Watch vintage video of crowd gathered for Mughal-e-Azam’s 1960 premiere; Waheeda Rehman, Raj Kapoor attended

K Asif’s Mughal-E-Azam, which released in 1960, remains one of the most cherished Indian films. When it released, fans stood in queues to watch it and almost the entire industry lined up for the premiere. Raj Kapoor, Waheeda Rehman, and many others can be seen rushing to the popular Mumbai theatre Maratha Mandir for the premiere in an old video that has re-surfaced online.

Featuring Prithviraj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar and Madhubala in lead roles, the movie is also among the costliest Hindi movies ever made. The movie is a cult classic gem even today.

The video shows huge crowds queued up outside the movie hall two hours ahead of the show time. The film released on August 5, 1960, and we are shown a glimpse of the celebrities gathered for the premiere. Director K Asif greeted everyone at the entrance as the celebs made their entrance.

The narrator in the video tells us that Raj Kapoor, and his wife Krishna arrived from Berlin for the premiere. Shammi Kapoor, Geeta Bali, Waheeda, Suraiyya, Rajendra Kumar, Guru Dutt, Dev Anand with his wife Kalpana, among many others, are also seen. Honey Irani is also seen in the video, as a kid. Lata Mangeshkar and Mala Sinha are also seen arriving for the premiere. At the time of its release in 1960, the film had an all-India release in 150 theatres simultaneously.

A digitally-colourised version of the epic was re-released in theatres in 2004, bringing out the beautiful colours of the places it was shot in, especially the classic song of a rebel in love, Pyaar Kiya Toh Darna Kya, and the shots of Sheesh Mahal. As it completed 60 years of the release last year, the screenplay of Mughal-E-Azam was included in the library at Oscars.

Also read: Malayalam actor Chemban Vinod shares a pic with Sunny Leone, see here

Hindi, Roman text and English translation, the three versions of the screenplay, are now available at the Margaret Herrick Library, a world-renowned reference and research collection of the Academy devoted to the history and development of the motion picture as an art form and an industry.

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