JOIN USEvery Friday when a movie releases at the box office, there are interpretations, expectations and estimations attached to it. However, it shall not be the same case on August 2 as 1973 film Love in Bombay by late actor-director Joy Mukherjee, is releasing 40 years later, under PVR Director’s Rare.
Get set to sit in front of the 70mm silver screen to watch Joy Mukherjee romancing Waheeda Rehman, Tun Tun infusing comedy in the tale and Rehman playing his villainy on music composed by Shankar - Jaikishan!
“Everything just fell in place when Joy set out to make this film,” shares Neelam Mukherjee (Joy’s wife) with Metrolife recollecting how the director went to his uncles. “Both Ashok and Kishore Kumar used to be very busy stars then but he somehow managed to get them. Waheedaji was doing only serious cinema then but a friend suggested her to do a light romantic script and she agreed to this film,” shares the proud wife adding how “men used to admire Joy for his physique and women admired him for his looks.”
In those days, Joy Mukherjee was the only actor to have a personal trainer. All started with his debut in Love in Shimla (1958) when the 19-year old boy used to head straight for shooting after attending college in the morning. “By the time Love in Tokyo was made, he had become immensely popular. But wherever he went, he loved to come back to Bombay – the city where he was born and brought up. So in late 60s, he decided to make Love in Bombay and the ball started rolling,” says Neelam.
By the late 1971, the film took concrete shape and in 1973 it was complete and got censored the next year. But the film could not release due to several factors. “Sometimes things are just not made to happen,” grieves Neelam over the fact that the film had the best of everything from editor to cinematographer.
“It is now that I realise how hurt Joy used to feel because it is a great suffering for a director if his film doesn’t release. After his death last year, when my eldest son Monjoy was going through his personal papers, he found the address of Fazal Bhoy cold storage at Worli. It was later informed to us by one of the workers there that Joy used to visit the cold storage once every year and manually clean the negative with the help of an assistant.”
This was practiced without fail till his death and thus when the negative was found, it wasn’t in too bad a condition. “This inspired my children who then set down to
restore the sound and colour quality of the negative and bring it to a high-resolution and make it compatible to the digital technology.”
After eight months of hard work, the film is now set to be seen on theatres and is “a tribute to all the legendary actors who are not with us today. It is not meant to make any money but to fulfill the desire of a person who worked relentlessly for it,” says Neelam with tears brimming in her eyes.