Critics and movie-goers agree that Old Sholay was not totally original.

[Ramu]

Critics and movie-goers agree that the film was not totally original.
* It drew heavily upon the conventions of Western films, especially Sergio Leone’s spaghetti Westerns. The massacre of a family near the middle of the film is similar to a scene from Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West as well as a scene from John Ford’s The Searchers.
* Sholay’s extensive use of slow-motion in shoot-outs was influenced by the westerns of Sam Peckinpah, films such as The Wild Bunch (1969) and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973)
* The first film to show a village hiring mercenaries to protect itself from bandits was the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. Hollywood remade Seven Samurai as The Magnificent Seven in 1960, fifteen years before Sholay.
* Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) featured two appealing outlaws, just like Jai and Veeru.
* Critics also cite the Indian films Mera Gaon Mera Desh (1971) and Khote Sikkay (1973) as possible inspirations.
* Gabbar Singh was modeled on a real-life dacoit of the same name who menaced the villages around Gwalior in the 1950s. He terrorized the local police. Any policeman captured by the real Gabbar Singh had his ears and nose cut off, and was then released as an object lesson to other policemen.
* The music for the song “Mehbooba” was inspired by a Western tune, “Say You Love Me” by Demis Roussos, a singer-songwriter of Greek origin.
* There is a scene in Sergio Leone’s For A Few Dollars More (1965) in which an outlaw, El Indio, loads a gun and threatens to kill another man. This is said to have inspired the Sholay scene in which Gabbar Singh threatens to kill his rebellious followers.
* The protagonist of the western One-Eyed Jacks (1960) played by Marlon Brando has a double-sided coin which he uses to his advantage much like the Jaidev character in Sholay.


More...