106. Amar Akbar Anthony – The zaniest movie of all times


There have been many movies in the Hindi film industry that have been madcaps like Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi, Padosan, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron and others.  But the one that takes the cake was Amar Akbar Anthony. Made in 1977 by Manmohan Desai, it was one of the zaniest movies of all times.

A person called Jackson went in to the park in Mumbai and killed himself, leaving his 3 children in the park.  Based on this news item, the story was developed by Manmohan Desai, where Pran goes with his 3 kids to a park and had to abandon them there.  As this was a Bollywood movie, the 3 children get adopted by Hindu, Muslim and Christian families!!

The original name of Amitabh Bachchan in the movie was kept as Anthony Fernandes.  During the composition of the superhit song, it was felt that the word Fernandes was not coming properly while singing.  At that time, Pyarelal of Lakshmikant-Pyarelel duo, the music directors of the movie, suggested that they change Fernandes to Gonsalves.  With the change, the tune was perfect and they went ahead with composing “My Name is Anthony Gonsalves”!!  Incidentally, Anthony Prabhu Gonsalves was the music guru of Pyarelal, and this song became an ode to his guru from his side!!

This song also had Amitabh Bachchan saying the most famous nonsensical dialogue in a mock accent: -

You see the whole country of the system is juxtapositioned by the hemoglobin in the atmosphere because you are a sophisticated rhetorician intoxicated by the exuberance of your own verbosity!"

You see such extenuating circumstances coerce me to preclude you from such extravagance!!

You see the coefficient of the linear….
is just a position….
by the hemoglobin of the atmospheric pressure in the country!!

Apparently, some of the above dialogues was in part taken from the 1878 speech by British politician Benjamin Disraeli who made it while referring to another politician, W E Gladstone

You can enjoy the song here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlxfIIgKZho

Another nonsensical scene is of the three brothers giving blood to their mother. Neither the sons know that they are brothers nor the mother knows that they are her sons.  The important point to note is that in the scene, the blood from the sons are directly captured into a single blood bottle and from that bottle, the blood is then sent to the mother’s body😊😊. No testing of blood or transfusion after collecting it.  Direct transfer😊!!  When Amitabh pointed this anomaly to Manmohan Desai, Manmohan Desai said don’t worry, the audience will love it😊!!

During the introduction scene of Rishi Kapoor, he calls Neetu Singh as Neetu while her name was Salma in the movie.  Nobody noticed this and the shot was canned. You can view it here at the 22:00 minute mark https://youtu.be/KP1ioOyaiUA


During the famous mirror band-aid scene of Amitabh, Manmohan Desai was not present. He was busy shooting for Parvarish also at the same time in the neighbouring studio.  Amitabh rehearsed and did the scene himself.  After Manmohan Desai saw the scene, he was so impressed that he told Amitabh that Amitabh will feature in all the movies that he directs from then on!! 

As per the story, the character of Amar, played by Vinod Khanna, did not have any heroine.  When Vinod Khanna heard it, he said he too wanted a heroine as others were having😊.  So, they had to write scenes for the heroine and then put Shabana Azmi to act opposite Vinod Khanna!!

Rajnikant’s Andhaa Kanoon, which also had Amitabh Bachchan in a small part, had three villains in it.  Their names were Amar, Akbar and Anthony 😊.

Amar Akbar Anthony was the first and the last film, where 4 legendary singers came together and sang a song together – Humko Tumse Ho Gaya Hai Pyaar Kya Karen.  The singers – Kishore Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar, Mukesh and Mohammed Rafi😊.  Enjoy this gem here at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rrj6687YqE4

Cheers till next time!!

Today’s Daffy Definition

Prehistoric Times – Stone age newspaper!!

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