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It is one of Hindi films’ most cherished and eternal romantic songs, featuring the urbane Guru Dutt and the ethereal Waheeda Rehman, but the dream-like music for “Chaudhvin Ka Chand Ho” was scored by its composer within 10 minutes and its opening lyrics took even lesser time. Music director Ravi, to whom we owe this melody, revealed the tune came to him as he was returning home from work and it took him “just 5 to 7 minutes” to refine it.

Stopping there, he called up lyricist Shakeel Badayuni and recited “Chaudvin ka chand ho…”. In a minute, Shakeel responded with “Ya aftaab ho…” and after another couple of minutes, added “Jo bhi ho tum khuda ki kasam, laajawab ho”.

“Chaudvin ka Chand” (1960) proved to be a pace-setter for Ravi, who was born in Delhi on this day (March 3) in 1926, for it established his reputation, and he went on to score for many...

Veteran Indian actor Kabir Bedi, who has an extensive body of work in Italy including all-time favorite television series “Sandokan,” was conferred a lifetime achievement award at Venice on Saturday.

Bedi was presented with the Filming Italy Movie Lifetime Achievement Award at the Venice Production Bridge market. The award was presented by producer and actor Tiziana Rocca and Roberto Stabile, the head of the international department of Italian national audiovisual body Anica.

The actor, who has served as an unofficial ambassador for Indo-Italian relations for some four decades, said during his acceptance speech, “I have tried to make people in Italy focus on India for many years, and people in India focus on Italy for many years.”

“Since the time of ‘Sandokan,’ I’ve done over six major series in Italy and not many people realize that really Bollywood and Hollywood are a far lesser part of my life than my career in Italy,...

Veteran actress Reena Roy shares how after doing the 1976 film ‘Nagin’, people ran away from her shouting “Nagin has come”. ‘Nagin’ also stars Sunil Dutt, Feroz Khan, Jeetendra, Sanjay Khan, Rekha, Mumtaz, Vinod Mehra, Yogeeta Bali, Kabir Bedi and Anil Dhawan.

“Whenever and wherever I would go and shoot, the crowd would run towards me but after ‘Naagin’, people would run away from me screaming ‘Naagin has come!’ They wanted to see me but were scared too,” says the 65-year-old actress on the singing reality show ‘Superstar Singer 2’.

She continues to say that this is one of her favourite films and this subject was not explored much at that time people believed that she is a real Nagin.

“In some theatres in Punjab, there were actual snakes that had slithered in and people had scrambled away from there. I love this film to date, and because there weren’t many films that discussed this subject,...

Rajkumar Kohli's multi-starrer Nagin is all set to be remade by Ekta Kapoor's production house Balaji Motion Pictures. The dynamic filmmaker has acquired the remake rights from Kohli. However, the director and cast of the remake is yet to be finalized. Confirming the same, Ekta Kapoor tweeted, "Naagin reboot-nothing more venomous than a woman in love's revenge!"

Nagin, which released in 1976, starred bigwigs like Sunil Dutt, Feroz Khan, Jeetendra, Sanjay Khan, Vinod Mehra, Rekha, Mumtaz and Reena Roy who played the title role.

Veteran actor and filmmaker Feroz Khan, who gave us many entertaining films such as Apradh, Qurbani, Dharmatma, Dayavan and Jaanbaaz passed away early this morning at his Bangalore residence. He was 70 years old. The actor, who was once considered as 'the ultimate style-icon' by many during the 60's and 70's had been in a critical condition for many days now battling cancer. It's very ironical that Feroz Khan breathed his last in Bangalore, the very city where he was also born in. Not many may be aware that the flamboyant star made his acting debut as a second lead in the film Didi. After acting in films like Arzoo, Nagin, Mela and Safar, Feroz Khan also ventured into producing and directing films starting with Apradh (1972) and continued all the way till 2003 when his last film as producer-director Janasheen released. Feroz was last seen as the comic don 'Rdx' in the 2007 blockbuster Welcome.

Veteran actor and filmmaker Feroz Khan, who gave us many entertaining films such as Apradh, Qurbani, Dharmatma, Dayavan and Jaanbaaz passed away early this morning at his Bangalore residence. He was 70 years old. The actor, who was once considered as 'the ultimate style-icon' by many during the 60's and 70's had been in a critical condition for many days now battling cancer. It's very ironical that Feroz Khan breathed his last in Bangalore, the very city where he was also born in. Not many may be aware that the flamboyant star made his acting debut as a second lead in the film Didi. After acting in films like Arzoo, Nagin, Mela and Safar, Feroz Khan also ventured into producing and directing films starting with Apradh (1972) and continued all the way till 2003 when his last film as producer-director Janasheen released. Feroz was last seen as the comic don 'Rdx' in the 2007 blockbuster Welcome.

Legendary actor and director Feroz Khan died late on Sunday night in his Bangalore farmhouse. He was 70.

The actor had been diagnosed with cancer over a year ago. Feroz Khan directed and produced successful Hindi films such as Dharmaatma, Qurbani and Jaanbaaz.

The last film he starred in was the blockbuster hit Welcome in 2007. He is survived by his son Fardeen and daughter Laila.

Feroz Khan was born and brought up in Bangalore. He made his debut as second lead in Didi (1960). His first big hit was in 1965 with the release of Oonche Log.

He produced, directed and starred in the 1975 -77 film Dharmatma which was the first Indian film to be shot in Afghanistan and was also his first blockbuster hit as producer, director and actor.

His filmography:

Welcome (2007)

Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena (2005)

Chitappa (2005)

Janasheen (2003)

Yalgaar (1992)

Meet Mere Man Ka (1991)

Dayavan (1988)

Janbaaz (1986)

Kachche Heere (1982)

Khoon Aur Paani (1981)

Qurbani (1980)

Chunaoti...

One interesting side effect of the meltdown on Wall Street is that part of the "sweetening" of the bailout bill authored by the Senate during the week of September 27-October 3, 2008, included a tax break aimed at film and TV production companies. They received an increase in the single-year deduction in production costs, from $15 million to $20 million, that they may take if the costs are incurred in economically depressed areas. In an effort to keep film and TV productions in the U.S., it also allows more companies to use a domestic production deduction.

Considering the state of the economy, it probably won't be too hard to qualify as a "depressed area" so it's likely that more independent productions will be able to remain here in the States instead of trekking up to Canada or over to Romania, which bodes well for the horror genre. At least that's how it seems on the surface,...