Singing and Dancing Villains

The demise of Vinod Khanna this week came as a shock to all his fans. Though his condition had been made viral on social media, when the news came in, it still took time to sink in. He had been a wonderful actor , who had traversed the spectrum from being a villain to hero, with amazing ease. The term villain used throughout refers to the role played by actors and not their persona, per se !

Vinod Khanna entered the industry as a villain in Man Ka Meet ( 1968),  in which the hero was Som Dutt, Sunil Dutt's brother, paired with Leena Chandavarkar, another debutant. Both Vinod and Leena went ahead in their careers and the hero faltered. That was , probably, the indication of the times to come for Vinod Khanna. His days as villain ( Shatrughan Sinha had the same trajectory) were short-lived, being  hero material, actually. As a hero, he got the top billing in the late 70s and early 80s, before quitting to join Osho, a one-of-a-kind event in Hindi film industry.  When he returned, he got action-centric projects and had a good second innings. he was active till lately, last seen in the film
Downtown ( 2016)

One of the less-known facts is that his garlanded photograph was used in the film Anuraag ( 1972) , to which his widow Nutan speaks to !

Today we remember not only Vinod Khanna , but also, those villains ( of hindi films), who were considered good enough to sing songs and dance on screen, attributes normally associated with heroes. Vamps are excluded, as they usually had their share of cabarets and mujras.
Normally the singing and dancing  is restricted to heroes in Hindi films and the baddies are there to fight and make life miserable for the heroine and hero. They are not scripted  to be musically-inclined and certainly do not sing a full song.

However, from 50s to 90s , the villains ( bad men ) had  a great time singing and dancing, when this was made part of the storyline or script. Vamps are not considered  as they have a lot of songs like cabarets, mujras and so on.
The first name that comes to mind when we think of villains is Pran, naturally.

Pran started off as a hero, then turned into a celebrated  villain and later on, Manoj Kumar gave him a new Avatar as a character actor. Though he had his songs as hero ( "Tere Naaz Uthane Ko Jee Chahta Hai" from Grihasti-1948) , his mannerisms as villain ( smoking rings, disguises, hair-do and voice modulation made each of his role memorable. Pran was called upon to sing  song in Munimji 1955, in which he was supposed to sing "Besura".  The prevalent black and white portrayal of characters demanded that the hero has a sonorous voice and the villains had cacophonous ones !In the song, Pran  tries to match hero Dev Anand ( Hemant Kumar's voice)  in singing and is made fun of by heroine Nalini Jaywant ( Asha Bhonsle's voice) . In this song Pran sings himself ( under the name of Thakur). Probably the producer and director didn't want the public to know who sang the song !

    

Most of us remember MacMohan as Sambha of Sholay ( The film Luck by Chance 2007 underlined the fact that with only one dialogue in the film MacMohan derived most mileage !) and many other roles as henchman and under- cover operator of villains. But there was time when MacMohan was young and wanted to be a hero. His dancing skills were on display in the film Aao Pyar Karein ( 1964) , as you can see in this song....     

                                 

 More of Pran, this time with the other members of his tribe!
 Anwar Hussain is known as a character actor, generally playing the suited-booted scheming villain, most often the No. 2 of the gang. He is hardly associated with a song.

 Ajit , who also started as a hero and then turned to negative roles, did not have many songs to sing as a villain , as the characters he played were having an aristocratic touch. It was left for Mona Darling and Raabert to do all the song and dance routine!
However, Pran, Anwar and Ajit  teamed  up to play criminals who are reformed when they have to raise a little girl  abducted by them in Nanha Farishta 1969.

   

Shatrughan Sinha also started off as a villain and had the reputation of a getting whistles and claps when he made his entry, even as a villain ! From late 60s to mid-70s, he played villain in many films before turning into a hero with blockbusters like Kalicharan and Vishwanath. In Rampur Ka Laxman ( 1972) , he sings a song with the hero Randhir Kapoor and heroine Rekha , while giving signals to his gang to complete their 'evil' mission !
  

                                                     

In the next song, Pran is again the leader of the baddies who, in 1973, sing a song for the Gaddar of the gang, who is  Madan Puri. Ranjeet, Manmohan and Vinod Khanna join in.

Each of the villains in the song is a 'baddie' in his own right. We have Ranjeet -the rape guy, Manmohan - the lecherous relative, Madan Puri- the foxy smooth talker, Iftekhar- the policeman, generally but  with a twist sometimes ( remember Khel Khel mein?), Ram Mohan- the henchman, Anwar Hussain- the cigar chewing slippery gent and Pran, again leading the pack of villains. We have Vinod Khanna also, as a hero ( paired with Yogita Bali)  but also an accomplice in the heist.

Hindi films have had negative roles portrayed by heroes, but rarely  sang  songs ( an exception being Amitabh Bachchan in Parwana--Arre hansne walon). But then he was shown as an artist who had turned negative , when scorned. The soft emotions required for a song were not associated with the baddies, therefore when they got to do the song-and-dance, it made people sit up and take notice. More often, the heroes/heroines in disguise used to cobble together a dance in the 'den' of the Boss, who was shown dumb enough not to recognise them !

Prem Chopra made his mark as a villain and scaled heights to have his own brand image( Prem Naam hai mera, Prem Chopra) but he also had been a positive character once. He had come up on his own ( he played Sukhdev to Manoj Kumars Bhagat Singh in Shaheed) , battling the heroes of sixties and seventies, missing out on heroines all the time.
He was one of the earliest villains to get  his own solo song and that is an achievement of sort!

 He accomplished  this as he sings a song on a train in Nafrat 1973. There are a lot of shady characters as passengers and it sure is an intriguing train journey ! 

 Some other "villains" of the 70s which can be recalled are Ramesh Deo, Sujit Kumar and Roopesh Kumar. However, it is difficult to recollect any songs sung by them on-screen.

 Prem Chopra was handsome and suave and nasty, so when up against a hero, very often he gave them a run for their money.This duel with Shashi Kapoor in Vachan shows how much close he was getting the lady: he could sing, he could dance and he was phoren- returned piied against ‘desi’ Shashi Kapoor !

Premnath was one of the entrants in Hindi film industry as a hero in late 40s and and he acted in a few films in the next 6-7 years. His career as hero tapered off and he was rarely seen in the 60s. But he made a strong comeback in 70s as a villain and character actor. He became famous  as Indian version of Godfather - Dharmatma , apart from many other roles as character actors ( na maangoo Sona Chandi from Bobby ). In this song from Amir Garib , he gets to sing  alongwith Dev Anand and does a "thumka", too !

One of the earliest villains  was the droopy-eyed, cigar-smoking gent wearing  a double-breasted suit having a booming voice, whom we know as K.N.Singh.

K.N.Singh ( born 1908) was the son of a famous criminal lawyer and was a sportsman of some repute. He was selected for the javelin Throw event in Berlin Olympics of 1936.  Destiny brought him to hindi film industry and his film  Baghban (1938) as a villain was the early sign of his success. He was a leading baddie in 40s and 50s and carried his charm till 1994 !Many of his roles from the late 1970s onwards were mere cameo appearances, arranged with the sole purpose of ensuring that actors turned up on time- such was his stature that actors would never turn up late when K.N. Singh was in the sets.
 It was Kishore Kumar who made him dance to his tunes( music director was Kishore da) in his 1974 film "Badhti ka naam dadhi "

                                     

The villains who made their debut in 70s were led by Danny Denzongpa. Starting off in Zaroorat ( 1971) , he followed it up with a stellar performance as a foul-mouthed, wheel chair-ridden suspecting husband in Dhundh (1973). He was a good singer too. Starting off as supporting actor and bit roles, he developed into a regular villain and by 80s, was a crowd-puller by himself. He was a good singer too and has sung many songs in Hindi films.

In Fakira (1976), he played the role of Toofan who has been given the task to eliminate the title character  played by Shashi Kapoor. But he gets a song too !
                              

Sholay gave the hindi film industry one of the most iconic villains: Amjad Khan. Amjad was son of actor Jayant and had played bit roles in Ab dilli door nahin ( as a 17 year old) , Love and God and Hindustan Ki Kasam, earlier.

After Sholay happened,  he appeared regularly as a bad man , till the time he developed a lot of weight ( due to an illness) and opted for comedy roles. In the film Mr. Natwarlal, he controls all the resources in the village and has starved the villagers and on the top of it mocks them with this song in Mr. Natwarlal 1979  

( The song is between 3.25 to 6.05 in the long clip : later on Rekha and Amitabh turn the tables on Amjad )

By the time 80s came up, the Disco Fever was prevalent and there was no reason for villains to be left behind. 

  

Shakti Kapoor entered the industry in 1975 with Veeru Ustad but soon got better roles and came into his own in Rocky (1981), getting a competition song with Sanjay Dutt, making his debut. Later on he turned into a omedian and his team with Govinda had amny double-meaning songs and dances. As a villain, he was the first one to come into direct competition on dance floor with the hero : a song whose opening lines we still mention as a challenge-- aa dekhen zara, kisme kitna hai dum ! 

 

Karan Razdan, a latter day producer-director acted  in Disco Dancer (1982) showed that  the villain was equal to hero Mithun Chakraborty  in the singing and dancing skills. 

The difference was in the character !

Then, in 1983, we had irresponsible  sons  Gulshan Grover and Shashi Puri singing and dancing while father Rajesh Khanna is toiling hard.
Incidentally,  Rajesh Khanna played the villain in  Sachcha Jootha, years ago, being also the hero( a double role). While his role as a hero got all the songs, as a villain he can be seen playing the drums  ( Pyar ki sabko zaroorat hai song, which was digitally re-created in Om Shanti Om, with Mumtaz beng replaced by Deepika Padukone!)


Gulshan Grover debuted in Madhu Malti (1978) and had a bit role in Hum Paanch ( 1980). made a big name as "bad man" and played all kinds of evil characters very well. He is among the first actors to have made a successful transition from Bollywood to Hollywood and international cinema.

Javed Jaffrey, son of comedian Jagdeep made an explosive debut as a competent dancer, being a  villain in Meri Jung (1985) This was much before he settled for mimicry and puns. He played negative roles , but saw to it the the script offered him a chance to display his dancing skills.

One of the multi-talented artistes of Hindi cinema was Kadar Khan. He was a writer of scripts and dialogues, a character actor, comedian and played villainsh roles in umpteen films ( He acted more than 400 films).

Kadar Khan had started his acting career in Daag( 1973) and graduated to main roles, in course of time. He was a mainstay in Manmohan Desai and Prakash Mehra films which were multi-starrers in the real sense: there were multiple villains, too !

 Kadar Khan played a corrupt official in Kala Bazaar ( 1989), but that did not make him covert. He was, in fact, more brazen and this was, indeed, a sign of changing times !

The icing on the cake can be no one else than Amrish “mogambo” Puri !

Amrish Puri's debut was in Prem Pujari ( 1970), a bit role as a henchman in a church. He balanced Art films and Commercial Films in 70s , but by 80s, he had become one of the main villains in Hindi film industry. In fact, Amrish Puri spoke a few words in many films within the songs, such as Tridev, Muskurahat, Tahalka, Vishwtama and Aaj ka Arjun.

In this song from Haatim Tai ( 1990), Amrish Puri, playing jaadugar Kamlaaq, actually sang a song ( not a playback)!

While Amrish Puri and Pran are the villains who have sung songs in their own voices in films, the other villains had their playback given by leading singers. There have been heroes playing negative roles and having song/dance numbers, Shahrukh Khan being the prime example.
But that is a different story.

Years later , we had another amazing scenario in which a charming and cultured ghazal singer doubles as a cruel person with an evil intent. I am referring to Naseeruddin Shah’s portrayal in the film Sarfarosh (1999).



What a change in the villains from an off-key Pran to melodious Naseer !