http://leadcap.org/Bollywood of the 70s had its own charm. Movies were firmly moving away from the black and white era towards color films. Eastman color movies; mix of melodious and jarring songs; action films; long lost brother tales; plumpy heroines, etc contributed to the aura of films of those days. Like films of every era, they had their own clichés. The most interesting was certain clichés in films of those days which are carried on till date:
Brothers-in-arms
1. Separated brothers unite courtesy a family song which they remember with lyrics even after ages. (Wah Kya Memory hain!)
2. Long lost brothers never recognised each other till the last reel. (or else how to run the film for 18 reels)
3. It was mandatory for one of the separated brothers to become a cop and another thief. (we love playing police-chor)
Herogiri
4. Hero becomes unrecognizable to the villain once he wears a false beard. (Get your eyes checked Mr. Villain)
5. Hero an honest police inspector resides in a palatial bungalow. (Sab filmi chakar ka kamal)
6. The hero if he was a smuggler never traded in Guns and Drugs to prove his patriotism. (Desh Premi?)
7. The hero’s father was usually a drunkard or a poor school teacher. (Mera Baap aisa hain!)
8. If the Hero was a journalist, he would be honest, sport a beard and live in a disorganized room. (Press guys have not paid me!)
9. The Hero could earn Rs.1 lakh in a year by driving taxi day and night. (Power of hard work!)
10. The bullets in a Hero’s gun never got over. (Fortune favors the favorites!)
11. Before pulling the trigger, the hero would give a sermon to the villain and also tell him the reason for each of the bullets. (Total transparency)
12. The hero driving on a vacant road meant villains surrounding him for a fight. (We don’t create public nuisance)
13. The hero would react only after the third blow and that too after blood spilled out of his tooth. (Khoon ki Keemath!)
Villain ya Bakra.
14. The villain’s garage walls had an entrance to his underground palace.(Wonder how they managed such marvelous constructions without the cops knowing?)
15. The villain would be busy trying to rape the heroine until the hero came and bashed him up. (Basanthi ki izzat ka sawal!)
16. The Villain bullets never got the hero. (Ancestors of the KKR team!)
17. Villains for some strange reason wore dark glasses even during night times.(Suffering from conjunctivitis?)
18. Villains had crocodiles, gas chambers, ferocious dogs, etc to torture the hero’s family in the last scene. (All of it no use, only loss in the end)
19. The main villain always spoke with his back to the camera and showed his face only in the last scene to be caught by the police. (The only suspense in the film!)
20. The villain had an army of goons who love getting beaten up by the Hero. (The usual punching bags!)
Thoda Romani Ho Jaye
21. Twining of flowers meant hero and heroine were lip locking. (Sorry we are Indians, no kissing please!)
22. Hero and Heroine traveling in the same train compartment were bound to fall in love. (How else to time pass!)
23. The film always ended with a clipping from a popular duet. (Meant to say they happily lived ever after)
24. Heroine’s father never approved of his daughter’s love. (Kahani mein twist)
25. Hero and Heroine had to hate each other in their first few scenes. (Hatred leads to love)
26. Usually it was the Hero’s sermon which compelled the Heroine to switch over from Jeans to Saree. (Moral police???)
Ek Chotisi love story
27. The Heroine who is constantly reminded of “THE AMANATH” by her mother would invariably lose it to the Hero on a rainy day in a depilated building. (The Rebel!)
28. After taking her AMANATH and making her pregnant, the hero would die in an accident. (Shankar,
29. The Heroine rejected by the Hero family would attempt suicide to be recovered by a Christian priest. (The lost lamb!)
Bonus Cliches
30. Whirlpool over a characters head meant a flashback. (You will jump into one after seeing the flashback!)
31. Anglo Indian ladies wore short skirts; worked as club dancers or stenos and were usually named Lillly, Mary or Rita. (Glamour ke liye)
32. South Indians always started a sentence in Hindi with “Ayio” (Our idea of comedy!)
33. Something wrong was bound to happen after a happy family song. (Life is full of surprises!)
34. The Heroine had become a pickpocket or club dancer only to support aged parents; a blind sister and drunkard brother. (
35. A character diagonised with cancer always wore a shawl. (I don’t want to catch cold, cancer is enough.)
36. The CBI officer always wore a raincoat like suit and smoked a pipe. (La Sherlock Holmes!)
