A Bunch Of Folks Just Discovered That Sholay Copied Scenes From Hollywood Westerns
NDTV
"Who would have thought that portions of the most watched/admired films in India will be a copy of this film below," tweeted Adil Hussain
Actor Adil Hussain was yesterday years old when he discovered that the massacre scene in Sholay is a faithful copy of the one in Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time In The West. In a tweet (is it time to say X yet?), he wrote: "Ha ha, who would have thought that portions of the most watched/admired films in India will be a copy of this film below. Probably you already knew that? But (I) didn't." He attached a clip of the scene in question from Once Upon A Time In The West. Ha ha... Who would have thought that portions of one of the most watched/ Admired films in India will be a copy of this film below... Probably you already knew that!? .. But didn't.. pic.twitter.com/jeIad77Gs5
Adil Hussain didn't name Sholay but he didn't need to – the two scenes are practically identical. In Sholay, as any desi film fan knows, Gabbar Singh kills Thakur Baldev Singh's family while he's away. The scene is almost frame by frame identical to the massacre of the McBains in Once Upon A Time In The West which released in 1968, seven years before Sholay.
Adil Hussain's post received several replies, some from those who hadn't known either. Others, who had known, added trivia – for instance, director Sergio Leone was considering retiring from making Westerns but wanted to make one with Henry Fonda cast in a negative role (he plays Frank, the Gabbar Singh analogue). One response pointed out that Sergio Leone himself was inspired by Akiro Kurosawa's samurai films.
