When people talk about Hindi cinemas, Bollywood is the first thing that surrounds the mind. Not only the Glamour but also million dollar business rule the heart of many. However, besides the onscreen activities, people have much interest to know about the things going behind the screen. As people involved with Bollywood and Hindi films are all human beings, it’s obvious that they too have tears, sweat blood to come out. Thus, behind the screen, what are the things being counted have become the ‘must to know fact’ among the common people. Even, beside the glamour part, Bollywood is all about the business and a bunch of incidents to remember. Let’s have a look at those-
#20. In 1899, the first motion picture of India took the fame of the screen, and that was ‘the wrestlers’. Photographer Harischandra Sakharam Bhatavdekar made this his movie.
#19. The iconic status of Indian cinema, Ashok Kumar was the lab assistant in Bombay Talkies before becoming an actor. In 1988 Ashok Kumar won the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, which is a highest national award for a cinema artist. Ashok Kumar was also fondly called Dadamoni and also received the Padma Bhushan award in 1999.
#18. Director Subhash Ghai made a cameo appearance in ‘Aradhana’, and the interesting fact is he does it in all of his films.
#17. In the movie, with the same name, the song ‘Ab Tumhare Hawale Watan Saathiyon’ is the longest Hindi film song. This iconic song took 20 minutes to be played in three installments during the entire film.
#16. Dimple was only 16-year-old when Raj Kapoor introduced her to Bollywood with the movie Bobby. After that, Dimple got married to Rajesh Khanna and separated herself from the film industry to raise her children, besides taking care of family.
#15. Being a trilingual movie, each scene of Mughal-e-Azam was shot thrice in Hindi, English and Tamil. While sadly Tamil version flopped, makers quit the English version. Mughal-e-Azam cost more than the previous films by Indian motion pictures. Even, Asif initially rejected Dilip Kumar for Prince Salim’s part, and Dilip too was not so keen to take the role. Upon the producer’s approach, Dilip accepted the film. Even, Suraiya was the first choice for the role of Anarkali, which later shifted to Madhubala.
#14. Actor Amjad Khan was almost rejected for Sholay, as the scriptwriter Javed Akhtar felt the voice is too weak to complete Gabbar’s character. Even, makers approached Danny Denzongpa initially for this role.
#13. Amitabh Bachchan was known for his punctuality. Most of the times, he used to reach the studio before the gatekeeper and used to open the Filmstan Studios gate himself.
#12. During the 40s, cinema industry was considered as low salary profession. At this time, director Naushad was introduced as a tailor to his bride’s family. However, it was an irony that the music played in his baraat was from Rattan, which was composed by him.
#11. Dharmendra’s fee in 1960, during his debut in Bollywood, in the movie ‘Dil Bhi Tera Hum Bhi Tere’ was just 51 rupees.
#10. Sunil Dutt used to be RJ for Radio Ceylon and wanted interview his favorite actress Nargis. Later Sunil could not say a single word to Nargis and his interview with Nargis was cancelled. After that, they worked together in Mother Indian, fell in love and got married to each other.
#9. Devika Rani was the first actress, who got the degree in film-making. Devika Rani Chaudhuri was usually known as Devika Rani, and she was an actress of Indian Film during the 1930s and 1940s. She was considered as the first lady of Indian cinema.
#8. In the film ‘Heroine’, Kareena Kapoor wore more than 130 different dresses designed by top most designers across the world. As per the reports, Kareena’ s closet was one of the most expensive among the Bollywood movies made till date.
#7. Initially, Saif Ali Khan was the first choice for Raj’s role in ‘Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge’. Even. Tom Cruise was considered for Shahrukh Khan’s role (Raj Malhotra) in this film.
#6. Movie Rockstar was shot in reverse order, where the climax was shot first. The reason was Ranbir’s hairstyle, which makers did not want to disturb. In this Shammi Kapoor gave his last screen appearance.
#5. Anil Kapoor’s family lived in Raj Kapoor’s garage, during their initial days in Mumbai. Later, they moved to a Mumbai’s middle-class suburb. During Anil’s struggling days, his wife sunita sacrificed a lot for her family. Sunita was a model, but to make her husband successful in his career, Sunita sacrificed his job and started grooming for good clothing and style sense and she used to go for the shoot with Anil.
#4. When Sridevi was just 13, she played the role of Rajinikanth’s stepmother in a Tamil film ‘Moodru Mudichu.’
#3. Raj Kapoor’s ‘Mera Naam Joker’ was the first Hindi movie with two intervals. After the release of the movie, the movie didn’t gain much popularity, what was expected initially expected. Even this movie led the Kapoor family to a financial crisis. Though, the film was later considered as the finest work by Kapoor. Even, film experts consider this film as the ‘misunderstood masterpiece.’
# 2. The Longest film in the world was also made in Bollywood and that is ‘LOC Kargil’. The movie takes 4 hours and 25 minutes. Even, this Bollywood movie took 88 Bollywood star. This war film was based on the Kargil war fought between India and Pakistan.
#1. Indians buy 2.7 billion tickets annually, which is the highest ticket purchasing number in the world. However, the average ticket prices are among the lowest in the world, whose revenues are the fraction compared to Hollywood.
Apart from all these, one must not feel surprised hearing that Fourteen million Indians go to the movies on a daily basis, which is about 1.4% of the total population. Even, Bollywood films are being shown in British and American theatres on a more frequent basis. As India is the land, where 24 languages emerge, some portion of the film industry has been fragmented. For example, Bollywood in Mumbai produces Hindi film, In Chennai, Tamil films are produced and the city Kolkata is famous for Tollywood that produces Bengali movies.
Bollywood started emerging with its silent Indian featured in 1911 by Dadasaheb Phalke. Bollywood’s film production center is a government-owned studio facility, known as ‘film city’ in the Northern suburbs of Mumbai. At present, the film industry spanned with more than 250 theatres in Mumbai alone. Even, lead star today in Bollywood movies are paid US $2 million for a typical masala film.