The Guru (1969 film)

The Guru
The Guru
	Theatrical release poster
Directed by	James Ivory
Written by	Ruth Prawer Jhabvala; James Ivory
Produced by	Ismail Merchant
Starring	Rita Tushingham; Michael York ; Utpal Dutt; Madhur Jaffrey; Barry Foster; Aparna Sen; Zohra Sehgal; Saeed Jaffrey
Cinematography	Subrata Mitra
Edited by	Prabhakar Supare; Humphrey Dixon (assistant)
Music by	Ustad Vilayat Khan
Production; company	Merchant Ivory Productions
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	10 February 1969;
Running time	112 min
Countries	United States; India
Languages	English; Urdu
Budget	$970,000

The Guru is a 1969 film by Merchant Ivory Productions, with a screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and James Ivory.

Plot

A rock star, Tom Pickle (Michael York), travels to India to learn to play the sitar with the great musician Ustad Zafar Khan (as George Harrison did when he studied under Ravi Shankar). Khan (Utpal Dutt) is not happy with his disciple but still takes him to Benares to meet his own guru.

Cast

Rita Tushingham as Jenny
Michael York as Tom Pickle
Utpal Dutt as Ustad Zafar Khan
Madhur Jaffrey as Begum Sahiba
Barry Foster as Chris
Aparna Sen as Ghazala
Zohra Sehgal as Mastani
Saeed Jaffrey as Murad

Box office

According to Fox records, the film required $1,675,000 in theatrical rentals to break even. By December 1970, it had only made $625,000 in rentals, causing the studio to take a loss.^[2] This was equivalent to estimated box office gross receipts of approximately $2 million.^[3]

References

^ Solomon, Aubrey. Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History (The Scarecrow Filmmakers Series). Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1989, ISBN 978-0-8108-4244-1, p. 256
^ Silverman, Stephen M (1988). The Fox that got away : the last days of the Zanuck dynasty at Twentieth Century-Fox. L. Stuart. p. 328. ISBN 9780818404856.
^ Vogel, Harold L. (2010). "Table 3.4. Motion picture theater industry statistics, 1965-2009". Entertainment Industry Economics: A Guide for Financial Analysis. Cambridge University Press. pp. 88–9. ISBN 978-1-139-49732-9. 1965 (...) MPAA U.S. + Canadian rentals % of BO (...) 29.8