Amanush (1974 film)

Amanush (Bengali pronunciation: [əˈmɑːnuʃ]; transl. Inhuman) is a 1974 Indian bilingual action film, simultaneously shot in Bengali and Hindi languages, produced and directed by Shakti Samanta under his banner of Shakti Films. Based on Shaktipada Rajguru's story Naya Basat, the film stars Uttam Kumar in the titular role, alongside Sharmila Tagore, Utpal Dutt and Anil Chatterjee, while Prema Narayan, Abhi Bhattacharya, Amarnath Mukherjee and Asit Sen play other pivotal roles, with Shambhu Bhattacharya in a special appearance. The film follows Madhu, who transforms into a penniless drunkard from a scion of a landlord family, after getting implicated in a false murder case by a vindictive man.

The film began production in 1973, marking the first collaboration between Samanta and Kumar. It was filmed in the Sunderbans over a span of two and a half months, with portions shot in Mumbai. The screenplay of the is written by Rajguru himself, while the Bengali and Hindi dialogues written by Prabhat Roy, who was also the assistant director of the film, and Kamleshwar respectively. Music of the film is composed by Shyamal Mitra, with Bengali and Hindi lyrics penned by Gauriprasanna Mazumder and Indeevar respectively.

The Bengali version of Amanush was theatrically released on 18 October 1974, coinciding with Durga Puja, emerging to be an all time blockbuster at the box office with a long run in theatres consisting of 96 weeks in West Bengal and became the highest grossing Bengali film of 1974. Five months after, the Hindi version was released on 21 March 1975, also declared to be a huge hit and became favourable among the Hindi audiences. It featured many iconic songs by Kishore Kumar like "Bipinbabur Karon Sudha" and "Ki Ashay Baandhi Khelaghar". The combined sales of the original soundtrack and the dialogues (released separately), set new sales records. The film's dialogue and certain characters became extremely popular, contributing to numerous cultural memes and becoming part of India's daily vernacular.

The film was later remade in Telugu as Edureeta (1977), starring N. T. Rama Rao; in Malayalam as Ithaa Oru Manushyan (1978) starring Madhu and in Tamil as Thyagam (1978), starring Sivaji Ganesan.