The Indian film industry banks on a mandatory "item number" which is nothing but a sexy and provocative dance number, to set the box office ringing.
Evidence suggests that promos featuring clips from this sequence does bringing in the "initials". It also gets a lot of air time and is a very viable tool to promote the film. So much so that many movies are recognized by the "item number". It sometimes also becomes part of the sub-culture.They also generate revenue as ring tones and through live performance royalties.Careers are made sometimes on the strength of these item numbers.Here is a look at some of them.
The most popular item number is from Sholay and the song became a rage, yes the Mehbooba Mehbooba number.
There are many who however claim that it was in "Johny Mera Naam" that this feature came into its own with this highly talked about strip tease sequence which was crucial and integral to the plot.
The most popular one in recent times is the "Babuji zara dheere chalo" which made Yana Gupta a celebrity of sorts. This however is a cover version of an old Hindi song. It also marked the spread of remix versions with raunchy dance videos.
It seems to have taken inspiration from Hollywood.See this scorcher from Salma Hayek in "From Dusk till Dawn" a movie directed by Roberto Rodriguez. Quentin Tarantino is looking stunned in it as do most viewers:)
This one is another scorcher. This is from an old film called Roti Kapda aur Makan which was directed by Manoj Kumar. This version I believe features a Pakistani actress by the name of Nargis.
After item songs started pushing music sales,the trend of remixes with erotic videos blossomed. It propelled music sales for a period of time and was very popular with TV channels airing them incessantly.
Another number from the movie Teen Patti. Very stylishly choreographed and well photographed. Great body language. The film flopped but the song was popular.
