Though Vijay Anand acted in quite a few films and played the famous detective Sam De Silva in ‘Tehkikaat’, he is mostly known for the movies he directed.
Vijay Anand, known as Goldie, was the youngest of the Anand siblings, and Chetan Anand and Dev Anand were his elder brothers. Though Vijay Anand acted in quite a few movies and played the famous detective Sam De Silva in the Doordarshan suspense drama series ‘Tehkikaat’, he is mostly known for the movies he directed. He is regarded as one of the best suspense thriller directors but he made sensitive movies like ‘Tere Mere Sapne’ and ‘Guide’ as well. Here is the list of the top five movies directed by Vijay Anand.
Based on the book ‘The Guide’, this movie is regarded as one of the greatest movies ever made not only in Bollywood but the whole Indian cinema. The movie was quite progressive and ahead of its time as it showed a married woman living with another man without getting a divorce from her husband. It was a taboo subject then but Vijay Anand made it so convincing that the audience accepted the movie and it became one of the biggest hits of 1965.
Dev Anand plays the role of Raju Guide who meets a married woman Rosie (Waheeda Rahman) and both fall in love. Raju recognizes the dancing talent of Rosie and helps her to become a top dancer. The music of the movie was composed by S.D Burman and the songs were one of the best highlights of the movie. Guide swept most of the Filmfare awards that year.
After ‘Guide’, Vijay Anand made a movie of a totally different genre, a suspense thriller movie that featured Shammi Kapoor and Asha Parekh in lead roles along with Laxmi Chhaya, Premnath, Prem Chopra, Iftekhar, Helen, K. N. Singh, and Salim Khan. The movie’s climax is one of the best in a suspense movie ever, and the music by R.D Burman was a chartbuster with songs like ‘’O Mere Sona re’, ‘Deewana Mujhsa Nahin Is Ambar Ke Neeche’ and ‘O Haseena Zulfonwali Jaan-E-Jahan’ are famous even today. Even though it is a murder mystery, it continues to attract repeat audiences, even though the identity of the murderer is no longer a secret.
‘Jewel Thief’ (1967)
Jewel Thief is the most famous movie by Vijay Anand after ‘Guide’. The movie was a suspense thriller and it featured Dev Anand, Vyjayantimala, Ashok Kumar, and Tanuja in lead roles.
‘Jewel Thief’ is about a thief who is robbing jewellers and his identity is still not known to the police. Dev Anand plays the role of Vinay, son of the police commissioner but he is not on good terms with his father because his father thinks of Vinay as a useless guy, but actually he is a jewellery expert who gets a job in a big jewellery shop because of his talent.
Tanuja plays Anjali, the daughter of Vinay’s employer, and is attracted to him. One day at a party, Vinay meets Arjun (Ashok Kumar) and his sister Anjali (Vyjayantimala) and they mistake Vinay for Sahlini’s fiancé Amar, who looks the same as Vinay, but the misunderstanding resolves after Vinay proves his identity.
More jewelry thefts happen in the city and Vinay becomes one of the suspects. The climax and the identity of the real ‘Jewel Thief’ come as a shocker. The movie was a big hit and had some memorable songs composed by SD Burman
