Those were the days

Shanivaar Ki Raat Amitabh Ke Saath, a film festival of sorts, kicks off tonight on Zee Cinema. The movie breaks will be replete with anecdotes by Amitabh Bachchan.

Shanivaar Ki Raat Amitabh Ke Saath, a film festival of sorts, kicks off tonight on Zee Cinema. The movie breaks will be replete with anecdotes by Amitabh Bachchan.

HT Image

The first film in the series is Zanjeer. Bachchan says that the lanky, dark, and intensely brooding persona did not go down well with directors who were looking for wise-cracking, fair, lover boys — the trademark of the Indian hero in the 1960s. “Zanjeer was offered to Dharmendra and Dev Anand. But they turned it down.

“Writer Javed Akhtar had seen my intense performance in one of the scenes in Bombay To Goa and he liked me a lot. In fact, he was convinced that I was Inspector Vijay Khanna for him,” he adds.