It has been 40 years since Indian cinemagoers first laid eyes on 'Sholay', which is regarded as Hindi cinema’s greatest ever film. Ramesh Sippy’s iconic film brought together a brilliant star cast- Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra, Sanjeev Kumar, Hema
Apparently, during the shooting of the film, Dharmendra would pay the light boys to spoil his scenes with Hema Malini so he could shoot more scenes with her.
'Sholay' was film of many firsts: the first Hindi film made in 70 mm and the first to be made with stereophonic sound.
The film’s dialogue and songs have found a life beyond the screen. But who would have ever imagined that it was only after 40 retakes that the 'Kitne aadmi the' scene was finalised.
Jagdeep who played the role of Soorma Bhopali was roped in way after the film was already shot.He refused to do it after as he was still not paid for his role in Brahmachari. It was only few meeting later that he gave in.
There was actually a dacoit named Gabbar Singh in the 1950’s in the Gwalior area who used to cut off the noses and ears of policemen. An interesting fact is Danny Denzongpa was considered for the role of Gabbar at first but couldn't do it because of
The screenplay of Sholay was originally a 4 line snippet created by writers Salim-Javed. Who would have thought about that?
The song 'Yeh dosti' which is an ode to Jai and Veeru’s bond took 21 days to shoot. Whereas the scene of Jaya’s character Radha lighting a lamp took 20 days to shoot by cinematographer Dwarka Divecha. Talk about perfection!
On the Diamond jubilee of ‘Sholay’, producer GP Sippy presented all the leading stars with gold bracelets. However the other actors who were a part of the film were not acknowledged.
The film continues to resonate because of its great story, charismatic characters and catchy songs. 'Sholay' was made in a budget of 3 crore and took two and a half years to be shot.
Amjad Khan was almost dropped from 'Sholay' as Javed Akhtar felt that his voice was too weak to play Gabbar Singh. But Amjad Khan made Gabbar memorable by mouthing dialogues like ‘Tera kya hoga, Kalya?’, 'Pachas pachas kos door jab bachcha rota hai
Javed Akhtar had suggested Amjad Khan’s name after his impressive performance in the play, ‘Ai Mere Watan Ke Logon’. On the other hand, Salim Khan recommended Amitabh Bachchan for the character of Jai. And after watching the film, one cannot deny
It has been said that Dharmendra had set his heart on playing Thakur Baldev Singh but changed his mind when Ramesh Sippy informed him that Sanjeev Kumar would play Veeru.
The stagecraft of the action scenes were incredible but when the film was first released it didn’t fare too well and only picked up business after a week.
Four decades: 14 lesser known facts about 'Sholay'