Career
Manmohan Desai was known for his family-centered, action-song-and-dance films which catered to the tastes of the Indian masses and through which he achieved great success. His movies defined a new genre called masala films.
He had a string of hits with Amitabh Bachchan in the 70s and early 80s which helped cement Bachchan's status as a superstar of Indian cinema. He worked with Amitabh on Amar Akbar Anthony, Parvarish, Suhaag, Naseeb, Desh Premee, Coolie, Mard and Ganga Jamuna Saraswati; all but the last were box office successes. He was one of the directors who had a special working relationship with Amitabh Bachchan, the others being Yash Chopra, Prakash Mehra, Ramesh Sippy, and Hrishikesh Mukherjee. Of these, only Yash Chopra went on to make hits beyond the 1980s.
He did not forget his old relationships especially his heroes from previous films, often giving them roles in his future films...
- Jeetender in Dharam veer after Do Bhai and Bhai Ho to aisa
- Shatrughan Sinha in Naseeb after Bahi Ho to aisa and Aa gale lag jaa and Rampur ka Lakshman
- Shashi Kapoor in Suhaag after Aa gale lag jaa
- Shammi Kapoor in Parvarish as a father figure after Junglee and Bluffmaster
- Randhir Kapoor in Chacha Bhatija after Rampur ka Lakshman.
Apart from Bachchan, Manmohan Desai worked with such leading male stars as Raj Kapoor in the 1960 film Chhalia, Shammi Kapoor in "Bluffmaster" (1963), Rajesh Khanna in Sachaa Jhutha (1970), Randhir Kapoor in Raampur Ka Lakshman (1972), Shashi Kapoor in "Aa Gale Lag Jaa" (1973), Dharmendra and Jeetendra in Dharam Veer (1977) and Rishi Kapoor in Coolie (1983).
1977 was an exceptional year for him. All four of his films released that year were huge hits: Parvarish, Amar Akbar Anthony, Chacha Bhatija and Dharam Veer. The first two were with Amitabh, and the latter two were with Dharmendra.
Manmohan Desai worked with writers such as Prayag Raaj, K.K.Shukla and Kader Khan and lyricists such as Anand Bakshi, Sahir Ludhianvi, Qamar Jalalabadi, Gulshan Bawra, and Shailendra. Early in his career he worked with composers Rahul Dev Burman, Kalyanji Anandji, later with Laxmikant Pyarelal and in the 1980s with music composer Anu Malik.
Out of the 20 films that Desai directed in his career span of 29 years (1960–1989), as many as 13 films were stupendous hits. His success ratio was 65 percent in an industry where flops abound.
Towards the end of his career, Desai's previously successful stories and style began to lose favor with audiences. Critics accused him of self parody. His last film as a director Ganga Jamuna Saraswati and the films he produced with his son Ketan Desai directing, Allah Rakha and Toofan, failed at the box office.
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