Bollywood is still recovering from a phase of a spate of flops, that too from top stars. This is an indication of the fact that audiences prefer more content-driven narratives than mere starpower. While much of the recent flops stemmed out of the Covid-19 pandemic and the hit that the industry took because of it, there have been isolated cases in the history of Hindi cinema where even the biggest superstars have faltered in delivering hits. One of the country’s greatest movie stars Dev Anand has given us evergreen hits like Guide and Jewel Thief on one hand, and flops like Chhupa Rustam on the other hand.

Chhupa Rustam (1973) was produced and directed by Dev Anand’s own brother Vijay Anand, who also starred in the film alongside his brother and Hema Malini. Naturally, considering the cast and crew of the film, the stakes were quite high; but unfortunately, the film failed at the box office. This was surprising as the pairing of Dev Anand and Hema Malini was previously liked by the audience. Dev was paired with Hema for the fourth time after the films Johny Mera Naam (1970), Tere Mere Sapne (1971), Sharif Badmaash (1973), Joshila (1973). All the movies except Tere Mere Sapne were successful and Johny Mera Naam had propelled Hema Malini to stardom.

Not many people know that Vijay Anand had made Chhupa Rustam to recover from the losses he had faced from his previous film Tere Mere Sapne. The film also had Mumtaz, alongside Dev Anand and Hema Malini; it failed at the box office. It is said that he was into debt after the film failed. So he made Chhupa Rustam with a backup plan that would allow him to recover from his debt even if the film failed. Even though Chupa Rustom was not a hit at the box office, this film helped Vijay Anand a lot in paying off all his debts.