BROMANCE IN HOLLYWOOD!
-Naveen K.Gupta
In FTII, Pune, where I and my first batch of Screenwriting classmates grew to learn to scribble dreams into words, anything new was introduced by this zany classmate of ours called Megha Ramaswamy! Megha read and watched more films than us and would often tell me new words being in circulation, like bachelorette instead of spinster!
My net roving got me the meaning of the word "Bromance," quite the currency in films and videos at present! It is a portmanteau of the two words "brother" and "romance," coined by author-editor Dave Carnie in "Big Brother Magazine," a sort of adult skateboarding or skate culture magazine that was eventually purchased by Larry Flynt's Hustler conglomerate and promptly snuffed due to unsatisfactory sales performance!
Carnie was given to use the word to describe relationships between skate-buddies who spent a lot of time together or shared hotel rooms on every skate road trip. One of the elaborate websites devoted to explain Internet slang tells us that bromance is "Non-sexual relationship between two men."
Bollywood has thrived on bromance for ages! It’s a staple feature in every film of ours to have a couple of bros chasing a set of babes around trees in India or abroad! If that aunt the scheme of things then the ‘second bro’-read supporting hero or no.2 in the prevalent Bollywood superstar rankings- helps the ‘main bro’-read hero!- get the babe or the object of his quest through a string of journeys befitting the hero himself!
Bro by the way is the derided slang term of 80s made popular by African-American TV or Movie characters to express support in fellow minority members. Today the way Sky uses it in ‘Big Boss,’ or Hindi Films it means buddy, friend or brother!
To cut to chase now that you’ve got me all keyed up about bromance and its absolute absence in Hollywood as compared to Hollywood. And plus the fact that this MCRC, Jamia pass out friend of mine called Sanjay Mattoo once told me when I was not an FTIIan but a mere AIR Producer and he an allegedly filmmaking student, that the learned female professor of theirs had found many shades of homosexuality in bromance between Jai and Viru in ‘Sholay’!
He had stoked my anger then and at that time by clever skullduggery with phillulmlese worth Mahesh Bhatt, I had subdued the know-all Kashmiri Pandit in my friend! But after many years of wrangling with jargon connected with films and getting branded from the most snob film school in India and Asia, I thought to myself, why not try to find the finest bromance Hollywood films seen so far by me! This list is incomplete and you’re free to add to it, bros and sisters!
Back to the Future took the world by storm in 1985. This All American science-fiction adventure film was directed by Robert Zemeckis, an USC alumnus, and co-written with Bob Gale, produced by Spielberg, Marshall and Kennedy. It starred Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly, a teenager who is accidentally sent back in time from 1985 to 1955 by this genius Scientist called Doc Emmett Brown, a whacky combo of Einstein and Stokowski assayed by Christopher Lloyd.
Marty meets his future-parents in high school and as you wouldn’t want it- attracts his future mother's romantic interest! Not only Marty must repair the damage to history by causing his parents-to-be to fall back in love, but aided by then younger Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown, he must find a way to return to 1985.
Both Michael J. Fox and Lloyd were the second choices instead of Eric Smoltz & John Lithgow. A feeble Bollywood inspiration titled, ‘Action Replay,’ failed because it concentrated on Ash-Akshay romance with no comparable bromance the likes of Marty-Doc variety in the original. This first part of the trilogy made$210mn of the total$381mn! It was an out and out bromance between old dude-young dude kinds!
Back to the Future was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2008, the American Film Institute based on polling from more than 1,500 people from the creative community acknowledged it as the 10th best film in the science fiction genre. Seven (stylized also as Se7en) was a 1995 American thriller film, with shades of horror and neo-noir elements, directed by David Fincher and written by Walker. It starred Brad Pitt as rookie detective Mills, Morgan Freeman as world weary and soon to retire detective Somerset and Kevin Spacey, as the psychopathic and sadistic murderer who bases his murders on seven deadly sins of Christianity: gluttony, envy, lust, pride, sloth, greed and wrath.
The film grossed $327 million at the box office internationally; William Hurt and Al Pacino were to assay the role of Detective Somerset but one wonders if the Pitt-Freeman chemistry would have been matched by either of the veterans with Brad Pitt. It was the elder, wise and empathetic old cop vs. young, ebullient but hot headed and doomed cop bromance, which has made this film, a cult classic of all times.
Rush Hour was the first part of American action comedy film trilogy that hit the screen in 1998 and starred Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, Rush Hour l grossed over $140 million dollars. Rush, in 2001 was set in Hong Kong. Rush Hour 3, in 2007 was set in Paris. Rush Hour 4 is said to be released in 2012 is reportedly set in Moscow. This was bromance between an exotic Far East bro and mainland US bro or an ebony & ivory kinda bromance that once Mr. Stevie &Sir Paul had ignited in music once!
The Shawshank Redemption (1994) written and directed by Frank Darabont starred Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, the veteran bromancemeister. It was adapted from the Stephen King novella ‘Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption’. The movie was nominated for seven Academy Awards in 1994 (Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Original Score, and Best Sound Mixing) but it landed in the shadow of Forrest Gump, and did not win any awards.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) was the ultimate western bromance film directed by George Roy Hill and written by William Goldman (who won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the film). It was a saga of Wild West pardners Robert Leroy Parker aka Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman) and his partner Harry Longabaugh, the "Sundance Kid" (Robert Redford. In 2003, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".


The title roles were originally cast with Newman but the original choice for Sundance’s role were Steve McQueen, Jack Lemmon, Warren Beatty and Marlon Brando, eventually it went to the lesser-known Redford. This film catapulted Robert Redford to stardom and irreversibly changed his career and won four Oscars and Six BAFTAs. The Scenes like the song where Late Mr. Newman takes out Katherine Ross for a bicycle ride in the rain, with her boyfriend Redford smiling in the background or the heroic end has made this one of the greatest films and paean to bromance!
The Midnight Cowboy Midnight Cowboy (1969) was based on the 1965 novel of the same name by James Leo Herlihy. It was directed by John Schlesinger and starred Dustin Hoffman and newcomer Jon Voight in the title role. This angst ridden bromance in the same category as Of Mice and Men won three Oscars. It is the only X rated film ever to win Best Picture and one of two X-rated films to be nominated for an Oscar (the other being Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film A Clockwork Orange).
Both Hoffman and Voight were nominated for Best Actor. The film won six BAFTA Awards. In 1994, this film was deemed by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. The ultimate compliment that Angelina Jolie’s daddy Jon Voight got for starring in this bromance was when just after the film’s release, at Chicago Airport a certain Mr. Muhammad Ali hailed and took Voight aside and praised him no end!

Rain Man (1988) was directed by Barry Levinson. It had Mr. Beefcake or Tom Cruise as an abrasive and selfish yuppie, Charlie Babbitt who finds that daddy dear before croaking bequeathed all of his multimillion-dollar estate to his other son, Raymond or Dustin Hoffman, an autistic savant of whose existence was perceived as danger to Charlie in his childhood. The film won four Oscars, the Golden Bear at the 39th Berlin International Film Festival and would end up as the highest-grossing film of 1988 with $172 mn! This tale of road bromance and redemption for evil younger brother for once got women mighty worked up! And they went in droves to theatres bewitched by this film!
Blood Diamond (2006) was directed by Edward Zwick and starred Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Connelly and Djimon Hounsou. Blood diamonds are diamonds mined in African war zones and sold to finance conflicts thus profiting warlords and diamond companies across the world. This interracial bromance had a mix of everything- civil war of Sierra Leone, many of the atrocities of that war, including the rebels' amputation of people's hands to discourage them from voting in upcoming elections & child abuse. And the entire cat and mouse bromance based on distrust between Di Caprio and Hounsou over this huge diamond turns into a tale of sacrifice and endearing relationship. This film remains etched in memories of viewers with Di Caprio’s fine bromantic end! The film received 5 Oscar nominations at the 79th Academy Awards!

The Man Who Came In From The Radio

In Hollywood and its sister city Bollywood; petty mean hearted men with deep pockets or brandishing imposing staffs in their hands, goad the genius. Independence and innovation are not invited unless called for. Much before the label ‘indie’ became synonymous with filmmakers with derring-do, one man fought with one hand tied, for over five decades to let the independent filmmaker survive and make his mark. This man who started the fire, incidentally was a rank outsider, and remained one throughout his life. Much before he was waylaid by the charms and ways of Lady Cinema, he was a templar knight of Lady Sound.

He was Orson Welles; born as George Orson Welles in Kenosha, Wisconsin on May 6, 1915, as second son to an inventor father and a concert pianist & suffragette mother. When little Orson was 6, his alcoholic father separated from Beatrice Ives, his mother, and the affluent world in which Orson was born fell apart but under the wings of his artistic mother the boy imbibed life.

Orson Welles’s mother died of jaundice four days after his ninth birthday, and the young boy put down his ambition to be a musician. Orson lost his father, when 15 years old, the summer after his graduation from Todd School for Boys, Woodstock, Illinois. Welles in his later interviews never hid his guilt in neglecting his father. After a brief tour of Ireland where he bluffed his way on the stage of Gate Theatre, Dublin, pretending to be a Broadway star, he returned home and took to writing adaptations of Shakespeare.

In New York, his revival of ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ caught the eye of John Houseman, who cast him as a lead in various productions of Federal Theatre Project-a part of Roosevelt’s work progress administration, which utilized unemployed theatre artistes for work by staging plays highlighting his ‘new deal.’

Welles asked to direct a project for Harlem’s American Negro Theater by John Houseman, had the ‘boy wonder’ casting an all-black ensemble in ‘Macbeth,’ moved to Haiti at the court of King Henri Christophe, with a setting of voodoo witch-doctors please someone remind me of ‘Maqbool’ by Vishal Bharadwaj with Shah and Puri as witches!).

The play became a landmark of African-American theatre, he further consolidated his image by mounting the farce ‘Horse eat hat’, and ‘Dr. Faustus,’ where he used light as a prime unifying scenic element on a dimly lit stage. He carried a coup of sorts when he staged pro-union ‘labour opera’ by Blitzstein, at Venice Theater at the last minute, instead of the usual venue at Maxine Elliot, blockaded by National Guardsmen, because of a worried Congress on the overt communist tones of the opera. The hallmark of Welles’s genius lay in the fact that his creativity was a spontaneous burst, full of panache and bluster, and with just a dash of improvisation,and it was fast becoming his calling card.

He was a true genius; he never had to labour at anything he overtook. Welles and Houseman now formed the Mercury Theatre, its actors included Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead, Ray Collins, George Coulouris, Everett Sloane and other who would continue under Orson Welles baton on stage, radio and later films.

Orson Welles was the first biggest superstar of the radio, which in 30s was bigger than the movies and there was no television. His ability as round the clock writer, actor, director, producer made him voice Lamont Cranston in ‘The Shadow’, the hit show which had the CBS give him ‘The Mercury Theatre on the air,’ a weekly hour long show to produce when he was only 22,it was going to catapult Orson to international fame.

A day before Halloween, on Oct.30, 1938; 9 million Americans tuned into the performance of that evening- an adaptation of ‘War of the Worlds,’ by H.G. Wells, a science fiction novel about a Martian invasion of the earth. What they heard was ballistic and out of this world, Welles wrote and performed his play so that it sounded like news broadcast about an invasion from Mars. The dance music was interrupted by fake news bulletins about a flaming object landing on a farm near New Jersey! And although paid actors essayed the roles of news announcers, officials and members of administration that an unsuspecting audience was so taken in that people packed the roads, hid in cellars, loaded guns and wrapped their heads in wet towels as protection from Martian gas! For the first time in the history of electronic media people were stuck in a kind of virtual world in which fiction was confused for fact.

News of the panic reported by genuine news reports created a national scandal, the public asking for a suitable broadcasting code to ensure a similar incident wouldn’t happen again. Today we live in a age of simulation-confusion, a tool essential for television’s survival; besides each ridiculous ‘breaking news’ is hard cash by sponsors!

Hollywood now berated Orson with offers and lures which independent minded Welles resisted but when RKO Pictures president George Schaefer offered $500,000 for a two picture deal with complete artistic control; it became the greatest contract ever offered to an untried director. Welles and the entire mercury Theatre moved to Hollywood.

For his first project Welles settled for an adaptation of Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’, but the excessive budget and the anti-fascist tenor of story made RKO do a double turn. His second project, ‘The Smiler with the knife’, was not approved because the studio had no faith in Welles’s protégée Lucille Ball’s acting prowess. Hard pressed by RKO, Orson left his radio show to Houseman, and came up with ‘American,’ conceived with his fellow radio-writer Herman J. Mankiewicz; it would eventually become Welles first feature film, ‘Citizen Kane.’(1941).

The film was mired in controversy from the seeding only. Mankiewicz, banished from the table of the great media baron William Randolph Hearst and his mistress Marion Davies, the actress, for being a perpetually drunk and notorious gossip based the film on an expose of Hearst’s life. But Welles wanting to create a complex character asked Mankiewicz to keep lives of Joseph Pulitzer, Howard Hughes, Robert McCormick and the 300 pages of notes he had written on ‘Heart of Darkness’, in the screenplay.

John Houseman was to keep Mankiewicz sober. But the duo in their malice towards their young boss worked in cunning autobiographical allusions to Welles, particularly regarding his guardianship. Welles refused unfortunately to incorporate claims about the death of Film Director Thomas Ince being killed on an excursion on a Hearst yacht. Mankiewicz, ironically later lamented and wisely so, that if this material had been left in, Hearst would never have dared to make the public connection to his own life and would have left the film alone.

The completion of the script drew in legendary cinematographer Gregg Toland, who in a moment of bravado placed his Oscar on Orson Welles’s table as his calling card and asked for work! Welles with the entire Mercury group in tandem filmed, what is considered the greatest film ever made, by the critics the world over. During the 1950s young French film critics such as Francois Truffaut, Goddard, Chabrol and others were inspired by Welles ‘example to make their own films in keeping with ‘auteur theory’, and gave birth to Nouvelle Vague.

The innovative elements of Welles’style exhibited in ‘Citizen Kane’ were: 1. Composition in depth: the use of extreme deep focus cinematography to connect distant figures in space. 2. Complex mise-en scene, in which the frame overflowed with action and detail. 3.Low angle shots that revealed ceilings making the characters dominant yet trapped in their destiny. 4. Long takes. 5. A fluid moving camera that expanded the action beyond the frame. 6. The creative use of sound as a transition device and to create visual metaphors.

The film well received by the critics faced distribution and exhibition problems due to the entire might of Hearst thrust against it. It garnered 9 Oscar nominations but snagged the only one for original screenplay for Mankiewicz and Welles. In the 1999 HBO movie, ‘RKO 281,’ John Malkovich as Mankiewicz reminds Liev Schreiber playing Welles – whether Welles will outdo himself at 26 ever again!

His second film, ‘The Magnificent Ambersons’, (1942) was an adaptation of Booth Tarkington’s novel and starred Cotten, Anne Baxter and Agnes Moorehead. At the editing stage RKO and the US government, asked Welles to helm $1 million semi-documentary, ‘It’s all true,’in South America. An unsuspecting Welles embarked on his mission not knowing the cleverly worked clauses in the contract ensured that he had no rights of artistic control. 3 reels of footage from Welles’ original cut was lopped off, and yet the film remains the second greatest all American film ever made, and one of the top ten films ever made in, ‘Sight and Sound’s’ 1982 list.

The film bombed at the box-office and Welles’ reputation suffered a deathblow, he was dismissed along with his cast from RKO! Welles now took an increasingly active role in American and international politics and used radio and journalism to communicate his forceful ideas widely. He delivered a hit with ‘The Stranger’,(1946), produced by legendary Sam Spiegel, who again despite Welles’ protests took to editing of the film. Welles was now convinced not to be a cog in a Hollywood studio ever and resumed his struggle for the total creative control.

His fortunes continued to waver between success in radio and flops on stage especially the musical, ‘Around the world in Eighty days.’ He agreed to helm the Columbia Pictures, ‘The lady from Shanghai,’ with his then estranged second wife, Rita Hayworth as co-star in 1947. Again the studio boss Harry Cohn, finding the rough cut confusing ordered extensive editing and reshoots. The film was a disaster at the time of its release in America, though widely acclaimed in Europe, however Hayworth finalized her divorce from a much-embarrassed Welles.

In 1948, Welles convinced Republic Pictures to let him direct a low budget version of ‘Macbeth’, with papier-mache sets and cardboard crowns, it was another disaster. Welles now left US for Europe for an exile of 8 years to explore the possibilities of directing and producing films again, but the reality was that Hearst and FBI head honcho Hoover had him blacklisted in Hollywood, labeling him a communist.

After ‘Black Magic’ (1948), Welles appeared as the immortal Harry Lime in ‘The Third Man,’ written by Graham Greene and directed by Sir Carol Reed in 1949. His bravura performance with Cotton made the film an international hit, and in a poll carried out by BFI in 1999, it was considered the greatest British picture ever made. As luck would have it Welles turned down a percentage of the gross in exchange for a lump-sum advance. Orson Welles now took to channeling his money from acting roles into self-financed adaptation of, ‘Othello,’ which after two years of filming on location in Europe and Morocco, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and won the Palm d’Or.

His return in 1956 to Hollywood was crowded with numerous appearances on radio and television (notably in ‘I love Lucy’) and films like ‘The Fountain of Youth’ and the ‘Man in shadow.’ In 1958, Universal gave him ‘Touch of Evil,’ at Heston’s suggestion. Welles guided old friends Cotton, Marlene Dietrich, Akim Tamiroff and himself; finishing on schedule and on budget. Out of the blue, the studio wrested the film from him, re-edited and reshot the exposition scenes to clarify the plot.

Welles wrote a 58-page memo outlining the suggestions and objections, but the studio executives hacked another 30 minutes to make the film pacier. Even in its mutilated form, the film won the top prize at Brussels’ world fair. ‘Touch of Evil’, from its long-take opening of a car bombing to its denouement, is Welles’ perrenial vision of the world where each human act has endless and unforeseen moral consequences. His adaptation of Kafka’s ‘The Trial’, left Truffaut disappointed but then Welles had finished the entire film on almost zero budget and on an abandoned railway station in Paris as improvised location.

He completed his Shakespearean trilogy with a triumphant, ‘Chimes at Midnight’, fashioned from five of Shakespeare’s plays and a film in which he played true to life Falstaff. ‘The Immortal Story’,(1968) was for French television and his final completed film, ’F for Fake’(1973) was sweeping collage of documentary and staged footage, that investigated the thin line between reality and illusion, celebrated all tricksters- including its director, who had once wanted to be a magician.

In 1971,he was awarded an honorary Oscar for his superlative artistry and versatility in creation of motion picture. Welles sent his best friend John Huston to claim the award. Huston criticized the Academy for awarding Welles while they refused to give him any work.

In 1975, AFI presented Welles with their third Lifetime Achievement Award (the other two being John Ford and James Cagney). In his later years Welles did any work, be it voicing of commercials on Radio& TV, Radio Serials and as host on Talk shows to realize funds for his projects. As a lecturer and storyteller, he had no equivalent even restricted by his obesity! He died of a heart attack at his home in Hollywood, at 70, on October 10,1985.

At the time of his death, ‘The other side of the wind,’ with autobiographical allusions, a film he had been pursuing since 1970s remained unfinished. It was a story of a famous filmmaker, played by John Huston, struggling to find financing for his film, just as Welles was forced to do many times.

Sparkling genius is its own enemy! It makes the foolish look how dumb they actually are; this is why a film making maverick like Orson Welles, who according to Martin Scorsese was, “ responsible for inspiring more people to be film directors than anyone else in the history of cinema,’ remained an outsider in Hollywood, which never allowed him to make a greater picture than ‘Citizen Kane.’
-Naveen K.Gupta

SABU- ‘The Elephant Boy.’

In 1962, Leela Naidu charmed the western world in Merchant Ivory Productions, The Householder’, she along with Maharani Gayatri Devi went on to be voted as one of the ten most beautiful women in the world, but could not snag any other major Hollywood projects.

In the late 50s, I.S. Johar played cameos in international films such as ‘Harry Black ‘(1958), ‘North West Frontier’ (1959), ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ (1962) and ‘Death on the Nile’ (1978), besides acting in ‘Maya’ (1967), a US TV series.

Saeed Jaffrey has to his credit ‘The Man Who Would Be King’ (1975), ‘ Gandhi (1982), ‘A Passage to India ‘(1965 BBC version and 1984 film) and’ My Beautiful Laundrette’ (1985). For television Jaffrey starred in ‘Gangsters’ (1975-1978), ‘The Jewel in the Crown’ (1984), ‘Tandoori Nights’ (1985-1987) and ‘Little Napoleons’ (1994). But even a kid would tell you that he has greater Bollywood output than his character roles put together over these decades in Hollywood.

Kabir Bedi shot to fame as Gobinda in ‘Octopussy’(1978),the Bond flick, where he sparred with Roger Moore. But made it real big with the television series ‘Sandokan’, the saga of a romantic Asian pirate during British colonial times; an Italian-German-French TV series which broke viewership records across Europe.It even reached the little island of Trinidad in 1978, where I and my kid brother watched it avidly every Sunday afternoon! But besides being an exotic gentleman in the primetime US serials during the 80s to 90s, Kabir Bedi also remained much or less moored to Bollywood.

Naseeruddin Shah was beaten to the Hollywood post by his NSD(National School of Drama, New Delhi) and FTII (the Film and Television Institute of India,Pune) batchmate Om Puri, when he appeared in a cameo in ‘Gandhi’(1982) compared to Shah’s Inspector Ghote in ‘The Perfect Murder’(1988).However Puri as Dr. Vijay Alezais in Mike Nichols’ disappointing fare ‘Wolf’ (1994) could not be written off unlike Shah, who had to wait for Sturla Gunnarsons’s ‘Such a long journey’(1998), Puri went on to score at regular intervals than Shah. Even at present Puri has more international projects than Shah or any other Indian actor to his credit. But no Indian has ever been the toast of Bollywood as was a mahout boy from Mysore. His name was Sabu.

In April, 1937, the legendary documentary filmmaker Robert J. Flaherty, creator of ‘Nanook of the North,’ (1922) ‘Moana,’(1926) and ‘Man of Aran,’(1934) and the mogul of London Films, Alexander Korda had their labour of love, called ‘elephant Boy’ released. It was based on one of the tales from ‘The Jungle Books’, by Rudyard Kipling,-Toomai of the Elephants. The lead was a certain 11 year old Selar Shaik Sabu who was serving the Maharajah of Mysore as a mahout (elephant driver), just as his father had done before him. Sabu was born on Jan. 27, 1924, in Karapur, Mysore, in southern India. His mother's family (she died shortly after his birth) had come from Assam which explained the part Mongolian countenance of his.

His father took over the task of raising Sabu just like the little Toomai, even teaching his elephant to rock the little boy's cradle. When his father died in 1931, the six-year-old Sabu was taken into the service of the Maharajah of Mysore, first as a stable boy, then as a mahout in his own right, and it was four years later when riding one of his beloved elephants that Flaherty first saw him when looking for someone to play Rudyard Kipling's Toomai
The film had a troubled two-year gestation, with Flaherty being replaced by Zoltán Korda mid-production and Sabu shipped over to England for six weeks of studio scenes. Filming began in the spring of 1935, but bad weather held up any real work until later that year.

Though it received mixed reviews, Elephant Boy was popular with the public, due mainly to Sabu, who became an instant star. “..With a smile as broad as the Ganges and charm enough to lure the stripes off a tiger..., wrote Frances Flaherty in her book, ’Elephant Dance’, based on her and her husband’s travels in the Indian Subcontinent.

The young Indian was the toast of town and was taken to England to promote the film, which was the official British entry at the Venice Film Festival that year where it won the award for best direction (shared by Flaherty and Zoltan Korda, who directed the studio sequences shot in London.) He broadcast over the BBC, televised at Alexandra Palace, sat for a sculpture by Lady Kennet and a portrait by Egerton Cooper. The Stable boy had made it good!

On the basis of this initial success, Sabu was rushed into his second film, ‘The Drum,’ based on the novel by A.E. Mason. It was Shot in Technicolor and directed by Zoltan Korda, it holds up very well even today.
Sabu's third picture undoubtedly his finest vehicle was. similar in story to the Douglas Fairbanks film of the same name, ‘The Thief of Bagdad’.It contained a beautiful princess (June Duprez), a malevolent vizier( Conrad Veidt), a genie in a bottle (Rex Ingram), a fabulous jewel, a hidden temple, a giant spider, and a flying carpet - in vivid Technicolor by design experts William Cameron Menzies and Vincent Korda. Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell and Tim Whelan shared the directorial credits.

No actor ever enjoyed a role more than Sabu did his in ‘The Thief of Bagdad,’ and his enjoyment is infectious. In truth, he was a youth, living a fantasy and knew it, so he reacted, rather than acted. When finally released on Christmas Day, 1940, ‘The Thief of Bagdad,’ was deservedly a smash hit, as well as winning Oscars for color cinematography, color art direction, and visual and sound special effects.
Filming of ‘The Thief of Bagdad,’ took over two years, due to Britain's entry into World War II. Operations had to be shifted to Hollywood in order to complete the production. (Some location shooting was also done, notably at the Grand Canyon and the Painted Desert.) This delay precluded Sabu's accepting the title role in RKO's 1939 release, ‘Gunga Din’; the part went to Sam Jaffe.

Sabu’s final film for Korda was ,’ The Jungle Book,’ released in 1942. Sabu was a natural for Mowgli, the feral child raised by a wolf pack. Animal footage was cleverly integrated with that of the humans so that the beasts seemed directly involved with the humans; only the snakes were models. The score by Miklos Rozsa also holds the distinction of being the first such to be released as a record album.
That same year Sabu was signed by Universal, where he appeared in four films in support of "The Queen of Technicolor", Maria Montez. The first was ‘Arabian Nights,’ (1942). Sabu received third billing for the first time. For the next three pictures, ‘White Savage’ (1943), ‘Cobra Woman’ (1944) and ‘Tangier’ (1946), his role was essentially the same, friend of the hero and contributor of mild comic relief.

The war years were busy ones for the young actor, unlike our Bollywood Khans who take pledges on news channels to protect India from terrorism! Sabu participated in the Treasury Department's defense bond sales campaign touring 30 cities and appeared on radio. In 1944, Sabu became an American citizen. He entered the Army Air Force Basic Training Center at Greensboro, North Carolina and as a tail gunner for the remainder of the war, flying over forty missions in the Pacific; he won the Distinguished Flying Cross among other decorations. He was discharged as a Staff sergeant.

Sabu returned to England for his ninth film, ‘Black Narcissus,’ directed by Michael Powell His role was as the son of an Indian general who attempts to improve his knowledge by attending a school run by Anglican nuns headed by Deborah Kerr. ‘Black Narcissus,’ dealt with the various problems the nuns have coping with the environment and the populace, as well as the inner turmoil caused by Sister Ruth's (Kathleen Byron) losing her religious calling and succumbing to lust. Sabu appears about midway, wearing the scent that gives the story its title. He promptly becomes the object of desire of a young pupil played by Jean Simmons and runs off with her .
The End of the River,’ (1947) gave him another leading role, but this Powell-Pressburger production was directed by former editor Derek Twist. It was over-ambitious and under-developed, and failed to make much of its authentic Brazilian locations. Yet Sabu acquitted himself very well in the complex part of Manoel, a young Amazonian Indian sucked into a world of moral and political corruption, and though a genuine Brazilian celebrity (Bibi Ferreira) was chosen to play Sabu's wife, the result was a short, but dull feature.

Sabu returned to the United States for his last Universal effort, a bummer called ‘Man-Eater of Kumaon’ (1948), which is best forgotten. The actor went over to Columbia for his next picture, and met his wife to be.

On the set of ‘Song of India,’( 1948), he met a young actress named Marilyn Cooper, a last minute replacement for an ailing Gail Russell in the female lead. However she received no screen credit for her work. On October 19 they were married and Sabu would become the parents of two children, Paul and Jasmine. Paul now heads a very successful rock band called "Only Child"; he also produces records for other artists. Jasmine is a writer and trainer of Arabian hybrid horses.
Sabu was a practical and realistic person. Early on he realized that his appeal would wane as he grew older. However, he had no intention of becoming a mahout again, so around 1950 he began a contracting and real estate business which occupied most of his time when he was not acting. In this he was assisted by his brother. But tragedy was in store his brother was killed in a robbery of his furniture store, and the store closed due to losses.

Time being a bummer as always is to the nice guys in this world, also took Sabu in its vice like grip and now Sabu took what film work came his way, even though jungle and fantasy films had fallen out of favor by the Fifties.

In 1952 he returned to his homeland for a film called ‘Bagdad.’ this time he did not portray a thief. Toward the end of that year he was back in England, starring in the Harringay Circus with an exciting Elephant act. But audience response was low, so he was forced to wear the more traditional ‘dhoti’and consequently suffered a great deal from the cold. He also toured Europe with the circus in the following year.
After the tour, Sabu appeared with Vittorio DeSica in the 1954 Italian production, ‘Hello, Elephant!’(1954). 1956 was the nadir of his career. First came a short entitled ‘ Black Panther’, produced by Ron and June Ormond, followed by ‘Jungle Hell,’.

Despite this brace of disasters, Allied Artists must have felt that the former child star's name still had drawing power, for they cast him in a 1957 vehicle entitled ‘Sabu and the Magic Ring’, making him one of a select few to have their real names appear in a film title. Following that, Sabu made but three pictures; a German-Italian co-production directed by William Dieterle called ‘Mistress of the World’ (1959); a love triangle story concerning big game hunters in India with Robert Mitchum and Jack Hawkins in which he played an Indian guide –‘Rampage,’(19'63); ‘A Tiger Walks,’(1964) a Disney film about a tiger that escapes from a circus,that was released posthumously.

On December 2, 1963, India's only international film star was stricken by a fatal heart attack in Chatsworth, California. His body was interred in Forest Lawn cemetery among many other film personalities.His son Paul Sabu established the rock band Sabu in the 1980s. His daughter Jasmine Sabu was an animal trainer on various films. She died in 2001.


Although the young Indian boy who charmed his way around the world is gone, his film legacy keeps him alive, and moving pictures still remind us of a magical man-boy called Sabu, who perhaps was the greatest gift India offered to Hollywood.
- Naveen K. Gupta.

The Hollywood Glass Ceiling

We, and here I mean all ordinary Indians, are born with a twin curse,when it comes to making it in Politics or Showbiz on our own! You better have pedigree, an unending stream of godfathers or godmothers or just plain luck. No wonder we wallow in mediocrity and love it.

But then Barrack Hussein Obama has broken a glass ceiling that was over 234 years old and despite you may be full of venom for Uncle Sam or be its unabashed crony, you’ve to admit that in America there is a certain amount of transparent democracy, that we have years to catch up with!
The Presidency of United States was a glass ceiling that was the last frontier for African Americans. Athletics or Sports like Baseball and Basketball had its share of coloured legends, who outnumbered the White athletes,probably ten to one.Similarly was the case with Music and other performing arts.The two most stubborn bastions that remained out of the grasp of blacks were literature and motion pictures. It was indeed Hollywood that would employ them in thousands but do everything to deny them that coveted golden statuette-the Oscar, in almost every field, as long as it could. But in the history of Hollywood, there have been some outstanding performers who stood up due to the sheer force of their talent and be counted, till that magical evening of 2002!

Since the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences began handing out honors in 1927, till 1996, only ten Black thespians had grasped the coveted golden statuette .They were: Hattie McDaniel, Sidney Poitier, Lou Gossett Jr., Denzel Washington, Whoopi Goldberg, Cuba Gooding Jr., Jamie Foxx, Morgan Freeman, Forest Whittaker and Jenifer Hudson
Hattie McDaniel, immortalized on the silver screen in the classic ‘Gone With the Wind,’won the best supporting actress in 1939 for her portrayal of a servant, Mammy. Ms. McDaniel was the first Black actress to win the prestigious film honor and the first Black ever nominated.She also in 2006 became the first black Oscar winner to be honoured with a postage stamp.

More than two decades passed before another Black actor won the award. Sidney Poitier was named best actor in 1963 for his role in ‘Lilies of the Field.’The film was the heart warming story of a black worker stuck with German nuns in Arizona desert.The Nuns are convinced he has been sent to them by God to help them build a new chapel.

Another two decades were to pass down the line when playing a tough gunnery sergeant in ‘An Officer And A Gentleman,’ earned Louis Gossett Jr. a best supporting actor Oscar in 1982.

Slowly and very reluctantly,Hollywood started to take notice, after losing in the best supporting actor race in 1987 for his work in ‘Cry Freedom,’ Denzel Washington won in 1989 for the Civil War saga ‘Glory.’ The win made him only the second Black man since Gossett to snag an Oscar for best supporting actor.


Comic-turned-actress Whoopi Goldberg was nominated for best actress in 1985 for ‘The Color Purple,’ but did not win. Ms. Goldberg, however, did capture the best supporting actress award in 1990 for ‘Ghost’.

In 1996,Cuba Gooding Jr. with his war cry,”show me the money!” from the film ‘Jerry Maguire’,as the wide receiver Rod Tidwell of Arizona Cardinals virtually bulldozed his way into Oscar history, as best supporting actor.

In 2002, history came to a standstill when Halle Berry won the Academy Award for the best actress for her powerhouse performance as the drunkard widow, Leticia Musgrove struggling to raise her morbidly obese son for the film ‘Monster’s Ball. Denzel Washington won the Oscar for best actor for’The Training Day’,as the corrupt Alonzo Harris a highly decorated police narcotics officer.That very evening Sidney Poitier was awarded the Oscar for life time achievement.

Eric Marlon Bishop, better known as Jamie Foxx,hammered the point by winning the award for best actor for the biopic’Ray’ in 2004. The very night Morgan Porterfield Freeman, Jr.won the
Forest Steven Whitaker, won an Oscar for his performance as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the 2006 film "The Last King of Scotland." following in the footsteps of Sidney Poitier,Denzel Washington and Jamie Foxx"

Jennifer Kate Hudson, actress and singer who first gained notice as one of the finalists on of the television series ‘American Idol’, went on to star in the 2006 motion picture ‘Dreamgirls’, for which she won an Academy Award for best supporting actress

Other Blacks who have won Oscars for achievements in film include: James Baskett, who won a special Oscar in 1947 for his portrayal of Uncle Remus in ‘Song of the South.’ Isaac Hayes, best song of the year for Theme for the 1972 movie ‘Shaft’.Irene Cara, best song for ‘What a Feeling!’ from the 1983 movie ‘Flashdance.’ Stevie Wonder, best song for ‘ I Just Called To Say I Love You,’ from the 1985 movie ‘Lady In Red’.Lionel Richie, best song for’ Say You Say Me,’ from the 1986 movie ‘White Nights’ Herbie Hancock, best original score for the 1987 documentary ‘Round Midnight’ and Russell Williams II, won an Oscar in the sound category for the 1991 movie ‘Dances With Wolves.’
And yet Eddie Murphy, Samuel L.Jackson, Will Smith,Laurence Fishburne and James Earl Jones plod on! And nobody talks about the late Paul Robeson.
-Naveen K.Gupta.