Synopsis
Kishen Lal (Pran) is a driver employed
with Robert (Jeevan), a smuggler, who asks
Kishen Lal to go to the jail for a crime
that is actually committed by him. In return
he promises to take care of his wife, Bharati
(Nirupa Roy) and his three sons. However
on his return Kishen Lal finds his wife
suffering from Tuberculosis and his sons
fighting with each other over food. Fuming
with anger and breach of trust Kishen Lal
goes across to seek revenge from Robert,
however he faces humiliation from his employer.
In the process Kishen Lal escapes with booty
and takes his sons along with him. His wife
not being present at home is left behind.
Being chased by the henchmen of his boss,
he leaves his sons at a park and then goes
on to divert his enemies and the police
from his path. However his car meets with
an accident and falls off the cliff but
Kishen Lal survives with the booty. The
police seeing this accident assumes that
he along with his sons are dead. In the
meanwhile the sons also separate from each
other. Kishen Lal returns to the park to
find no one there. Bharati gets the news
of the death of her husband and sons and
is completely shattered. The eldest son
Amar (Vinod Khanna) is adopted by a police
officer. Apriest of a church adopts the
second son, Anthony (Amitabh Bachchan),
while an old muslim tailor adopts the youngest
son, Akbar (Rishi Kapoor). Amar becomes
a police officer, Akbar a qawwali singer,
and Anthony a loveable crook. They find
romance with Shabana Azmi, a small time
thief , Salma(Neetu Singh), a doctor and
the daughter of Tayabali (Mukri), a wood
merchant and Jenny (Parveen Babi), the daughter
of Robert but was kidnapped by Kishen Lal
while she was a kid to avenge the death
of his sons respectively. The film finally
moves towards the re-uniting of the lost
family with the sons seeking revenge on
Robert for all the atrocities committed
by him. Kishen Lal also surrenders himself
to the police leaving behind his wife, sons
and their brides.
The film
Amar Akbar Anthony became a legend
and by far the most successful entertainer
of its time. Released in 1977, it was a
super hit and is considered the best film
made by Manmohan Desai, the undisputed king
of the lost and found formula. A typical
Manmohan Desai "masala" it had the apt quantity
of the necessary ingredients like action,
emotion, drama, comedy and tragedy. The
film's highlight apart from its story, screenplay,
dialogue and direction was the character
of Anthony Gonsalves played by Amitabh Bachchan.
The film undoubtedly sees one of Amitabh's
best performances ever. It gave him immense
popularity and catapulted his position and
career to unmatched heights and to super
stardom. It also gave a whole new dimension
to his acting career and the success of
the film showed that he was more than just
being the Angry Young Man of Indian Cinema.
The character was that of a local Christian
of Bombay and it became immensely popular
because of his language and mannerisms and
was a rage through out the country. In fact
it made the Bambaiya Hindi popular all over
the country. An interesting fact to
know was that Anthony Gonsalves was actually
inspired from a man of the same name who
used to live in Khetwadi, an area
in Mumbai where Manmohan Desai also lived.
His unique mannerisms had always impressed
Manmohan Desai, who decided to incorporate
this in his film.
According to Desai, the film was inspired
by a news item about an alcoholoic who regularly
beat up his wife. One day, the
disraught woman, abandoning her three small
children on the kerbside disappeared. This
gave Desai the idea to show
each one growing up in three religious households,
Hindu, Muslim and Christian. From this germ
of an idea, the film grew into an incredibly
implausible yet highly absorbing tale. Escapism
is part of experience when viewing a Manmohan
Desai film, and this film is filled with
it.
There is many a moment that makes this
film so memorable. The scene where Amitabh
is drunk and is applying the medicine on
the mirror to his reflection is by far is
the best potrayal of a scene of this kind
and continues to inspire many actors till
today. The action sequence between Amitabh
and Vinod Khanna with both of them in their
vests, resulting in Amitabh getting thrashed
are some of the few nostalgic moments. The
wearing of vests by the two of them was
largely merchandised through press and hoarding
form of advertising and was visible all
over the country. Apart from this, the scene
where Amar Akbar and Anthony are introduced
as they simultaneously donate blood to their
mother, highlights the vision of the director
and his ability to successfully carry off
even the most illogical situation convincingly.
One also can't forget the scene where Amar
re-unites with his father while digging
out his toy, a pistol given to him by
his father when he was a kid.
The
dialogue of Anthony are however the icing
on the cake. The language had become an
integral part of every home then and continues
to be widely spoken and remembered even
today.
 The film also has Vinod Khanna, an honest police
officer and Rishi Kapoor, a qawwali singer
in the other lead roles of Amar and Akbar
respectively; both of whose characters lent
able support to the script. The film does
bring out a sense of communal harmony with
the brothers being brought up as followers
of different religions. What's more the
brothers constantly keep running into each
other every second scene but are unaware
of the fact that they are blood brothers.
The actresses in the female lead are however
placed as mandatory requirements to the
film, Parveen
Babi, Shabana Azmi and Neetu Singh basically
fulfil the requirements of glamour and romance.
Among the supporting artists, Mukri playing
Neetu Singh's father stands out.
The music of the film was fairly successful
with all the tracks topping the charts.
Parda Hai Parda, My Name is Anthony
Gonzalves, the title song and Tayaballi
pyar ka dushman are hummed till today.
In fact the music fetched Laxmikant - Pyarelal
the Filmfare award for the best music that
year, despite the tough competition from
R.D.
Burman (Hum Kisi se Kum Nahin (1977))
- an award they won after a span of eight
years. Incidentally talking of awards, it
also won Amitabh his first Filmfare award
for the best actor.
Amar Akbar Anthony remains a cult
favourite in the minds of the people and
still attracts housefull audiences whenever
it is screened. This film also marked the
beginning of the immensely successful team
of Manmohan Desai and Amitabh who went onto
do films like Parvarish (1977), Suhaag
(1979), Naseeb (1981), Desh
Premee (1982), Coolie (1983),
Mard (1985) and Ganga Jamuna Sarawati
(1988).
Siddharth Rai works with HTA in
creative-films.
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