Someone is reading Zulm vociferously
I must check out the Hope/Crosby series... Has anyone seen the Terence Hill/Bud Spencer series (the modern day versions of Laurel n Hardy ?).. I have vague memories of those movies...
LRM on its way to becomining an all time blockbuster..as per Boxofficeindia.com
http://www.screenindia.com/fullstory.ph ... t_id=13698
In some ways Lage Raho Munnabhai is reminiscent of the famous Road movies with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, where the two characters have a series of misadventures.
Earlier I S Johar and Mehmood had attempted a similar series, which stopped at the second film. However, if the box-office successes of both Munnabhai MBBS and Lage Raho Munnabhai is any indication, then Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Rajkumar Hirani have a series on their hands, with Sanjay Dutt and Arshad Warsi, the value-add-on being Boman Irani.
Unlike a sequel, which it is mistakenly referred to, in a series, two or three characters are put in different situations which has no bearing whatsoever on the earlier film. So each film is stand-alone with the only continuity being in the characters. The Carry On series is another example where a bunch of characters find themselves in inexplicably different misadventures. But Lage Raho Munnabhai and Munnabhai MBBS are about two buddies - Munna and his Sancho Panza - Circuit. They are a perfect foil to each other and the screen comes alive with their sparkling wit and antics. Dutt and Warsi could well be India’s answer to Bob Hope and Bing Crosby: so will the two actors, the producer and director give Indian cinema its first buddy series?
Buddy movies obviously stand or die by the chemistry between the actors, like the ‘Road’ series that are marked by sparkling chemistry between Hope and Crosby. While the fabled Laurel and Hardy are considered cinema’s best pair, they do not count as a ‘buddy’ duo. They were pioneers of slapstick, with very little of the bickering and character interplay that is a requisite of buddy movies. Neither were Abbott and Costello, as they relied more on the straight man/funny man routine. The true foundations of the buddy movie genre are Bob Hope and Bing Crosby with their Road To... series, where Singapore was just their first stop.
Hugely popular in the 1940s when The Road to Singapore brought them together they gave some of the best-loved film comedies ever. A total of seven Road films, starred the unbeatable screen duo, both of whom were established stars in their own right, but when teamed together they were unstoppable with their timing and rapport. Audiences eagerly awaited for each adventure as they travelled the world in a series misadventures along with Dorothy Lamour - The Road To Zanzibar, The Road To Morocco, The Road To Utopia, The Road To Rio, The Road To Bali and The Road To Hong Kong. They were the most successful comedy team of the 1940s and continue to charm and entertain audiences even today. Bud Spencer and Terence Hill to some extent also gave a clutch of buddy films. But were unable to sustain the audience interest for want of situations.
It is not that Indian cinema hasn’t explored the buddy concept. In the 1960s, I.S. Johar and Mehmood had tried something similar with Johar Mehmood In Goa and Johar Mehmood In Hong Kong. The two films had the duo play separate pairs of characters. In the first film, they were Ram and Rahim, in the second Ramesh and Mahesh. Johar and Mehmood were, of course, inspired to an extent by the successful Carry On series from UK, which yielded as many as 30 films between 1958 and 1978. The British ensemble cast had been grounded in a tradition of music shows, revues and burlesque, and were able to sustain themselves through the long-running series. But Johar and Mehmood were working in a vacuum without an established indigenous tradition of long-running comic adventures. So the Johar-Mehmood experiment died a natural death.
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Spurred by yet another overwhelming spate of box-office success, Chopra and Hirani are reportedly working on the next adventure, which will take Munnabhai and Circuit to America. As a market demand, the producer and director have received offers to develop the ever-so-popular Munnabhai and Circuit into a comic book series and also animation films. It won’t be very long before Munna and Circuit image will take on an animated life. Something to keep the public memory going till Munna and Circuit go on yet another adventure. Can Indian audiences look forward to a carry on with Munnabhai?
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