50 Years Of The Forgotten Hit Kala Sona: When Feroz Khan Was A Cowboy And Prem Chopra Was Poppy Singh

With the kind of relentless attention that it got this last year, it would seem as if Sholay was the only hit film that released in 1975. In its blitzkrieg celebrating 50 years, we forgot about a lot of the other hits that released that year—not that many of them have stood the test of time, cinematically. One of these was Kala Sona, which was a hit and starred Feroz Khan, Parveen Babi, Danny Denzongpa, Farida Jalal, Helen, Prem Chopra, Durga Khote, and Keshto Mukherjee.

The story revolves around a man who, years later, comes to know that the dacoit who murdered his father is still alive. He then travels to a distant village in search of the killer. The curry western film gave Feroz yet another opportunity to emulate Clint Eastwood, while facing off against villain Prem Chopra, who played the not-so-dangerous-sounding Poppy Singh. The core music team comprised R.D. Burman, Asha Bhosle, and Kishore Kumar, and Denzongpa also sang the song Sun Sun Kasam Se along with Bhosle, which became a hit.

Special mention must be made of Farida, who was very good and played a highly endearing role. Feroz Khan certainly played along with his Casanova image in the beginning of the movie, with several women calling him, but he doesn’t want to be with any of them. While Danny is in a positive role here, as many of you must have heard, he was the first choice to play Gabbar in Sholay. The film also starred Imtiaz Khan, Amjad Khan’s (Gabbar) real brother, who could never reach the level of success that his famous sibling had.

The fight sequences in the film, like many of that time, are quite illogical and can certainly never be used as part of any modern self-defence tutorial. There is a surprisingly refreshing scene where Feroz and Danny are in their underpants; however, unlike today’s costumes, which have diamond-studded underwear with branding all over, the underpants in this case were worse than the ones you would find at the Andheri railway station, which speaks a lot about the irreverence for costume quality at that time.

The interval was used that time the way it was supposed to be—at a critical point, in this case when Feroz is shot dead (he’s back in the second half, don’t worry)—and there are twists and turns galore even in the end. The film is available on the Ultra app and YouTube for those who might want to check it out.

(Have you seen Kala Sona? If you have any interesting points to add, type away to kabir@fpj.co.in)