41 Years of Amar Akbar Anthony. (27/05/1977)

Amar Akbar Anthony is an action comedy film, directed and produced by Manmohan Desai. The film stars Vinod Khanna, Amitabh Bachchan and Rishi Kapoor opposite Shabana Azmi, Parveen Babi and Neetu Singh in the lead roles. The plot focuses on three brothers who are separated in childhood and adopted by three families of different faiths — Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. One grows up to be a policeman, another a singer and the third the owner of a country liquor bar.

The soundtrack album was composed by Laxmikant-Pyarelal and the lyrics were written by Anand Bakshi. The film was released on 27 May 1977.

The film about religious tolerance became a landmark in Bollywood masala films. It also had a lasting impact of the pop culture, with its catchy songs, one-liners and the character of Anthony Gonsalves played by Amitabh Bachchan. It won several awards at 25th Filmfare Awards including Best Actor, Best Music Director and Best Editing. It was later remade in Tamil as Shankar Salim Simon (1978), in Telugu as Ram Robert Rahim (1980) and in Malayalam as John Jaffer Janardhanan (1982).

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