When Madhubala, her father sued BR Chopra for Dilip Kumar’s Naya Daur; director mentioned ‘things went horribly wrong’

Filmmaker BR Chopra was one of many pioneers of Hindi cinema within the Fifties who directed classics like Naya Daur, Kanoon, Gumrah and produced movies like Waqt, Dhool Ka Phool, Ittefaq by way of his manufacturing home BR Films. The older brother of filmmaker Yash Chopra, BR Chopra was a notable determine within the Hindi movie trade because the early Fifties, and was the one who gave a break to Yash in his early days. But one of many greatest controversies of his profession got here within the type of a lawsuit the place he was sued by movie actor Madhubala after she exited his movie Naya Daur.

Naya Daur, which starred Dilip Kumar within the lead function, was the story of ‘man vs machine’ and was launched at a time when India was nonetheless a younger nation struggling to return to phrases with industrialisation that had swept the western nations. In the early days of the shoot, Madhubala starred with Dilip Kumar, and the 2 have been on the verge of breaking apart their real-life relationship. Dilip Kumar and Madhubala had been relationship one another for just a few years however Madhubala’s father Ataullah Khan had raised objections to the connection. After she had shot for 10 days of the movie, her father refused to permit her to shoot the movie because it required the unit to journey on an outside schedule. Madhubala had a coronary heart situation, and her father reasoned that it might be harmful for her to journey outside. The movie director mentioned that he had already specified the necessities of creating the movie so it got here as a shock to him when Madhubala and her father sued BR Chopra.

In a 1997 interview with Sharmila Taliculam, BR Chopra, who had studied to be a lawyer earlier than getting into movies, had spoken about this section in his profession and mentioned that Madhubala was a “fine person” however within the case of this movie, “things went badly wrong.” “For my film, she did about ten days of work and then her father refused to allow her to go outdoors for the rest of the shoot – I was never sure why. So we took Vyjayanthimala for the role and her father filed a suit against us,” he mentioned.

The choose requested the filmmaker if the movie might be shot indoors, and BR Chopra refused because the movie required intensive capturing within the village environment. BR Chopra gained the case and later Madhubala apologised to him. “Madhubala did come to my house to apologise and say she was really helpless, but that’s okay. I have no complaints,” he recalled.

Dilip Kumar, who was the lead hero of the movie, had additionally written in regards to the incident in his memoir Dilip Kumar: The Substance and the Shadow. The Mughal-e-Azam couple’s real-life break-up was everywhere in the tabloids throughout this time and lots of perceived that Madhubala’s exit from the movie was the doing of Dilip Kumar. It was implied that he had gotten her changed however the actor wrote that this was not the case.

“Much of what appeared in the media was misreporting by gossip writers who twisted and twirled facts to make them palatable to readers. I took it all in my stride, though it caused anger and pain at times when I was made to appear as if I had got Madhu out of the film while the truth was that her father pulled her out of the project to demonstrate his authority,” he wrote.