Shakespeare in Bollywood : Bollywood News

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so – Hamlet

Hamlet is the son of the late King Hamlet (of Denmark). After King Hamlets death, his brother, Claudius, becomes king, and marries King Hamlets widow, Gertrude. Later Hamlet (the son) sees the late King’s ghost appear at midnight. The ghost tells Hamlet privately that Claudius had indeed murdered King Hamlet by pouring poison in his ear. Hamlet is further enraged and plots on how to avenge his fathers death.

The tragedy has been made over 50 times since 1900 and is the second most filmed story in the world after Cinderella.

Hamlet has been done in India about 3 times. It all started way back in 1928 with the B&W silent film Khoon-e-Nahak. Though there isn’t much detail about the cast of the film, it was directed by K.B. Athavale and writing credits were given to William Shakespeare.

A few years later came ace director Sohrab Modi’s Khoon Ka Khoon (1935, B&W). It marked Modi’s directorial as well as acting debut. This film was adapted by Modi from the successful stage play of the same name and has the same principle cast as well, where Modi played Hamlet, Banu was Ophelia and Shamshadbhai enacted the role of Gertrude. Credits here too were given to Shakespeare along with Mehdi Ahsan for adaptation as the film was in Urdu.

1954 saw the release of Hamlet made by another director Kishore Sahu enacting the title role again. The film which released post Independence had Venus Benerji and Mala Sinha (playing Ophelia). What was interesting about this film was that the original dialogues were translated in Parsi theatre style which gave a very different feel to what one would expect for a play originally based in Europe.

Not stepping oer the bounds of modesty – Romeo and Juliet

The children of two feuding families, Romeo of the Montague family and Juliet of the Capulet family, both love each other and die for each other. Story sounds familiar? Well, we might be able to recall an ‘n’ number of Bollywood masala movies with a similar story line in the 70’s and 80’s.

Though the amount of similar films is inevitable, there has been only one film in Bollywood to be actually named that. Romeo and Juliet directed by Akhtar Hussain in 1947 starred Anwar Hussain, Nazir Kashmiri and Nargis. We assume that Anwar and Nazir were Romeo and Juliet respectively as Nargis was Anwar’s real life sister. The film was produced by Nargis under the banner of Nargis Arts Concern. This film too was in Urdu and B&W as well.