Amazon Prime Video released the documentary Angry Young Men on August 20, which is to educate viewers with some fascinating trivia. It talks about Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar’s glorious career as Salim-Javed and how they changed Indian cinema. The turning point in their lives was Zanjeer (1973) film that also made Amitabh Bachchan an actor to watch out for. Big B was cast opposite Jaya Bachchan, who he later married. The first episode consists of interesting trivia about this classic movie.
Jaya Bachchan had reservations about signing ‘male-centric’ Zanjeer; Salim-Javed open up on putting their names on posters: “Songwriter writes one page and gets mentioned but not the writer who wrote the entire script”
“I did not want to do Zanjeer at all,” said Jaya Bachchan. For me, “it was a misogynistic male-oriented cinema. Zanjeer was a man’s film.” She added, “Salim saab and Javed saab were direct people so they had gone through almost all the actresses in town during this period looking for the right woman to do it [Zanjeer]. Every one of them had been asked, however they declined before saying ”No”. And then they tell you, ’You can’t say no, we need you!’”
“Jaya went on to say that there was another reason she could have done Zanjeer. So I thought: Chalo kuch waqt mil jaaye (to spend together).”
Amongst others is when Salim-Javed put their names on the films poster by themselves which is quite amazing Zanjaer.
Salim Khan explains why they dared such a thing saying, ‘A screenplay is the most important thing in film making though writers were undervalued at times or even uncredited.’ We decided not to follow it anymore since. We hired a painter and gave him paint, brush and a stencil with our names.
Those painters were drunk while working on our faces. For example, they would write her name but also our names, or a hero’s forehead will bear his name and Pran’s mouth (laughs)!
Javed Akhtar told the interviewer that it was all Salim Khan’s fault, “All these acts of bravery were his own. He used to provoke me too. I’d say, ‘Are you sure?’. He said ’Haan, haan. Kyun nahin? Kya darr hai? Dekha jaayega!’
Salim Khan again argued further, “So much hard work we put in and you won’t give us credit? A songwriter writes one page and has his name on the poster. While the writer of the whole script is not mentioned!”
Javed Akhtar also mentioned that this step had raised many eyebrows saying. “Some people didn’t take this well at all: Tum log writer ho aur phir bhi chahte ho ki sab log tumhe jaane?”
