Anarkali is an extremely ambitious project for all ! The producer is Mukhtar Ahmed who started Mughal e Azam in India with Asif but migrated to Pakistan ! 🇵🇰 the same happened to noor jehan who left Bollywood when she was the highest paid superstar in India! The movie is based on a fictional play Anarkali by imtiaz Ali Taj who based it on a legend which is not history! Its romanticism made it a popular subject and it’s Been made as Mughal e azam and Anarkali in both India and Pakistan! It keeps being repeated in movies as songs and anecdotes ! Noor jehan played it in 1958 version ! They took two of greatest music directors to compose the 8 songs by best Urdu poets of Pakistan and musical score is perfection itself ! It was shot on unesco listed Lahore fort where the legend is supposed to have happened! A huge cast is headed by noor , sudhir as prince saleem ! Himalaya wala as Akbar and Ragini as queen ! Shamim ara also plays a courtier ! The movie though follows the original play where Anarkali is buried alive in a wallled grave and sacrificed to royal tantrums! The great music is by master inayat Hussain and Rasheed attre ! Poetry by quteel shifai , tanvir naqvi , saif and hakeem shuja ! Anwar kamal pasha directed and wrote it with co-writers Tai himself and qamar anjalvi ‘ It’s a tragic love story with lot of pathos and it was a hit for sudhir and noor who made the historical ghalib again in 1962 ! The writing is excellent especially dialogues and characters are well conceived! It shows the Muslim culture of akbars court in Lahore fort very well ! Yet it’s the songs that are its crowning glory and inspiration even today !