Manmohan Desai

Manmohan Desai( )
Born (1937-02-26)26 February 1937[1]
Mumbai, Maharashtra
Died 1 March 1994(1994-03-01) (aged 57)
Mumbai, Maharashtra
Alma mater St. Xavier's College
Occupation Film director, producer
Years active 19601989
Spouse(s) Jeevanprabha Gandhi[2]
Children Ketan Desai
Parent(s)
  • Kikubhai Desai
  • Kalavati

[3]

Manmohan Desai (26 February 1937 – 1 March 1994) was a producer and director of Indian movies.

Family Background

Manmohan Desai was of Gujarati ancestry. His father, Kikubhai Desai,[4] was an Indian film producer and owner of Paramount Studios (later Filmalaya)[5] from 1931 to 1941. His productions, mainly stunt films, included Circus Queen, Golden Gang, and Sheikh Challi.[6] Manmohan Desai's older brother, Subhash Desai, became a producer in the 1950s[7] and gave Manmohan his first break with the Hindi film Chhalia (1960). Subhash later went on to produce Bluff Master, Dharam Veer, and Desh Premee with Manmohan as the director.

His wife was Jeevanprabha Desai. She died in April 1979. He was engaged to actress Nanda from 1992 until the time of his death in 1994. He had one son Ketan Desai who is still involved in the film industry. Ketan is married to Kanchan Kapoor, daughter of Shammi Kapoor and Geeta Bali.

On 1 March 1994, per news Manmohan Desai fell from the balcony in Girgaon as the rail he was leaning on collapsed and died.[8] Very little is known about his death except that he was suffering from chronic back pain. Rumours of him committing suicide have not been confirmed.[9]

Career

Manmohan Desai was known for his family-centered, action-song-and-dance films which catered to the tastes of the Indian masses and through which he achieved great success. His movies defined a new genre called masala films. His best known super-hit movies were Amar Akbar Anthony and Dharam Veer.

He had a string of hits with Amitabh Bachchan in the 70s and early 80s which helped cement Bachchan's status as a superstar of Indian cinema. He worked with Amitabh on Amar Akbar Anthony, Parvarish, Suhaag, Naseeb, Desh Premee, Coolie, Mard and Ganga Jamuna Saraswati; all but the last were box office successes. He was one of the directors who had a special working relationship with Amitabh Bachchan, the others being Yash Chopra, Prakash Mehra, Ramesh Sippy, and Hrishikesh Mukherjee. Of these, only Yash Chopra went on to make hits beyond the 1980s.

He often worked with the same actors in several different films:

Apart from Bachchan, Manmohan Desai worked with such leading male stars as Raj Kapoor in the 1960 film Chhalia, Shammi Kapoor in "Bluffmaster" (1963), Rajesh Khanna in Sachaa Jhutha (1970) and Roti (1974), Randhir Kapoor in Raampur Ka Lakshman (1972), Shashi Kapoor in Aa Gale Lag Jaa, Dharmendra in Dharam Veer (1977). 1977 was an exceptional year for him. All four of his films released that year were huge hits: Parvarish, Amar Akbar Anthony, Chacha Bhatija and Dharam Veer. The first two were with Amitabh, and the latter two were with Dharmendra.

Manmohan Desai worked with writers such as Prayag Raaj, K.K.Shukla and Kader Khan and lyricists such as Anand Bakshi, Sahir Ludhianvi, Qamar Jalalabadi, Gulshan Bawra, and Shailendra. Early in his career he worked with composers Rahul Dev Burman, Kalyanji Anandji, later with Laxmikant Pyarelal and in the 1980s with music composer Anu Malik.

Out of the 20 films that Desai directed in his career span of 29 years (1960–1989), as many as 13 films were stupendous hits. His success ratio was 65 percent in an industry where flops abound. His favourite playback singer was Mohd Rafi. In most of his movie, Mohd Rafi was used to sing songs beside Kishore Kumar. When Kishore Kumar voice was frequently used on Amitabh Bachcan by other Directors, he used Mohd Rafi's voice on Amitabh Bachcan in films like Suhaag and Naseeb . His biggest hits of Mohd Rafi song was Pardah Hai Pardah from Amar Akbar Anthony and John Jani Janardhan from Naseeb. Manmohan Desai once said that Mohd Rafi voice is God's voice.

Towards the end of his career, Desai's previously successful stories and style began to lose favour with audiences. Critics accused him of self-parody. His last film as a director Ganga Jamuna Saraswati and the films he produced with his son Ketan Desai directing, Allah Rakha and Toofan, failed at the box office.

Filmography

Year Movie Name Cast Notes
1960 Chhalia Raj Kapoor, Nutan, Pran, Rehman, Shobhna Samarth
1963 Bluff Master Shammi Kapoor, Saira Banu, Pran, Lalita Pawar
1966 Budtameez Shammi Kapoor, Sadhana, Manorama
1968 Kismat Biswajeet, Babita, Helen, Kamal Mehra
1970 Sachaa Jhutha Rajesh Khanna, Mumtaz, Vinod Khanna
1972 Raampur Ka Lakshman Randhir Kapoor, Rekha, Shatrughan Sinha
1973 Aa Gale Lag Jaa Shashi Kapoor, Sharmila Tagore, Shatrughan Sinha, Om Prakash
1972 Bhai Ho To Aisa Jeetendra, Hema Malini, Shatrughan Sinha
1974 Roti Rajesh Khanna, Mumtaz, Om Prakash, Vijay Arora, Nirupa Roy
1977 Parvarish Amitabh Bachchan, Shammi Kapoor, Vinod Khanna, Neetu Singh, Shabana Azmi
1977 Dharam Veer Dharmendra, Zeenat Aman, Jeetendra, Neetu Singh, Pran
1977 Chacha Bhatija Dharmendra, Randhir Kapoor, Rehman, Hema Malini, Yogeeta Bali
1977 Amar Akbar Anthony Amitabh Bachchan, Vinod Khanna, Rishi Kapoor, Parveen Babi, Neetu Singh, Shabana Azmi, Pran
1979 Suhaag Amitabh Bachchan, Shashi Kapoor, Rekha, Parveen Babi
1981 Naseeb Amitabh Bachchan, Shatrughan Sinha, Rishi Kapoor, Hema Malini, Reena Roy, Kim
1982 Desh Premee Amitabh Bachchan, Shammi Kapoor, Sharmila Tagore, Hema Malini, Parveen Babi
1983 Coolie Amitabh Bachchan, Rishi Kapoor, Rati Agnihotri, Waheeda Rehman, Kader Khan
1985 Mard Amitabh Bachchan, Amrita Singh, Nirupa Roy, Dara Singh
1988 Ganga Jamuna Saraswati Amitabh Bachchan, Mithun Chakraborty, Meenakshi Sheshadri, Jaya Prada
1989 Toofan Amitabh Bachchan, Meenakshi Seshadri, Amrita Singh Producer
1993 Anmol Manisha Koirala, Rishi Kapoor, Producer
2006 Dus Sanjay Dutt, Sunil Shetty, Abhishek Bachchan, Zayed Khan Presenter

References

  1. Connie Haham (1 December 2005). Manmohan Desai's Enchantment of the Mind. Roli Books Private Limited. pp. 20–. ISBN 978-93-5194-049-4.
  2. Singh, Kuldip. "Obituary: Manmohan Desai". The Independent. Retrieved 8 August 2015.
  3. Raje, Niilesh A. "Anhonee Ko Honee Karde: A Tribute To Manmohan Desai". Learning & Creativity. Retrieved 8 August 2015.
  4. Kikubhai Desai. IMDb
  5. Tejaswini Ganti 2004, "Bollywood: A Guide to Popular Hindi Cinema", Routeledge Guidebooks, New York and London.
  6. Connie Haham (2006) Enchantment of the Mind: Manmohan Desai's Films, Roli Books, New Delhi, p 182.
  7. Subhash Desai. IMDb
  8. Bawa, Jyoti Sharma. "With Nanda's death, I have lost a very good friend: Actor Mala Sinha". Hindustan Times. Retrieved 8 August 2015.
  9. Mishra, Rashmi. "Accident, Suicide or Murder? The mysterious deaths in Bollywood". India.com. Retrieved 8 August 2015.

Manmohan Desai at the Internet Movie Database

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