No one approved title ‘Don’: Big B

Megastar Amitabh Bachchan says that no one had approved the title of his 1978 hit movie Don because the makers felt it was not fit for a title of a Hindi film.
Don clocked 41 years on the silver screen on Sunday. Amitabh, 76, took to his blog to write about the film.
“‘Don’ was a name title that no one in the market approved of. They (makers) never understood what it meant and never felt that a name such as ‘Don’ was material for the title of a Hindi film. In fact, if truth be told — for many it was quite an amusing title,” Big B wrote.
The Piku star said the film’s title phonetically sounded like an undergarment brand.
“There was at the time a very popular brand of vests, the ‘banyain’, that were carrying the name Dawn.
‘Don’ pronounced phonetically sounded much like that brand of undergarment in the popular market and there was consternation in titling a film that conveyed an undergarment,” he wrote.
It was because of the popular Godfather series the word Don got publicised, said Amitabh.
“Much later of course with the Godfather series, the word garnered enough publicity and reckoning, to be respectable enough but till then initially it was in the realm of humour,” he wrote.
The film revolved around Don, a wanted criminal who succumbed to his injuries in a police chase. Things took a turn when Vijay, a look-alike of Don, replaces him and tries to trace the details of his illegal activities.
The action thriller film was written by Salim Khan-Javed Akhtar, produced by Nariman Irani and directed by Chandra Barot. It also featured Zeenat Aman, Pran, Iftekhar, Helen, Om Shivpuri, Satyen Kappu and Pinchoo Kapoor. (IANS)