Dangal

Hindi typography poster for sale: Dangal (1977).

Featured here is an actual surviving vintage poster of the old 1977 Bhojpuri movie directed by Rati Kumar that starred Sujit Kumar and Prema Narayan in key roles.

Produced by Bachubhai Shah and presented under the Vimal Films banner, Dangal (1977) also starred Iftekhar, Laxmi Chhaya, Ram Singh, Urmila Bhatt, Bhushan Tiwari, Aruna Irani, Hari Shukla, Shubha Khote, C.S. Dubey, Shekhar Purohit, Bhagwan Sinha, Devyani Thakkar and Dileep Sinha in supporting roles.

Written by Rajpati, Dangal (1977) was the first Bhojpuri film made in color. It was the first soundtrack album composed by Nadeem-Shravan and featured the super hit song, “Kashi Hile Patna Hile Calcutta Hilela” making this vintage poster, highly collectible!

Set in a rural context, Dangal (1977) told the story of a brave and honest upper caste man called Kundan (Sujit Kumar) who stands up to the atrocities committed by his wealthy uncle called Thakur Raja (Iftekhar). Despite being upper caste himself, he fights to safeguard the rights of the poor lower caste people in his village. Kundan defeats Thakur Raja’s henchman Birju in a “Dangal” or mud wrestling competition putting them to shame and desires to marry a lower caste girl (Prema Narayan).

Printed and circulated during the silver jubilee run of the film in north Indian theaters (somewhere in the 1980s), this old Hindi typography poster was printed for publicity but never ended up being used.

This Dangal Bhojpuri movie poster was originally hand drawn on canvas by a movie poster art studio in Delhi and is dominated by typography.

An announcement handwritten on the top of this old Hindi typography poster declares, “Colorful Bhojpuri Silver Jubilee Film.” Lyrics of two hit songs from the film appear written on the top: “Kashi Hile, Patna Hile, Calcutta Hilela, Ki Tohri Lachke Jab Kamariya …” and “Phoolwa Ki Beni Se Juda Sajaike … Nikli Jo Kal Mein Bazar Hai Re Hungama Hoi Gava …”

Two rifles are seen arranged diagonally in symmetry with each other, while a hand drawn black and white illustration of bandits on horses is seen at the center.

The background of this old Hindi typography poster is a striking shade of red, which makes the title in yellow stand out in contrast. Typography used in this Dangal Bhojpuri movie poster is entirely in Devanagari Hindi, except for a translation of the title in English at the bottom.

The soundtrack album of Dangal (1977) was composed by debutants Nadeem-Shravan, who would later go on to become the most sought after music composer duo in Bollywood, while lyrics were written by Kulwant Jani. It featured the super hit song, “Kashi Hile Patna Hile” sung by Manna Dey which is an evergreen classic and continues to be played till today. “Phoolwa Ki Beni Se” sung by Asha Bhosle was also very popular at the time of the film’s release.