History Of Double Role In Bollywood – Chapter 1

Double Roles popularly known as dual roles have always fascinated film buffs and Bollywood has minted money rehashing the same subject with new generation stars. In fact, Double roles in Bollywood have played a key element in Bollywood and filmmakers have utilized it often to make super hit films. Indian Film Cinema goes down memory lane and traces the History of Double Role In Bollywood.

 

Father of Indian Cinema Dadasaheb Phalke started double role trend

Going down memory lane it is discovered that the first filmmaker who started the trend of the double role was Father of Indian Cinema Dadasaheb Phalke, who had cast Anna Salunke to play the double role in his film Lanka Dahan in 1917. Some other films based on double roles are Patni Pratap (1923), Kashmiri Sundari (1925), Awara Shahzada (1932).

 

Ashok Kumar’s Mahal set trend for reincarnation movies

With mega success of Mahal (1949) staring Ashok Kumar, film legend Kamal Amrohi started a new kind of cinema based on the theme of reincarnation. The film had both Madhubala and Ashok Kumar in double roles, who are separated in previous life and are re-born in present age. The movie celebrated Golden jubilee and made Lata Mangeshkar a star singer due to the film super-duper hit song – Aayega Aanewala…

 

The success of the movie opened a flood gate of double role films based on the theme of reincarnation like Bimal Roy’s Madhumati staring Dilip Kumar and Vyjayanthimala, Neel Kamal (Raaj Kumar and Waheeda Rehman), Milan (Sunil Dutt and Nutan), Mehbooba (Rajesh Khanna and Hema Malini), Kudrat (Rajesh Khanna and Hema Malini), Tumhare Liye (Sanjeev Kumar and Vidya Sinha), Karan Arjun (Salman Khan and Shahrukh Khan, Om Shanti Om (Shahrukh Khan and Deepika Padukone and the latest Raabta (Sushant Singh Rajput and Kriti Sanon) etc the list is long.