The restoration is done from a duplicate negative. The original was not available.
Prints will be soft.

Just checked the BBFC web-site. Veer-Zaara has been certified for the UK release on 11/11/2004 but there is no sign of the MEA re-release.

Mughal-E-Azam: Recreating History

http://www.indiafm.com/feature/04/nov/0 ... ndex.shtml

1944: K.Asif wants to make the biggest film of Indian cinema. Starts the film with Shiraz Ali as the financer.

1946: The lead actor dies of heart attack

1947: Partition of India. Shiraz Ali decides to shift to Pakistan. Film remains incomplete.

1951: Film restarts with new star cast and Shapoorji Pallonji as the new financier.

1957: Technicolor arrives in India.

1958: K.Asif shoots one song in color.

1959: Impressed by the results, Asif shoots 3 more reels in color.

1960: K.Asif wants to re-shoot the whole film in color but the distributors lose patience. So the film is released with 85% in B&W and 15% in color.

5th Aug 1960: The film releases in Maratha Mandir with 100% booking for seven weeks even before the first show of the film opens (In Delhi it was 8 weeks, in all theatres) . The film has an uninterrupted run for three years in full shows, a record unbeaten for 44 years

1976: The first telecast on Amritsar Doordarshan results in all flights from Karachi to Lahore booked for 15 days (Lahore could receive signals from Amritsar) . All TV shops in Lahore go out of stock.

1981-2001: Various people including artists of the film approach Shapoorji Pallonji to colorize the film.

2002: Shapoorji Pallonji engages Indian academy of Arts and Animation to develop and execute colorization technology for 35 mm and to suit the complexities of Mughal-e-Azam .

2003: Technology development complete. Execution commences.

2003-04: Mughal-E-Azam has been selected for seven international film festivals in Europe & USA.
2004: The Black and White classic to be released on Big Screen in color, Widescreen Format, Dolby/DTS Surround sound. A first of its kind in the entire world! K.Asif's unfinished agenda is completed exactly 60 years after he started it. [/b]

Mughal-E-Azam - A classic revived!
By Satish Kalra ©2004 Bollyvista.com

Mughal-E-Azam is in the news once more, 44 years after its first screening. It’s due to be released in theaters all over again in India, after being colorized. The film was only partly in color when it was first released in August 1960. The production costs of the film were then rumored/estimated to be around Rs. 1 crore (10 million), at a time when a movie could be made at about 1/10th of that budget. Grandeur was its producer K. Asif's strength. He did not stop short of anything when making his films, and money was no object.

The film was originally planned to begin in the late 1940's, with Nargis and Chadramohan as the lead pair. How far it progressed is not very well known, but apparently it did not go too far. The star cast was then replaced by Madhubala and Dilip Kumar, who were a hot pair in the 1950's, with ‘Tarana’ making it big time at the box office, principally thanks to its lilting and melodious music scored by Anil Biswas.

With Asif's ‘Hulchul’ (1951) not a success at the box office, his financial standing in the film industry took a big dip, but this did not deter him from going ahead with his grandiose plans for Mughal-E-Azam. The financial angle led him to partner its production with Sterling Investment Corp. Pvt. Ltd. Filmistan, a behemoth of a film-producing studio in those days. They quickly embarked on their own version of a film on emperor Akbar. Titled ‘Anarkali’, they made a quickie of it, releasing the film in 1953 with its music scoring the bull's eye in the popularity charts.

The songs of Mughal-E-Azam, written by Shakeel Badayuni were composed by Naushad and recorded in various singers' voices over its entire production span from the early 1950's until the film was completed in early 1960. The climax song, 'khudaa nigehbaan ho tumhaaraa', has a strong similarity with 'na milataa gham to barbaadii ke afsaane kahaan jaate,' from ‘Amar’ (1954). For the song sequence when Prince Salim is born, K. Asif wanted Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan (UBGAK) to sing. Naushad was deputed to rein in UBGAK, but Khan-saaheb wanted no part of any film song, and turned Naushad down. Undeterred, K. Asif kept Naushad approaching UBGAK repeatedly, and finally one day, Khan-saaheb quoted an unheard sum of money to sing a song, Rs. 25,000 (assuming no one would pay him that princely sum when the going rate for the top singers was between Rs. 1,000 to 2,000). To Khan-saaheb's utter astonishment, K. Asif immediately agreed to it and signed him on for two numbers. The only film songs ever by UBGAK, 'shubh din aayo', and 'prem jogan ban ke', are considered among the best classical film renditions to date.


By many a student of the Hindi cinema, the love scene, where Dilip Kumar caresses Madhubala's face with a feather, is considered to be among the most romantic scene, without a word of dialogue being spoken. Interestingly, after a falling out between Dilip and Madhubala during the making of ‘Naya Daur’ (1957), they were hardly on speaking terms anyway. {Madhubala was originally signed by B. R. Chopra to do ‘Naya Daur’. Something went wrong, and Mr. Chopra sued Madhubala for breach of contract, etc. Dilip Kumar had to testify in the court, and his testimony went against Madhubala, putting an end to their rumored long-time affair.}

The film had a huge star cast, led by Prithviraj Kapoor as Emperor Akbar, with his special style of dialogue delivery. And what a performance he rendered, looking and acting like a real emperor throughout. In my personal opinion, Dilip Kumar did look very subdued in his performance compared to Prithviraj Kapoor's. The other cast members included Durga Khote (as Jodhabai), Murad (as her brother Maan Singh), Ajit (in a non-villainous role), Surendra as Tansen, and thousands of junior artistes for the elaborate battle scenes between Akbar and Salim. Those 'realistic' battle scenes must have cost K. Asif a real fortune. But the real piece de resistance was the set of 'Sheesh Mahal', where Anarkali dances and sings 'jab pyaar kiyaa to daranaa kyaa'. Built at a cost of over Rs. 1 lakh, it was the talk of the entire film industry for its magnificence, and it is said that Mr. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (later Prime Minister of Pakistan) liked it so much that he used to visit the set often.

In the initial few days, the film suffered from a lack of enthusiasm among the cine-goers. This dilemma was caused more from the extraordinary hype of the film and the perception among those who would generally buy-the-tickets-in-the-black-market, rather than go for advance bookings, so that tickets would not be available at all or only at very high prices. {On the third day of its release, Rs. 2.50 tickets were being sold at the Golcha cinema in Delhi for Rs. 2.} However, as time went by and the word-of-mouth spread about the films' merits, crowds began thronging to the cinema halls, and it went on to celebrate silver and golden jubilees at many centers across the country. Two of the songs in the film, 'ai ishq ye sab duniyaa vale', and 'hamein kaash tumse muhabbat na hotii' were added in a few months after the initial release, to revive the somewhat dwindling ticket sales.

Another interesting trivial fact regarding this film was that the only Rafi (& chorus) song 'zindaabaad zindaabaad, ai muhabbat zindaabad' was deleted from the film in some centers by the exhibitors (i.e., cinemas), e.g., by the Golcha theater in Delhi, ostensibly for the reason that the song turned out to be a disinteresting one and many among the audience were taking it as a break for a cigarette or for a pit stop. Instant hit songs from the film were 'mohe panghat pe nandlal chhed gayo re' and 'pyaar kiyaa to darnaa kyaa', while 'bekas pe karam kiijiiye sarkaar-e -madiinaa' is among the finest 'naats' (equivalent of a bhajan) in Hindi films. Any talk about a historic (both literally and figuratively) film such as Mughal-E-Azam would be incomplete without delving into the popular awards it got, or rather did not get. The only Filmfare awards it got were for the Best Film, Best Cinematography, and Best Dialogues. {The cinematography and dialogue awards used to be decided by a panel of judges.} K. Asif was reportedly very angered and refused to accept the award, contending that if it had no Best Director, Actor/Actress or Music/Lyrics, then how could it be the Best Film! Also, there was only one trophy given for the Best Dialogue when the writing team consisted of four people.

The film is soon going to be released in its new 'avatar' of a fully 'colorized' movie, thanks to modern technology. Whether or not colorization will re-ignite a genuine interest among the filmgoers of today is yet to be seen. It also depends upon whether the process can do justice to the original B/W photography, which brings out the contrast between light and dark shades so effectively. Colorized black and white films did not take off in a big way in the US, and the studios discontinued the effort when they did not see much commercial success in the process. The reason may be the averseness among the filmgoers to black and white films, or just the general thought that color films are better. It reminds me of an incident about 20 years ago. Harry, our neighbor's then 8-year old son, happened to be at our place, playing with our kids. Seeing us watching an old, B/W film, and thinking we did not have a color TV, he said, 'Satish uncle, if you want to watch this film in color, you can come to our house.'

It's a shame that they have cropped the film from top/bottom to release it in 2.35:1, they should have stuck to the original aspect ratio. Has'nt anyone noticed from the trailors that people's heads are being chopped off and the frames just don't look right?

Am I the only one here who cares about this mutilation of a masterpiece for the sake of filling up the big screen?

Khalid Mohammed sez:
Colour blind
Grief. On re-seeing Mughal-e-Azam, painted in falooda colours, you pass out. They’ve even changed the magnificent credit titles and added a freeze to Prithviraj Kapoor exiting from Sheesh Mahal. Tamper kiya to darna kya?

The 1960 epic is still one of the greatest movies ever made. Madhubala’s vulnerability has you weeping buckets, Dilip Kumar’s implosive performance gives you goose bumps.

But please, you can’t convert Salim’s white pearls into pistachio green or Jodhabai’s gold odhnis into bubble gum pink. Surely emperor Akbar would have cried, “Takhliya!”

But even he only talks about the colorization and makes no mention of the cropping and thus incorrect aspect ratio presentation of the film.

Actually I can deal with the colorization to a certain extent, cause if I don't like it I can simply turn off the colors on my display but how do I recreate the lost picture/frame that has been cropped. Ofcourse I say this keeping in mind a future DVD of this version, as for the theaters nothing can be done regarding the colorization also.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/arti ... ~Bollywood?

Why colour Mughal-e-Azam?

[ SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2004 10:59:04 PM ]
Mahesh Bhatt, Director and producer: It's like painting the Red Fort in acrylic emulsion.

If this debate is about Mughal-e-Azam , there's one answer. If it's about the genre of black-and-white cinema there's another. Mughal-e-Azam is a once in a century film — in its grandeur, in its characters, in its very spirit.

The film took ten long years to make. And it's as relevant in colour in 2004 as it was in the 1960s, when it was first released in black-and-white.

Each frame of this classic celebrates the composite culture that is the hallmark of Independent India. The pluralism it is founded on — a Muslim king, his Hindu wife Jodhabai, and his commander-in-chief, Mansingh — a love story based on social inequality, a son rebelling against his father, are themes that are still close to the Indian heart. It's an ideal Diwali-Id release.

As for altering the classic, after all, the Sistine Chapel in Rome was repainted through computer technology to keep its colour alive. The film has been revived with colour and Dolby enhanced sound to ensure its marketability. The consequence: It is only second to Veer-Zara with two other new releases, Aitraaz and Naach, way down the ladder.

We live in an age of packaging. So, it is only prudent that the film is re-released with this new gloss to capture the imagination of today's audience. I doubt if a black-and-white re-release would have got a similar response.

But there's only one Mughal-e-Azam . And by that, I mean only one such classic in Indian film history which is worth its while. Black-and-white cinema was a genre in itself. And there's no denying that giving old classics a fresh coat of paint would be much like painting the Red Fort in acrylic emulsion.

An aging tree has its own autumnal splendour. Can you imagine repainting its azure leaves green to give it back its lost youth? It would look grotesque.

It's the same with any piece of art. In that sense, I would say that even Mughal-e-Azam has been scarred somewhat in this transformation. It would be the same if you add that bit of colour to a Pyaasa or a Madhumati or the old version of Devdas . After all, a rose is a rose is a rose.

Having said that, let me add that cinema is not art. It's commerce. In a market-driven industry, it becomes necessary to give the producer that much elbow room to sell his film. And with Mughal-e-Azam today's audience gets the advantage of watching Dilip Kumar, the great actor and symbol of pluralism — not a market or media created icon.

It's an experience — not a formula to be repeated again and again.

(As told to Rachna Subramanian)

Consider this shot:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/arti ... urpg-3.cms

(can some one pl. copy this pic in this thread; Thanks)

To make a widescreen out of this beautiful shot, what did they crop??

The subject, Madhubala from bottom of the screen

or

The Magnificient background from top of the screen. Magnificient backgound that makes it Mughal-E-Azam.

sorry it is not jpeg image, may be some other guru can help u

Ok try this:



or this



another beautiful shot:

The only other MEA actor alive, after Dilip Kumar

By IndiaFM News Bureau, November 19th, 2004 - 1545 hrs IST



Download Mughal-E-Azam wallpapers


The re-release of Mughal-e-Azam has refreshed the memories of a smalltime yesteryear actor who had a cameo role in the film. He is perhaps the only other existing actor from the cast of Mughal-e-Azam apart from Dilip Kumar. Mohammed Akram Ali Khan who now works as a taxi-driver in his late 60's recollects the moment when his first heavy-worded screen dialogue in Mughal-E-Azam was okayed by director K Asif in the first take itself. The re-release of the film takes him down the memory lane.

And thanks to Mughal-e-Azam, Khan subsequently bagged good character roles in other big films as well. He underwent a six-month acting course at S Mukerjee's institute (on the recommendation of Dilip Kumar) where his fellow students included the likes of Asha Parekh and Sadhana. He had the fortune to work with Raj Kapoor and Madhubala in Do Ustad, Dilip Kumar and Meena Kumari in Kohinoor, Farooq Sheikh and Shabana Azmi in Anjuman and around 14 other films. His memories now lie in the photographs he has preserved since his heydays.

That's interesting.

Compare this widescreen shot with 4:3 shot http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/arti ... urpg-3.cms that I mentioned above. In that earlier post, I was speculating that the'll cut off top and bottom of 4:3 shot to make it widescreen. But, it looks like, they didn't cut top or bottom, instead they added to sides. I wonder how?? Did they really find an alternate print?? Mystery!

this shot/pics looks very nice framing

That still isn't actually from the film. The background (ie. the sitar players) is from the song 'Mohe Panghat Pe' and the foreground is from the night scene where Anarkali meets Prince Salim while Tansen sings the song 'Prem Jogan Ban Ke'.

So I guess as the still is composed from two scenes and pretty much anything can be added or taken away.