Manmohan Desai, Indian film producer and director, মনমোহন দেশাই, منموہن دیسائی ,मनमोहन देसाई, مانموهان ديساي (26 February 1937 – 1 March 1994) was an Indian film producer and director. Manmohan Desai was of Gujarati ancestry. His father, Kikubhai Desai, was an Indian film producer and owner of Paramount Studios (later Filmalaya) from 1931 to 1941. His productions, mainly stunt films, included Circus Queen, Golden Gang, and Sheikh Challi.
Manmohan Desai’s elder brother, Subhash Desai, became a producer in the 1950s and gave Manmohan his first break in the Hindi film Chhalia (1960). Subhash later went on to produce Bluff Master, Dharam Veer, and Desh Premee with Manmohan as the director.
His wife was Jeevanprabha Desai. She died in April 1979. He was engaged to actress Nanda from 1992 until the time of his death in 1994. He had one son Ketan Desai who is still involved in the film industry. Ketan is married to Kanchan Kapoor, daughter of Shammi Kapoor and Geeta Bali.
On 1 March 1994, as per news Manmohan Desai fell from the balcony in Girgaon as the rail he was leaning on collapsed and died. Very little is known about his death except that he was suffering from chronic back pain. Rumours of him committing suicide have not been confirmed.
Career of Manmohan Desai
Manmohan Desai was known for his family-centered, action-song-and-dance films which catered to the tastes of the Indian masses and through which he achieved great success. His movies defined a new genre called masala films. A common theme in his films were the lost and found plot where family members would be separated and reunited.
He had a string of hits with Amitabh Bachchan in the 70s and early 80s which helped cement Bachchan’s status as a superstar of Indian cinema. He worked with Amitabh on Amar Akbar Anthony, Parvarish, Suhaag, Naseeb, Desh Premee, Coolie, Mard and Ganga Jamuna Saraswati; all but the last were box office successes. He was one of the directors who had a special working relationship with Amitabh Bachchan, the others being Yash Chopra, Prakash Mehra, Ramesh Sippy, and Hrishikesh Mukherjee. Of these, only Yash Chopra went on to make hits beyond the 1980s.
He often worked with the same actors in several different films:
- Jeetendra in Dharam Veer (1977) after Bhai Ho To Aisa
- Shatrughan Sinha in Naseeb after Bhai Ho To Aisa, Shararat and Aa Gale Lag Jaa (1973) and Rampur Ka Lakshman (1972)
- Shashi Kapoor in Suhaag after Aa Gale Lag Jaa (1973)
- Shammi Kapoor in Parvarish (1977) as a father figure after Bluffmaster (1963) and Budtameez (1966) and a cameo role in Desh Premee as Shamsher Singh
- Randhir Kapoor in Chacha Bhatija (1977) after Rampur Ka Lakshman (1972).
Apart from Bachchan, Manmohan Desai worked with such leading male stars as Raj Kapoor in the 1960 film Chhalia, Shammi Kapoor in “Bluffmaster” (1963) and “Budtameez” (1966), Rajesh Khanna in Sachaa Jhutha (1970) and Roti (1974), Randhir Kapoor in Raampur Ka Lakshman (1972), Shashi Kapoor in Aa Gale Lag Jaa, Dharmendra in Dharam Veer (1977). 1977 was an exceptional year for him. All four of his films released that year were huge hits: Parvarish, Amar Akbar Anthony, Chacha Bhatija and Dharam Veer. The first two were with Amitabh, and the latter two were with Dharmendra.
Manmohan Desai worked with writers such as Salim–Javed, Prayag Raaj, K.K.Shukla, and Kader Khan, and lyricists such as Anand Bakshi, Sahir Ludhianvi, Qamar Jalalabadi, Gulshan Bawra, and Shailendra. Early in his career he worked with composers Rahul Dev Burman, Kalyanji Anandji, later with Laxmikant Pyarelal for many films. Laxmikant–Pyarelal and Manmohan Desai have worked for nine films, most of them produced and directed by Manmohan Desai, including Amar Akbar Anthony 1977, Dharam Veer 1977, Parvarish 1977, Chacha Bhatija 1977, Suhaag 1979, Naseeb 1981, Desh Premee 1982, and Coolie 1983. In later years Manmohan Desai worked with music composer Anu Malik.
Out of the 20 films that Desai directed in his career span of 29 years (1960–1989), as many as 13 films were stupendous hits. His success ratio was 65 percent in an industry where flops abound. He used an assortment of male singers in his films. In Chhaliya, Mukesh sang the songs of leading man, Raj Kapoor. He preferred Mahendra Kapoor for Biswajit in Kismat. In Roti and Aa Gale Lag Ja, Kishore Kumar’s voice was used for the hero.
He used Mohd Rafi’s voice on Amitabh Bachchan in films like Suhaag and Naseeb. He also used Kishore for Amitabh in Amar Akbar Anthony. His biggest hits of Mohd Rafi song was Pardah Hai Pardah from Amar Akbar Anthony and John Jani Janardhan from Naseeb. Manmohan Desai once said that Mohd Rafi’s voice is God’s voice.
Towards the end of his career, Desai’s previously successful stories and style began to lose favour with audiences. Critics accused him of self-parody. His last film as a director Ganga Jamuna Saraswati and the films he produced with his son Ketan Desai directing, Allah Rakha (1986), Toofan (1989) and Anmol (1993) failed at the box office.
Filmography of Manmohan Desai
- Year – 1957 – Movie Name – Janam Janam Ke Phere – – Cast Nirupa Roy, Mahipal
- Year – 1960 – Movie Name – Chhalia – – Cast Raj Kapoor, Nutan, Pran, Rehman, Shobhna Samarth
- Year – 1963 – Movie Name – Bluff Master – – Cast Shammi Kapoor, Saira Banu, Pran, Lalita Pawar
- Year – 1966 – Movie Name – Budtameez – – Cast Shammi Kapoor, Sadhana, Manorama
- Year – 1968 – Movie Name – Kismat – – Cast Biswajeet, Babita, Helen, Kamal Mehra
- Year – 1970 – Movie Name – Sachaa Jhutha – – Cast Rajesh Khanna, Mumtaz, Vinod Khanna
- Year – 1972 – Movie Name – Raampur Ka Lakshman – – Cast Randhir Kapoor, Rekha, Shatrughan Sinha
- Year – 1972 – Movie Name – Bhai Ho To Aisa – – Cast Jeetendra, Hema Malini, Shatrughan Sinha
- Year – 1973 – Movie Name – Aa Gale Lag Jaa – – Cast Shashi Kapoor, Sharmila Tagore, Shatrughan Sinha, Om Prakash
- Year – 1974 – Movie Name – Roti – – Cast Rajesh Khanna, Mumtaz, Om Prakash, Vijay Arora, Nirupa Roy
- Year – 1977 – Movie Name – Parvarish – – Cast Amitabh Bachchan, Shammi Kapoor, Vinod Khanna, Neetu Singh, Shabana Azmi
- Year – – Movie Name – Dharam Veer – – Cast Dharmendra, Zeenat Aman, Jeetendra, Neetu Singh, Pran
- Year – – Movie Name – Chacha Bhatija – – Cast Dharmendra, Randhir Kapoor, Rehman, Hema Malini, Yogeeta Bali
- Year – – Movie Name – Amar Akbar Anthony – – Cast Amitabh Bachchan, Vinod Khanna, Rishi Kapoor, Parveen Babi, Neetu Singh, Shabana Azmi, Pran
- Year – 1979 – Movie Name – Suhaag – – Cast Amitabh Bachchan, Shashi Kapoor, Rekha, Parveen Babi
- Year – 1981 – Movie Name – Naseeb – – Cast Amitabh Bachchan, Shatrughan Sinha, Rishi Kapoor, Hema Malini, Reena Roy, Kim Yashpal
- Year – 1982 – Movie Name – Desh Premee – – Cast Amitabh Bachchan, Shammi Kapoor, Sharmila Tagore, Hema Malini, Parveen Babi
- Year – 1983 – Movie Name – Coolie – – Cast Amitabh Bachchan, Rishi Kapoor, Rati Agnihotri, Waheeda Rehman, Kader Khan
- Year – 1985 – Movie Name – Mard – – Cast Amitabh Bachchan, Amrita Singh, Nirupa Roy, Dara Singh
- Year – 1988 – Movie Name – Ganga Jamuna Saraswati – – Cast Amitabh Bachchan, Mithun Chakraborty, Meenakshi Sheshadri, Jaya Prada
- Year – 1989 – Movie Name – Toofan – – Cast Amitabh Bachchan, Meenakshi Seshadri, Amrita Singh
- Year – 1993 – Movie Name – Anmol – – Cast Manisha Koirala, Rishi Kapoor, Johnny Lever
Megastar Amitabh Bachchan is known to pen down his thoughts about everything under the sun on his personal blog http://srbachchan.tumblr.com/ almost every day without fail.
And in one such post, Big B wrote about his working experience with the late director Manmohan Desai along with sharing one of their old pictures. What’s more, the veteran actor said, “They have not made another like him ..yet ..”
Sharing his experience of working with the late filmmaker in films like ‘Coolie’, ‘Naseeb’, ‘Amar Akbar Anthony’ and ‘Mard’ to name a few, Amitabh’s blog post read, “That is the genius Manmohan Desai, on the sets with me for the film ‘Naseeb’ and the picturisation of the song ‘John Jaani Janaardhan’.
He conceived this quite remarkably… He devised a celebration of a Jubilee function of a film, set in the Hotel where my character was singing and serving the guests, in the range of all the biggest stars of the Industry – Raj Kapoor, Shammi Kapoor, Rajesh Khanna, Sharmila Tagore, Dabboo Kapoor, Rakesh Roshan and many more to name just a few…How he managed to convince all of them to come over for just a day, and how he completed their work in that shift is a marvel in itself.”
Revealing that the filmmaker had promised him that only he would be acting his Desai’s films, Amitabh further wrote,
“He saw the rushes of the drunk scene in AAA almost a month after it was performed – that is how long it took in those days to get a final print in some viewable state – since he was not present on the set when I did it… He took me aside after the rushes were seen, and we sat on the steps of the portico of that dilapidated studio and he said to me .. ‘Lalla (an affectionate way of addressing someone), so long as I make films you will always be in them. You may not work with me, but I shall always work with you.”
“And he kept his word to the last day. He never directed a film without me after that day !!
“It was Man ji that gave me the very first so called vanity van in the Industry. I would use it as a regular travel car for years ..until the ‘vanity’ became a constant with all the shootings and the stars, a regular now .. no one uses make up rooms … except at the YRF studios !!
“On a brief sojourn to New York, I was woken up early in the morning by a telephone call .. Man Mohan Desai had jumped from the balcony of this Khetwari home of his and given up his life …”
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