Unanimously quoted as one of those prestigious films representing Indian (Hindi) Cinema all over the world, Guide enjoys a reputed stature in our 100 years history of cinema and is widely considered as a text book material on various aspects of film-making undeniably. Its outstanding soundtrack is included among the best musical scores composed for a film till date and the cult movie has a huge fan following even in the present new age millennium all over.
However very few among the younger generation are aware of the fact that Guide was first actually made as a 120 minute English film for the western audiences in collaboration with writer Pearl S. Buck (of The Good Earth (1937) fame) and director Tad Danielewski. So it was not a dubbed film as many might be thinking but was shot as a complete English movie with all the dialogues spoken by the entire Indian cast in the foreign language itself in an impressive manner.
Here it seems to be a clear masterstroke of the destiny itself as Dev Anand began both the English and Hindi version together to be shot simultaneously directed by two different directors (Tad Danielewski and Chetan Anand). But things didn’t work out well as both had distinctive visions of the script and wished to shoot it in their own individual way. So a quick decision was taken to finish the English version first and then take on the Hindi one later as per Chetan Anand’s vision with a re-written script.
Unfortunately the English version flopped badly and didn’t work despite being a big collaboration with many renowned names. So taking some important lessons from the failure, many substantial changes were made in its storyline suiting the Indian temperaments or traditions and then the much appreciated Hindi version was directed by Vijay Anand, in place of the elder brother Chetan Anand, since Chetan was then quite involved in his epic war film Haqeeqat. Now the new script of Guide (in Hindi) followed a completely different outlook of presenting the same storyline and probably this was one of those rare instances wherein the same plot was shot by two different directors with their own perspectives as two entirely different films based on the same novel. Reportedly the basic theme of the story dealing with adultery was also toned down a lot in the new screenplay. Still it faced few strange objections from the reputed ministry people who considered it to be quite bold for the Indian society, ignoring the fact that the same novel had been earlier given the Sahitya Akademi Award for the Best Works in English Language in the year 1960 by the government itself.
Interestingly R.K. Narayan, the original writer of the famous award winning novel The Guide (on which the film was based), was not really satisfied with any of the attempts made in the two languages. But the Indian audience simply loved the Hindi version with all the thoughtful changes made and the film majorly worked at the box office having a different ending.
Sadly, at present the English version is not available either in the home video market or on any of the movies portals running all over the web. Yet a small clip can still be found posted at Youtube by a true fan giving you an idea of the path breaking attempt made by the team. And believe me, its really a great nostalgic experience watching both Dev Anand and Waheeda Rehman speaking their given dialogues in English putting up a real good show. So you can easily check out the clip witnessing the ‘before its time’ venture made by the visionary film-maker in 1965 and then hope that the English version might get release on the net or DVD soon in the near future.
Cheers!
For friends willing to see the two clips, they were available at the following links at the time of positing this article.
Tags :
The ageless GUIDE (1965) and its English version, Did You Know Facts on Hindi Films by Bobby Sing, Unknown interesting facts on Bollywood by Bobby Sing, Dev Anand's Guide in English, Guide directed by Vijay Anand, The English GUIDE by Dev Anand.
