Those who knew Yash Chopra well will tell you that Deewaar was not among his personal favourites. He would frequently express a greater fondness for films like Daag, Trishul, and his most cherished creation, Lamhe. From his earlier works for BR Chopra’s banner, Yashji often spoke highly of Dharamputra.
Talking about Deewaar he once said, “Deewaar was all about the writing. The scenes that Salim-Javed wrote were so outstanding I just had to follow the writing. Take that fight in the godown. To this day, Amitji’s fans consider it his best action sequence ever. Do you know there was only one major action sequence in Deewaar? And still, it is considered an action film! Deewaar worked as it was driven by emotions. The mother-son angle was very strong and that was the film’s backbone.”
The ace filmmaker also gave a lot of credit for the film’s success to Amitabh Bachchan. “Amit ji brought a smouldering intensity to Deewaar. He is a very addictive actor. Ek baar aap unke saath kaam kar lo toh phir baar-baar karte rehna hai. I feel the same way about Shah Rukh. I feel Amit ji was as good in Trishul, as he was in Deewaar. In fact I think Trishul was a better film.”
Yash ji also let out a big fashion secret about Bachchan Saab in Deewaar. “You know that knotted shirt he wore in the film? That was due to a tailoring defect. The shirt was too long. So Amitji decided at the last minute to knot it. Who knew it would become such a rage?! At the time when we were working on Deewaar we never imagined it would have such a long life. Or that ‘Mera baap chor hai’ or ‘Mere paas maa hai’ would acquire such an iconic reputation. I made all my films even Parampara, Vijay and Lamhe with the same honesty as Daag, Deewaar and Trishul.”
Yash Chopra had one regret about Deewaar. “I couldn’t have my Mata Saraswati Lata ji sing in Deewaar. There was no scope. Actually we didn’t plan to have any songs in Deewaar.”
