Mughal-E-Azam (1960) was co-written and directed by K. Asif. It is considered the great Bollywood epic movie. It's the Magnum Opus of Indian Cinema.
The film stars Prithviraj Kapoor as the Mughal Emperor Akbar, and Dilip Kumar as his son, Prince Saleem. The role of the dancing girl Anarkali is portrayed by Madhubala, "The Queen of Indian Cinema." "Known for her beauty, personality, and sensitive portrayals of tragic women."
The movie is very long by our standards--over three hours. True--but the length fits the epic nature of the plot. And, as expected, there are many, many episodes of singing and dancing. (Also, battle scenes with--literally--a cast of thousands.)
The film was originally show in black and white, but it has been meticulously colorized. (Usually, I'm not fond of colorization. However, in this case it works.)
The basic plot is simple. Prince Saleem falls in love with the beautiful dancing girl, Anarkali. His father opposes the marriage of his son to a lowly servant girl. Everything else follows.
Not only is the movie a treat for the eye, it's also a treat for the ear. Lata Mangeshkar is the playback singer for 12 songs. She is the most famous playback singer in the world--"The Voice of India."
This film cries out to be seen on the large screen. In fact, it was shown at Rochester's Dryden Theatre. However, we couldn't see it then, so we settled for the DVD. (There are two different DVD's of this film. The one we saw was from Shemaroo Entertainment.)
Mughal-E-Azam carries a fantastically high IMDb rating of 8.3. Believe it or not, I thought it was even better than that. I rated it 10.
The film stars Prithviraj Kapoor as the Mughal Emperor Akbar, and Dilip Kumar as his son, Prince Saleem. The role of the dancing girl Anarkali is portrayed by Madhubala, "The Queen of Indian Cinema." "Known for her beauty, personality, and sensitive portrayals of tragic women."
The movie is very long by our standards--over three hours. True--but the length fits the epic nature of the plot. And, as expected, there are many, many episodes of singing and dancing. (Also, battle scenes with--literally--a cast of thousands.)
The film was originally show in black and white, but it has been meticulously colorized. (Usually, I'm not fond of colorization. However, in this case it works.)
The basic plot is simple. Prince Saleem falls in love with the beautiful dancing girl, Anarkali. His father opposes the marriage of his son to a lowly servant girl. Everything else follows.
Not only is the movie a treat for the eye, it's also a treat for the ear. Lata Mangeshkar is the playback singer for 12 songs. She is the most famous playback singer in the world--"The Voice of India."
This film cries out to be seen on the large screen. In fact, it was shown at Rochester's Dryden Theatre. However, we couldn't see it then, so we settled for the DVD. (There are two different DVD's of this film. The one we saw was from Shemaroo Entertainment.)
Mughal-E-Azam carries a fantastically high IMDb rating of 8.3. Believe it or not, I thought it was even better than that. I rated it 10.