmikant-Pyarelal. 

Mr India announces that India has come of age as far as special effects go. The tricks of an unseen man entering a room sitting on a chair, draining a bottle of Thrill and smoking a cigar will do Hollywood proud. Where the firm of Kapoor and Kapur has slipped is in wrapping up Mr India much too neatly with no room for surprises or a sequel. When they domesticated Superman into a softie and transplanted H.G.Wells' Invisible Man to a beachside Bombay bungalow, they should have kept Mr India's identity secret from Seema-Lois Lane. But leaving a love story dangling midway, however tantalisingly is anathema to our box-office formula. Here was a chance to create a comic stirp hero with a series of adventures keeping the heroine mooning about Mr Mysterious while the modest half of the hero looks on with amused knowingness. This demands a sophistication which the film makers are not willing to concede to the audience or to themselves. 

-- Maithili Rao

Bombay June 22-July 6, 1987

• We have of course 87 posts, 100+ images and features about Mr India here.
• News about Mr India 2 over the past 25 years here!

TBT: Sridevi: Mobbed in Vishakapatnam

Excerpt from Mumbai media back in the early 1980s: 

...Sridevi has a big big problem. She's so popular in the South that crowds collect whenever she's around. Recently, there was such a mob turn-out at Vishakapatnam that Sridevi couldn't shoot at all. The ideal solution to this crazy problem would be to shoot in Bombay or any other place north of Bombay for, few have heard of her in these parts let alone pant after her... 

Legendary photographer Gautam Rajadhyaksha talks about Sridevi

Sridevi

Photographer Gautam Rajadhyaksha on working with Sridevi from 1983-1997; 

"There are two Sridevis. Two people as different from each other as you can imagine, leading quite separate lives, who never seem to meet even though they inhabit the same body.

I first met the off-screen Sridevi. She's shy unsure, awkward, an almost simple-looking girl who even talks in barely audible murmurs. Never mind. Her responses seem as pallid as her personality.

There there is the screen Sridevi who appears as if by magic the minute you switch on the arch lights. She's a sensuous seductress capable of unblocking your abused arteries with one look from her smouldering eyes! No matter how she saps my energy and spontaneity with her obsession for perfection, the adrenaline spurts back the moment she turns to face the camera.

Many years later later in Madras, I made the wonderful discovery that there is a secret door in the dividing wall that sometimes opens. The Sridevi that emerged as her two selves merged was a revelation. Relaxed and comfortable on her home turf, she was ebullient and playful, vivacious and childlike, gamin and gauche as I shot her frolicking on the beach with cousins, nieces and assorted children. But I never met her again.

Click to enlarge

To return to Sridevi, the star, she has a sharp, intuitive mind capable of sizing up a person or situation with a 99.99% accuracy. Several years ago when a storm called Madhuri was not even a speck on Sridevi's horizon, the star had sniffed out her rival. "In just two dance steps I could make out."

Once during an interview I asked her about her competitors who had earlier dismissed Sridevi, and her reply came back chilling as a whisper off an iceberg, "I have no competitors. When they can do everything I can and I can do everything they can, then we become competitors. Till then, we are contemporaries."

-- Excerpt from Faces by Gautam Rajadhyaksha

More images of Sridevi at the beach near her Madras home here.

The entire gallery of images and portraits by Gautam da of Sridevi here.