Hooray For Bollywood!

Submitted by Brother Cleve October 9th, 2011
Certifikitsch Winner

I love Bollywood, especially the films from the 50’s/60’s/70’s and early 80’s. Actually, I love all South Asian cinema from those decades, be it Bollywood, Tollywood, Kollywood, Lollywood, or any of the other myriad regional cinemas from India’s 22 languages and Pakistan’s half dozen. The film poster and movie soundtrack here is from one of the greatest of all the “brownsploitation” films of all time, “Don” (1978), starring the great Amitabh Bachchan as the head of the Bombay mob….and also as the “double” who infiltrates the mob. You can see the incredible opening credits here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRi20kAZ1gU&feature=related, with the fantastic funky theme song written by the Shah brothers, Kalyanji and Anandji. Bollywood films are monuments to kitsch, especially ones with “cabaret scenes” or “item numbers” starring India’s greatest femme fatale, Helen. (She’s in this film!) They’re long, weird, colorful…and they’re cheap to buy on dvd and have subtitles. I’ve spent a lot of time in India and have bought hundreds of them. When I found this poster in NYC, however, I almost lost my mind! The LP came from a recordwallah in Bombay’s Chor Bazaar (“thieves market”)

3 Responses to “Hooray For Bollywood!”

  1. Allee Willis

    Love the opening car shots, the hair and glasses SLAY me, especially the coiffed do of the star and the greasy Barry Gibb thing going on on the middle gangster before he goes up like an A-Bomb. Also love the fantastically period inverse color stuff that happens. LOVE the beat of the song. And I always love when a jet engine sound swirls into an opening shot. I gots to track me down some Don!