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July 7, 1998

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Trick or treat?

Amitabh Bachchan. Click for bigger pic!
We told you that Amitabh Bachchan's film Major Saab was having a bad time and that the big B was hoping the tide turned. Well, so it has.

Major Saab is finally doing well and ABCL is getting back some money, we hear. But then, you know if the industry ever ran short of anything, it wasn't rumours. And so hardly had the film picked up that rumours began being floated that that Bachchan bought the tickets for the first week to keep the film going so that people are drawn to the theatres. That was a trick allegedly used by Jeetendra years ago to get his first hit.

People who have seen Major Saab don't think it's worth the trouble. But doing well it is. And, dear me, we still don't know if it's the audience or the actor to really blame.

Perfect partner

Nafisa Ali. Click for bigger pic!
Why was Nafisa Ali picked to play the doctor-wife in Major Saab?

Because she's still pretty and talented? That's just part of the reason. Actually she had the edge because besides these admirable attributes, she's also the wife of a defence officer in real life.

After all, ABCL, or rather Amitabh Bachchan, reasoned, not everybody could carry off such a role. And it comes naturally to Nafisa.

Nafisa, for those who came in late, disappeared after a much-hyped role in Shashi Kapoor's Junoon. A former Miss India and a national swimming champion, she tripped up then because of her anglicised Hindi accent. In this case, it didn't prove a disadvantage.

Vinod beyond the willows

Vinod Kambli.
So another cricketer succumbs to the lure of the camera. Vinod Kambli will appear for his first ever shoot on July 20.

Salil Ankola, of course, has took up the job full time since an injury cut short his cricketing career. Salil has acted in a serial called Chahat Aur Nafrat.

But, outside of a stadium, Kambli's no hero, least of all in a film. So he is playing himself in a film called Bade Dilwala starring Sunil Shetty and Priya Gill. The title suits him, considering that unlike some cricketers who even demand money for interviews, he is not charging the producers a penny for this appearance.

Of course, he's in elite company. Sunil Gavaskar acted in a Marathi film, Savli Premachi,and Sandeep Patil played the hero in a film opposite Poonam Dhillon called Kabhi Ajnabi and the villain was Syed Kirmani. There have been others but none, as far as we remember, as generous as Kambli.

Now Engineer No 1

Govinda. Click for bigger pic!
Govinda's No 1 tag just does not seem to leave him. It's something like Akshay Kumar's Khiladi tag.

To refresh your memory, Akshay has acted in Khiladi, Mein Khiladi Tu Anari, Sabse Bada Khiladi, Mr and Mrs Khiladi and Khiladiyon ka Khiladi. Most of these were either hits or, at the least, commission earners. Now he's doing International Khiladi with Rekha.

Govinda's got a similar No 1 streak that did him some good. So now, a small-time producer of a film named Aazmakar Dekho that starred Govinda had a windfall.

This, he said to himself, was his big change. He decided to revise his film, lying on the shelves for eight years. And renamed his film Engineer No 1.

Govinda stoutly defends the man.

"So what if he renamed his film Engineer No 1. I am playing an engineer in the film. And my other films like Coolie No 1have done well. I am also doing Anari No 1and Sindhi No 1. So if the poor man wants to capitalise on it, let him."

Oh well.

Out of the frying pan...

Rajiv Rai. Click for bigger pic!
Rajiv Rai migrated to UK, fearing for his life after a bunch of goons crashed into his well-appointed Bombay office. Now he finds he may have just got way from the frying pan into the fire.

For now he finds that the nuclear tests have made messed up the chances of Indian film crews in England.

He found he now can expect few facilities from the studios in London where he is shooting for his English film starring Sunil Shetty. The rest of the cast in the film are British, but the government there apparently isn't impressed.

He isn't alone. Even Sunny Deol, who used to shoot for London, cannot avail of any special facilities due to strictures passed by the British government.

Time, it seems, for the crews to come home to shoot.

Try, try, try again...

Anil Kapoor. Click for bigger pic!
Producer Tutu Sharma made that big bomb, Rajkumar, with Anil Kapoor. It's failure did nothing to spoil the friendship he and his wife -- name of Padmini Kolhapure -- shared with Anil and wife Sunita.

Tutu made another film, Gharwali Baharwali, with Anil Kapoor. Another squelch.

But the indefatigable Tutu has yet not confidence in his hero. Indeed, he has also drawn in Anil's younger brother, Sanjay, without a hit to his name, together.

If there was any problems, his actions suggest, it lay with the director. So he dropped the commercial David Dhawan for Sudhir Mishra (of Is Raat Ki Subah Nahin fame).

And the heroines? Yet to be finalised, though Padmini doesn't figure among the contenders.

-- V S Srinivasan

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