Amanush (1974 film)

Amanush (English: Inhuman) is a 1974 Indian bilingual action film simultaneously shot in Bengali and Hindi languages, co-written, produced and directed by Shakti Samanta, under his banner of Shakti Films. Based on Shaktipada Rajguru's novel Naya Basat, which was written being plotted on the Sundarbans, the film stars Uttam Kumar in the titular role, alongside Sharmila Tagore, Utpal Dutt, Anil Chatterjee and Prema Narayan in lead roles, while Abhi Bhattacharya, Amarnath Mukherjee and Asit Sen play other pivotal roles, with Shambhu Bhattacharya in a special appearance. The soundtrack and background score was composed by Shyamal Mitra, with Bengali and Hindi lyrics penned by Gauriprasanna Mazumder and Indeevar respectively. The Bengali and Hindi screenplay was written by Shaktipada Rajguru himself and Kamleshwar respectively, while the dialogues for the former and latter version were written by Prabhat Roy, who was also the assistant director of the film, and Kamleshwar respectively.

Released during the Durga Puja in 1974, the Bengali version of Amanush became an all time blockbuster at the box office with a long run in theatres consisting of 96 weeks in Bengal and became the highest grossing Bengali film of 1974. On the other hand, the Hindi version released in 1975, after 5 months of its release in Bengal, also declared to be a huge hit and became favourable among the Hindi audiences. In Bengal, the massy avatar of Uttam Kumar in the film achieved immense popularity among the masses and featured many iconic songs by Kishore Kumar like "Bipinbabur Karon Sudha" and "Ki Ashay Baandhi Khelaghar". Two years after the film's release, Shakti Samanta made another bilingual film, Ananda Ashram (1977), collaborating with Uttam Kumar, Sharmila Tagore, Utpal Dutt and Shyamal Mitra for the second time, while it failed to attract audiences from the Hindi belt but became an all-time blockbuster at the Bengali box office.

The film was later remade in Telugu as Edureeta (1977), starring N. T. Rama Rao; in Malayalam as Ithaa Oru Manushyan (1978) starring Madhu and in Tamil as Thyagam (1978), starring Sivaji Ganesan.