Nishant

aka Night’s End 1975 144’ col Hindi d Shyam Benegal p Freni M. Variava, Mohan J. Bijlani pc Blaze Film Ents s Vijay Tendulkar dial Satyadev Dubey lyr Mohammed Quli Qutb Shah c Govind Nihalani m Vanraj Bhatia lp Girish Karnad, Shabana Azmi, Anant Nag, Amrish Puri, Smita Patil, Satyadev Dubey, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Mohan Agashe, Naseeruddin Shah, Savita Bajaj, Sadhu Meher

Based on Tendulkar’s original play, apparently inspired by an actual event and written for Utpal Dutt, the film extends the Ankur (1973) theme of rural oppression in AP. A poor schoolmaster (Karnad) and his young wife (Azmi) come to a village dominated by a villainous family of zamindars, consisting of four brothers who abduct and rape his wife. The distraught schoolteacher, helped by an old priest (Dubey), finally succeeds in mobilising the villagers and they slaughter their oppressors. Although not as big a success as Ankur, the film enabled many of the actors to trade on their naturalist authenticity to become mainstream Hindi stars including the debuting Naseeruddin Shah and Amrish Puri, who plays the eldest and nastiest brother and is now the highest-priced screen villain in Hindi cinema.

Film