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Hindi Bollywood Movies Biography
These kind of movies have always fascinated film-makers and cine-goers since time immemorial.Its difficult to distinguish between historicals,periodical and costume drama.Fantasy ofcourse is a different genre but I include that as well
in this group.There is hardly any specific differentiation between historicals and periodicals but I have given my logic for the difference.Movies of such genre have been produced since a long time and although they enjoy a huge run at TV in cinema
they have fared like a mix bag.If u remember the first Indian talkie was Alamara-a historical.
             Historicals-These are movies which are based on history.Certain facts can be argued and distortion of facts is a common allegation on such movies but since they involve real historical characters,situations and period so they are termed
historical.Historicals are a very difficult genre to make.Firstly it is always a risk to chose a historical subject as Indians are not very interested in watching movies based on history.Secondly,its very difficult to create the era.Thirdly there is always a risk of getting into controversy as almost every historical made in Indian cinema gets allegation from historians and critics for distorting history.In the black and white era this genre was at its peak.There were many historicals which were not with top stars productions-Samrat Chandragupta,Chitralekha(Samudragupta regime),Chengiz Khan(Prem nath)-its surprising to know that films on these historicals characters have already been made.
     The favourite actors who played these roles where Bharat Bhushan and Pradeep Kumar.Bharat Bhushan played the soulful historical singer or poet
whos art is in danger due to the evils of the society.He had the distinction of playing title roles of both Baiju Bawra and Sangeet Samrat Tansen both of whom were arch rivals in the court of as both were great singers.The movies were musicals.
While the former was a huge hit the latter was not that big a success.He also played the title role of Kalidasa in a movie based on the great poet’s
life.One of his biggest hit was Sohrab Modi’s Mirza Ghalib where Bhushan played the legendary poet.He also played the great Chandragupta in the movie Samrat Chandragupta which starred Nirupa Roy as the leading actress.
       The other actor Pradeep Kumar was the ultimate prince and king of Hindi movie historicals.He has the distinction of playing both Jehangir and Shah Jahan in Anarkali and Taj Mahal respectively, both of which were resounding hits.His other famous
historicals were Noor Jahan,Chitralekha(set during the great Samudragupta) and Jahan Ara.Needless to say that it was due to historicals that both Bharat Bhushan and Pradeep Kumar became stars.
However if one have a look at the list of important historicals one will see that the top stars Ashok Kumar,Prithviraj Kapoor,Dilip Kumar,Sunil Dutt,Dharmendra,Manoj Kumar,Shammi Kapoor,Shahrukh khan,Ajay Devgan and now Aamir Khan have also done historicals. Some important historicals do deserve a mention.

1.Mughal-E-Azam-The biggest of all of them.No historical before or after this epic could match its scale,popularity and class.Enough has been written about it so I wont write much.Although the existence of Anarkali is not fully historical yet there is historical fact that there were tensions between Akbar and his son Jehangir.Although Anarkali was already a hit movie starring Pradeep
Kumar(who was the eternal king) still it was with Mughal-e-azam that the love legend is remembered.its popularity can be judged that Dilip Kumar-Madhubala are still considered one of the most popular star-couple although this was the last film
they did together.Prithviraj kapoor made Akbar so memorable that its difficult to imagine anyone else in the role.The recent colourization of the film revived it for the new generation and help it again achieve international name and fame.
K.Asif’s name is written in Film history due to this historical movie.Dilip Kumar became the complex Salim and Madhubala immortalised Anarkali.Nothing till date can match this one.Since many years there have been opinion polls about a remake of the immortal film.Around a decade back polls reflected that people wanted to see the original Salim-Dilip Kumar as Akbar and someone like Aamir Khan as Salim.However in recent times people think Amitabh will be perfect for Akbar.Infact a couple of years ago there were strong rumours that Rajkumar Santoshi was planning a remake with Amitabh as Akbar and Shahrukh Khan as Salim.Aishwarya Rai was supposed to be Anarkali.However the rumours died soon.However the people of this generation were able to watch the classic as it was re-released with colour on a huge scale.Its popularity can be judged that even though it was
released on the same date as Veer Zaara still the classic mnaged to be a hit all over again.Infact the coloured version did good business overseas also.Need anyone say anything more!!!!!!!!!!

2.Humayun-Yeah this is one of the first historical which was an A-grade movie with top stars and top production.The movie is about Mughal monarch Humayun’s life and none other than the first superstar of Hindi cinema-Ashok Kumar played the title
role.His wife was played by a young Nargis.The movie was made by the top film-maker of that time-Mehboob Khan.The movie boasts of great production values,direction and a top class performances by the stars.This movie is the oldest ever movie I have ever seen(1940’s) and its success made Nargis a star and further strengthened the positions of Ashok Kumar and Mehboob Khan as the top actor and film-maker of the time respectively.The only weak point is the music which is now extremely dated.

3.Sikandar-1941-The movie which started it all.Sohrab’s Modi timeless classic was about the legendary battle between Alexander and the Indian king-Porus.Although like Anarkali’s episode this battle is not fully acknowledged universally by
historians but still this is perhaps the historical which changed the way people looked at historical movies in India.Although Sohrab Modi had earlier made Pukar-1939 which was based during the regime of emperor Jehangir and was a huge hit-I remember my grandmom telling the story of the movie to me when I was a kid-still it was Sikandar which made Modi immortal as a film-maker.He became the man who was undisputed king of historicals and Sikandar is his best work as a film-maker.The grand-scale of the movie,the awesome battle scenes and star-cast made Sikandar a cult movie.Prithviraj Kapoor as the dashing Alexander looked like a greek-god.Infact I remember as a kid when the movie was coming on TV my dad pointed to
Prithviraj and asked me to name the hero and I said-’’Shashi Kapoor’’.Indeed Prithvi looked a taller and heavier form of the young Shashi whom I adored as a kid.Porus was played by Sohrab Modi himself and his loud thundering voice became his
trademark till the end of his carrier.Sohrab Modi continued with his historicals.Infact he made a big-budget Jhansi Ki Rani which is credited as the first technicolour feature film in Hindi,still it failed to match the unparallel popularity of Sikandar.
For Jhansi ki Rani he hired technicians from Hollywood but despite all the grand-scale the movie somehow did not became that famous.Recently when Alexander was being released in Hollywood,Shashi kapoor said that his dad Prithviraj immortalised Alexander on screen in India almost 6 decades ago with this historical.Sohrab Modi finally gave a resounding historical hit in the form of Bharat Bhushan starrer-Mirza Ghalib almost 2 decades later.

Hindi Bollywood Movies