Aradhana

Aradhana movie poster for sale.

Featured here is a rare vintage original Bollywood poster of the blockbuster Hindi film, Aradhana (1969).

Directed by Shakti Samanta, the film starred Sharmila Tagore and Rajesh Khanna in lead roles. Sujit Kumar, Farida Jalal, Abhi Bhattacharya, Ashok Kumar, Pahari Sanyal, Anita Guha, Manmohan, Madan Puri, Asit Sen, Farida Jalal and Subhash Ghai played supporting roles in the film.

Rajesh Khanna, also referred to as the first or original superstar of Bollywood, appeared in over 100 movies as lead hero – an unbeatable record in Bollywood.

Aradhana is responsible for catapulting Rajesh Khanna to success and turning him into an overnight sensation. This is the film that gave birth to the First Superstar of Hindi Cinema. Singer Kishore Kumar gave his voice to three super hit songs in the film, becoming the number one playback singer of Bollywood, making this Aradhana movie poster, highly collectible.

Printed and circulated during the initial release run of the film in theaters (somewhere in the late 1960s), this vintage Rajesh Khanna poster was originally designed for publicity of the film but never ended up being used.

The artwork of this Aradhana movie poster was originally made in hand painted oil on canvas format by a poster design studio in Bombay. The lead couple, Rajesh Khanna and Sharmila Tagore, are captured in superbly illustrated portraits romancing each other in a garden. The The Himalayan landscape of Darjeeling is visible in the background flanked by two symmetrical trees.

The typography used in this Aradhana movie poster is completely in English with a translation of the title appearing at the center left in both Devanagari Hindi as well as Bengali.

Aradhana (Worship) is believed to be a remake of the 1946 Hollywood film, “To Each His Own.” It was declared best film of the year by Filmfare Awards. Sharmila Tagore won her first Filmfare Best Actress Award for the same role that won Olivia de Havilland her first Academy Award for Best Actress. The Film was a blockbuster at the box office becoming the highest grosser of 1969.

Originally released in Hindi and dubbed in Bengali, Aradhana’s huge success led to two subsequent remakes being made in Telugu and Tamil.

The soundtrack of the film has been composed by the greatest Bollywood music composer of all time, S. D. Burman, with lyrics by Anand Bakshi. It is believed that SD Burman became ill midway while composing music for the film, and his son R. D. Burman took over. RD Burman decided to use Kishore Kumar for the songs “Roop Tera Mastana” and “Mere Sapno Ki Rani” both of which turned into blockbuster hits and are played till today. Another track from the film, “Kora Kagaz Tha Yeh Man Mera” sung by Kishore Kumar & Lata Mangeshkar became a rage throughout the nation as did “Gun Guna Rahe Hai Bhanvare” sung by Mohammed Rafi and Asha Bhosle.