 Shammi Kapoor, 77, was recently in Kolkata to cheer one of his favourite directors, Shakti Samanta at the latter's festival of retrospectives in the city. In a tete-a tete with our correspondent, Kapoor gets into a nostalgic mood
Screen, an esteemed British quarterly on serious cinema, once carried a piece comparing Shammi Kapoor, the dance-master hero, to Elvis Presley. Knowing this independent actor, he would not care for the comparison. Today the 'Yahoo!' guy is a net wizard and as sharp as ever.
Tell us something about your famous helicopter song in AN EVENING IN PARIS.
That was one of the scariest experiences of my life. The film was novel because it was a rare occasion in those days to shoot across the world and Shakki (Shakti Samanta) had decided to take us to places like Canada, Beirut, Switzerland, France and many other places. While the song 'aasmaan se aaya farishta' was being recorded, I had a brainwave. I suggested to Shakki why don't we shoot this song from a helicopter so that it brought out the meaning of the song. It was just a joke; I forgot all about it. Then comes this telephone call from Shakti informing me that we were shooting that song with me hanging out from a helicopter! He had hired a helicopter and its pilot for shooting in Beirut. I was so scared that my skin stood out in goose bumps. I had to down two glasses of brandy on the morning of the shoot to keep my spirits up. But when I was high up on the air, hanging precariously off the helicopter, I could not hear the song I was supposed to lip sync to. Shakki solved the problem. He looked up at me and sang out the lines and I followed his lip movements to lip-sync. The song is still a big hit among listeners but no one knows the inside story. I jumped 200 feet from the helicopter right into the sea with no bones broken.
Let's hear about your Kolkata connection.
I have some fond memories of this city. And I cherish them because these are linked to my first years of growing up. We lived somewhere near Hazra. I used to go to a nursery school with a servant. One day, I got drenched in the rain and my teacher made me strip down completely right inside the class in front of the others. There were girls too and even at that early age, I recall I felt very embarrassed in front of them. Once, my older sister Umi took me to the tramline and left me there, I do not remember why or how. I was scared to death and I do not remember who brought me back. Once, my mother gave us a one-rupee coin because Raj had promised to take our manservant and me to watch GULLIVER'S TRAVELS at Metro cinema hall. He was only seven but very diabolic about money. He asked us to wait while he fetched the tickets. He came back after two hours only to tell us that there were no tickets! Many years later, I realized that it was a trick he had played to watch the film alone and pocket the money for the other two tickets!
I also remember the wonderful Bengali dishes I savour to this day such as chorchori, the mishmash of vegetables you cook with mustard oil, chingri maach and mutton curry. I did a Bangla film called PARAPAR with Tapas Pal and Anup Kumar in 1990. I have worked with Uttam Kumar in DESH PREMI and I liked him very much as a man admired him as a wonderful actor. We shot the climax of Shakti Samanta's CHINA TOWN with the Hooghly as the backdrop. I met Manik-da (Satyajit Ray) at the silver jubilee celebrations of my film PROFESSOR in Kolkata.
Directors would often cast you opposite rank newcomers as your leading lady. How did you react to this?
How do you think I would react but with complete thrill? Saira Banu began her career opposite me in JUNGLEE and I became overnight star after that though I had begun long ago in a film called JEEVAN JYOTI opposite Chand Usmani. The film flopped. I was, and still am identified with that call of yahoo that began in JUNGLEE and a search engine got its name from this call. My first major success came with TUMSA NAHIN DEKHA opposite another new girl Ameeta in 1957. Kalpana, who had a very short stint in films, debuted opposite me in PROFESSOR. Asha Parekh was a newcomer in DIL DEKE DEKHO. Sharmila, or Rinku as we all loved to call her, was very easy to work with. These girls infected me with their freshness and their naivete. Besides, they did not have starry nakhras because they were new.
How would you comment on your work with Shakti Samanta?
He could be a very hard taskmaster but he was always ready to experiment with shots, with stories, with characters. Though he was strict, he did not instill fear in his team and we had a friendly relationship with him. I did some of the best films as hero in Shakki's films. It began with SINGAPORE, followed by CHINA TOWN, KASHMIR KI KALI, AN EVENING IN PARIS, PAGLA KAHIN KA and JAANE ANJAANE. He was extremely versatile, offering something new with every film. SINGAPORE was a frothy comedy; CHINA TOWN was a thriller while KASHMIR KI KALI was a soft musical romance. AN EVENING IN PARIS was a traveling love story with suspense built into it. The music in all his films was just great and the songs would still top the charts if you put them there.
- Shoma A. Chatterji, TWF, Bollywood Trade News Network
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