Shaheed Diwas 2023: Before Manoj Kumar this Bollywood star played Bhagat Singh; story behind a forgotten film

If you ask any layman who was the first actor to portray Bhagat Singh on film, the answer would probably be Manoj Kumar. With the 1965 film, the actor immortalised how the late freedom fighter was seen in the public eye. To many, that remains the definitive portrayal of Bhagat Singh. However, the truth is that Shaheed was the third film based on the life of the late revolutionary and one of them, had an even bigger star in the lead, but is today lost in the pages of history.

The first film based on Bhagat Singh was released in 1954. Titled Shaheed-e-Azad Bhagat Singh, the film starred Prem Adeeb, who was one of the top Bollywood stars on the 1940s but by the 1950s, was a waning star. The film did not do too well at the box office. But a few years later, another attempt was made.

Stills of Premnath as Chandrashekhar Azad and Shammi Kapoor as Bhagat Singh

In 1963, director Kedarnath Bansal made Shaheed Bhagat Singh, a black-and-white film with Shammi Kapoor, one of the biggest stars of the time, in the title role. The film had a strong support cast, including Premnath, Shakila, Sapru, and Achala Sachdev. While the film was not successful at the box office, it is instrumental in starting a few trends that every subsequent film based on Bhagat Singh has followed.

The foremost of this was the utilisation of songs like Sarfaroshi Ki Tamanna and Mera Rang De Basanti Chola, penned by Ramprasad Bismil. Composer duo Husnlal – Bhagatram set these poems to music. However, two years later, Manoj Kumar’s Shaheed would surpass them with much more memorable renditions from composer Prem Dhawan.

Interestingly, the film was released in the middle of Shammi Kapoor’s golden run at the box office. Just a year earlier, he had starred in Professor and was fresh off the success of Junglee a year prior. Months after Shaheed Bhagat Singh, he would deliver hits like Rajkumar and Kashmir Ki Kali. But Shaheed Bhagat Singh did not work, partly because it saw the actor break type and do something different from his Elvis Presley-inspired ‘rebel hero’ shtick. That the film was released after several delays also meant that it was dated.

A couple of years later, Shaheed released to both critical acclaim and commercial success, establishing Manoj Kumar as the flagbearer of patriotic films (with the moniker of Bharat Kumar) and relegating Shaheed Bhagat Singh to footnotes in Bollywood history. Today, the only remnants of the film are some grainy pictures of Shammi Kapoor online and the video of Sarfaroshi Ki Tamanna on YouTube.