Weekend

In today’s weekend blog, I am writing about the awards for Bollywood films , which are conferred to various artists year after year. The first awards to be instituted for Hindi films was the Filmfare awards, this was done by the magazine’s management in year 1954 and during the same year National film awards were also announced. As national Awards  were for the films in all languages, therefore  for the Hindi films Filmfare awards gained quite prominence, and till the mid 1990s they were only awards for Hindi films, and after that there are so many awards that one has lost count. Basically awards are now publicises as TV shows with performances by stars, and most of these awards are rigged. Even Filmfare awards have also lost their charm now, but till 90s they had their own charm and considered as most prestigious awards in Bollywood.

Some time back, I had written multiple weekend blogs about the winners in each category of the awards over  the years. Although they were considered genuine awards but they also could not escape the controversies which were due to resentment shown my some members of film fraternity  and even by film goers. Listed below are the many controversies and other incidents attached  with Filmfare awards over the years :

1. The first controversy came in for awards for the year 1956 films-Vyjayantimala was announced as a winner in supporting actress category for the film Devdas. She never accepted the award and gave a statement that her role in the film was not a supporting one.
2. In the awards for year 1957 films- public opinion was that the award for Best supporting actor should have gone to Ajit for Naya Daur rather than to Raj Mehra for Sharda. This year at the time of presentation ceremony Lata Mangeshkar made a comment that why the award is only given to music composers, why the same was not given to Play Back singers and Lyricists , who are equally responsible for making the music very popular. So from next year they started to give awards for Play Back Singer & Lyricist.
3. Next controversy came in for 1960 films- The general opinion of the public was the award for Best actress should have gone to Madhubala for Mughal e Azam instead of Bina Rai in Ghunghat, similarly Best supporting actor should be Prithviraj Kapoor for Mughal e Azam instead of Motilal for Parakh.
4. In the year 1961 there was a big hue and cry all over when Ravi was awarded Best music Director award for Gharana, overlooking the work of Shankar Jaikishan for Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai and Naushad for Ganga Jamuna.
5. Some thing very unusual happen in the awards for 1962 films. It was practice at that time that for every category 3 nominations will be there, which will be based on readers’ poll. It so happened that for best actress category all the three nominations stood in the name of Meena Kumari for Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam, Aarti and Main Chup Rahoongi. She was awarded for Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam.
6. For the year 1964 films, Rajendra Kumar was nominated in Best Actor for Aaye Milan Ki Bela and in Best supporting actor for Sangam. He lost in both the category but he was awarded a special award.
7. For 1965 films- Raaj Kumar in Waqt and Mehmood in Gumnaam were both nominated in Best supporting actor category. Many felt both of them deserved the award for their performances, in the end award was given to Raaj Kumar. It  was announced that from 1966 Best actor in comic role is being instituted. Before this Johny Walker in Madhumati (1958) and Mehmood (Dil Tera Deewana ) won the award for best supporting actor although they were doing comic roles in the respective films.
8. From 1967 award for best play back singer, which was earlier common for both male & female singer, was made separate in male & female
9. For the 1969 films- the best music director award was given to Laxmikant Pyarelal for Jeene Ki Raah, where was public opinion was it should have gone to SD Burman for Aradhana. Ashok Kumar earned the well deserved award as Best Actor for Aashirwad, although public was rooting for Rajesh Khanna in Aradhana and Ittefaq.
10. The awards for 1972 films created maximum controversy- first Manoj Kumar was awarded as Best actor for Beimaan rather than award going to other nominated actor Rajesh Khanna for Amar Prem and Dushman. Similarly Shankar Jaikishan was awarded Music Director award for Beimaan by passing RD Burman for Hare Hama Hare Krishna and Ghulam Mohd for Pakeezah. Pran who was awarded supporting actor award for Beimaan, gave the statement that “ I am refusing my award because injustice has been done to late Ghulam Mohd, as he should have been awarded the best music director award for Pakeezah.

I will continue with this topic in my next weekend blog.

Waithing for your views/comments/feed backs.

Anil Malik

Mumbai, India

3^rd Apr 2020