Syed Imtiaz Ali Taj completes writing of a play on the fictional love story of Prince Salim and Anarkali. He imagined it to be a grand theatrical play.
K. Asif wants to make the biggest film of Indian cinema. He starts the film with Shiraz Ali as the financier. The film is based on the legendary love story of Salim and Anarkali penned by Syed Imtiaz Ali Taj. Since in those days, theatre did not have the scale, K Asif realized that only cinema can do a production that would do justice to the scale of this love story.
The lead actor Chandramohan (who was playing Akbar) dies of heart attack.
Partition of India. Shiraz Ali decides to shift to Pakistan. Film stays incomplete.
Film restarts with a new star cast and Shapoorji Pallonji as the new financier.
Technicolor arrives in India.
K. Asif shoots one reel in colour.
Impressed by the results, K. Asif reshoots three more reels in colour.
K. Asif wants to reshoot the whole film in colour. Distributors lose patience and refuse.
Film releases with 85% in B&W and 15% in colour. Film turns out to be the biggest blockbuster of Indian Cinema.
Film releases in Maratha Mandir cinema hall in Mumbai with 100% booking for seven weeks even before the first show of the film. The film has an uninterrupted run for three years.
The Film had a production cost of USD 3,000,000—15 times the budget of an average film from that era.
K Asif dies. His dream to see Mughal-e-Azam in colour remains unfulfilled.
The first telecast on Amritsar (Indian city near Pakistan border) Doordarshan (a Govt. TV channel) results in all flights from Karachi to Lahore (cities in Pakistan) booked for 15 days (Lahore could receive signals from Amritsar). All TV shops in Lahore go out of stock.
Shapoorji Pallonji undertakes the herculean task of Restoration and Colourisation of Mughal-E-Azam to complete the unfulfilled dream of K. Asif. Original music composer Naushad Ali and Uttam Singh recreated the original track in Dolby DTS formats. The Design and Direction for the entire project was done by Deepesh Salgia.
Mughal-E-Azam gets selected for seven international film festivals in Europe and USA.
Film releases on 12th November in colour and six track Dolby Digital sound. The first full feature-length movie to be revived/colourised for a theatrical re-release in the history of world cinema. K Asif dreams to see the film in colour gets completed.
Film runs for 25 weeks in cinema halls in India. One of the longest runs for a re-release anywhere in the world and probably the only one to have a 25 week run even during its re-release.
Mughal-E-Azam…….. A Blockbuster again.
Film releases in Pakistan opening doors of re-release of Indian films in Pakistan.
The stage adaptation of Mughal-E-Azam is produced under the patronage of Shapoorji Pallonji. The first Broadway-style musical from India is directed by Feroz Abbas Khan and produced by Deepesh Salgia. Mughal-e-Azam becomes the biggest theatrical production from India. The dream of Syed Imtiaz Ali Taj to see a big canavas theatrical play on the love story gets completed.
The musical play wins seven Broadway World India awards…. ( add details )
With over 275 performances across eight nations ( India, Canada, Malaysia, Oman, Qatar, Singapore, UAE and USA), the musical play continues its journey with sold out shows, year on year.
Hollywood companies have been able to develop colourisation technology only for TV/broadcast quality output. Mughal-E-Azam became the first Black & White film in the world to be re-released in colour in theatres.
On the construction of the set of the Mughal Darbar, 150 carpenters, decorators and painters worked for more than 10 months.
In the shooting of the war scenes, 2000 camels, 4000 horses and 8000 jawans of the Indian army took part. In the war scenes, real soldiers, horses, cavalry from the Indian army were used. This was obviously to create a real-war effect. Such a thing is rare in today's films. The above was arranged through a special permission from the Ministry of Defence. The Jaipur regiment of the Indian army was used for this purpose.
The Sheesh Mahal song ‘Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya’ cost USD 300,00 (in those days a film would be made for less than a million). This song is considered one of the best picturised songs in Indian cinema. The lyrics of ‘Pyar Kiya To Darna Kiya’ were written and re-written 105 times by the lyricist, Shakeel Badayuni before the music director, Naushad could approve them. It was shot in the renowned Sheesh Mahal (Palace of Mirrors), and in those days of sound recording, editing and mixing, when there was no way to provide the reverberation of sound, Naushad had Lata Mangeshkar sing the song in a studio bathroom.
The film was also released at Broadway, Dadar (Mumbai). This resulted in such heavy traffic that the Dadar bridge was declared "one-way" for a few days.
For the premier, the print of Mughal-E-Azam was brought to Maratha Mandir on an elephant’s top.
In 1976, telecast of the film was aired on Amritsar TV (Amritsar is close to Lahore, Pakistan), which resulted in all flights from Karachi to Lahore being fully booked for 15 days. 25 lakh people in Lahore watched the telecast on Amritsar Doordarshan.
The statue of Lord Krishna used in the film was made of real gold.
In terms of Gold adjusted inflation, Mughal-E-Azam still remains the biggest box-office grosser in Indian cinema.
In the 1950s, big films took no more than 60 to 125 shooting days. Mughal-E-Azam needed over 500 days.
It is considered wasteful to use 100,000 feet of negative on an average film. In the shooting of Mughal-E-Azam, more than one million feet were spent.
In the 1950s, one or two cameras were considered enough in the shooting of films in general. The shooting of Mughal-E-Azam used as many as 14 cameras.