NOBODY GOT THE HIT FORMULA

Touchwood. Nazar na lage. But ever since films are being produced nobody got the hit formala so far. In another sense nobody could read the public pulse. Not even the greatest of Indian film producers or directors of the pre independent or post independent era. Though there are so many who gave hits after hits but like law of averages faltered at some point of time and lost money. Even sometimes those films were acclaimed critically and considered to be ahead of time but public outrightly rejected and did not fill the cinema theatres. Take for instance BR Chopra, who had entered the hindi film industry with literally background and thought that films based on solid storyline will be liked by the masses and as such he had a separate story department comprising of Pt. Mukhram Sharma, Akhtar Ul Iman, Dr. Rahi Masoom Raza, Satish Bhatnagar, Hasan Kamaal etc.and to some extent he was right as he made very good films based on time based problems like widow remarriage in ‘Ek hi Raasta’, Sadhna on rehabilitation of prostitute, in Naya Daur on competition between man and machine, unwed mother in Dhool ka Phool, Kanoon on intricacies of law, adultery in Gumraah and his films went on to become big hits celebrating silver and golden jubilees but few remember that between these films he also made one Chandni Chowk starring Meena Kumari in 1954 which was a super flop. In the early fifties a breakaway studio from Bombay talkies namely Filmistan made several films based on star value and good music which went on to become hits. Just see the films produced by this production house like Anandmath, Anarkali, Nastik, Nagin, Jagriti, Munimaji, Paying Guest, Tumsa Nahin Dekha. Actually Filmistan had so many actors/actresses, directors etc on their pay rolls and later on when the production houses system collapsed the likes of S.Mukherjee, Subodh Mukherjee, Nasir Hussain, Dev Anand, Pradeep Kumar launched their own careers leading to star system and after that Filmistan could not make any film worth mentioning.Take an example of our own showman who started his career as a clapper boy under Kidar Sharma further went on the become a hero under him in Neelkamal against Madhubala. He himself started his production company and gave hits like Barsaat, Awaara, Shree 420, Boot Polish, Jagte Raho, Jis Desh Men Gaga Behti Hain, Sangam etc. but to fulfil his dream which he nurtured since beginning of his career he made a magnum opus ‘Mera Naam Joker’ which flopped badly. At the same time a film distributor called Gulshan Rai stepped into film production and produced ‘Johny Mera Naam’ which became a big hit. The same Gulshan Rai produced another big film ‘Joshilaa’ with big names starring Dev Anand, Hema Malini, Pran directed by Yash Chopra and music by RD Burman the film could not create magic of earlier film and flopped badly. Although after this he made some successful films like Deewar, Trishul, Tridev etc. There is another very versatile director came from Bengal who made thought provoking films which got international acclaim such as ‘Do Bigha Zameen’ , Parineeta, Devdaas, Sujata, Madhumati, Bandini etc. but along the line he also lost his midas touch while making films as Prem Patra, Benazeer etc. Our own Hrishikesh Mukherjee who started his career under Bimal Roy made his directorial debut in Musafir starring Dilip Kumar, Suchitra Sen, Nirupa Roy, Kishore Kumar, Shekhar and Smriti Biswas etc. in which Dilip first time sang a song himself had no takers as the same had new concept about three different stories of three families who rent a house and vacate. He finally got his footing as a director with Anari starring Raj Kapoor and Nutan but his career as a director was topsy-turvy, sometime making a national award winner Anuradha or making mediocre films like Do Dil, Biwi aur Makaan, Sabse Bada Sukh. Finally in 1970s he started making small budget films with NC Sippy on the middle class values and gave really good films like Anand, Guddi, Namak Haram, Mili, Khubsoorat etc. But during later stage of his deterioting health he made ‘Jhoot bole Kauwa Kate’ which could now salvage his pride. The another so called showman after Raj Kapoor is Subhash Ghai though a trained Actor at FTII Pune could not establish himself as an actor in the industry. To survive he formed a team with BB Bhalla a small time actor as a story writer ‘Ghai-Bhalla’. The duo went on to narrate their stories to producers and during such narration producer NN Sippy noticed Ghai’s passion and enquired who will direct the film.Ghai offered himself as he convinced Sippy that story being his own he can only do full justice to the story and he used his friendship with Shatrughan Sinha of their FTI I days and directed Kalicharan which gave Ghai a solid footing in the film industry. Later on he directed Vishwatma, Vidhaata, Karz etc and stepped into production with Hero. In his career apart from hit films he also got number of flops like Trimurty, Yaadein, Krishna, Yuvraaj etc. There are so many examples of other film producers/directors like Gurudutt who lost money and got so much dejected.after Kagaz Ke Phool that he decided not to direct any film in future. Later on his produced films Chaudhvin Ka Chand and Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam was directed by M Sadiq and Abrar Alvi respectively. Shakti Samanta who shifted to A grade category films with Aradhana, Kati Patand and Amar Prem also made flops such as Jaane Anjaane and Raja Rani with Rajesh Khanna and Sharmila Tagore the hot star-pair of that time. The list is very long.. There are others like V. Shantaram, Rajashri Pictures Pramod Chakraborty, Ramanand Sagar Gemini, AVM production houses etc who too could not create magic in succession. I do not find anyone who can boast of one hundred percent record of hit films. you can make a film with all your heart and spend crores of rupees but cannot guarantee of bringing public into the cinema halls as only public knows what they want. Or sometimes they also do not know why they liked a particular film.