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In Hasina Maan Jayegi, two look-alikes Kamal and Ramesh (Shashi Kapoor in both roles) love Archana (Babita). She loves Kamal but often mistakes the one for the other. The evil Ramesh takes advantage of this resemblance to have Kamal kidnapped on the day of their marriage but becomes the victim of his own plot when his henchmen make the same error as everyone else. In 1971 he directed Mela starring the Khan brothers — Feroze and Sanjay —which was also a smash hit. Prakash Mehra’s reputation as a film-maker rests largely on the heights he scaled with Zanjeer (1973) in respect of brilliance in all aspects of film-making — script, performances, music etc— this film represents the best of Indian cinema. Today the audience thinks nothing of anti-hero or even outright negative portrayals, but in those days it was unacceptable for a hero to actually do anything unlawful. Zanjeer starts out with Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan) as a cop tormented by nightmarish recollections of his parents’ murder by an unknown killer. He teams up with Sher Khan (Pran) to root out crime and evil in the big city. But when he identifies the man who murdered his parents he goes berserk and throws all the conventions out of the window.
The only common thing among some of Mehra’s films was that these films had nothing in common with the formula films. His films had novel ideas and were made with conviction without bowing down to the pressure of genre or tradition and that was his magic. The success of Zanjeer started a relationship with Amitabh Bachchan that spanned some seven more films. His Muqaddar Ka Sikander (1978) was a version of the modern day Devdas. Amitabh Bachchan reprised his typical persona of a doomed loner with mother fixation. Namak Halal and Sharabi (produced in 1982 and 1984, respectively) were not critically acclaimed masterpieces. But these two Mehra films showed how Amitabh Bachchan mesmerised the masses. A masala mix with sub-plots ranging from the remotely probable to the utterly impossible that was Namak Halal (1982). But because of Bachchan dominance the film made everyone happy. Sharabi (1984) had Bachchan playing the somewhat dandified and neglected son of an affluent father (Pran). Prakash Mehra was one of the first Bollywood directors to try to venture into Hollywood. In the late 1980s he tried a joint venture to make the movie The God Connection with Frank Yandolino. But the project, though funded heavily initially, never materialised. Mehra also directed and produced Zindagi Ek Jua with Anil Kapoor in 1992 but the film failed to click. In 1996 he introduced veteran actor Raaj Kumar’s son Puru Raaj Kumar in Bal Brahamchari which also went down the drain. Prakash Mehra was one of the most successful directors and part of his enduring appeal lies in surprising the audience with every new film. He is known for romantic light-hearted films but a look at his films shows that no two of his films looked alike even though he often repeated his actors. It is hard to think of any other director in the industry with a varied body of work and as successful a run for such a long time.
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While it is common to hear film-actors, producers and even writers to turn directors, there are not many lyricists who went on to direct movies. Yet that is exactly what Prakash Mehra, who died recently, was before directing his first film Hasina Maan Jayegi
(1968).The thundering success of his debut venture inspired him to continue in the director’s
chair.
