New Delhi, Oct. 24 -- The most enduring Hindi film of all, Sholay, is a symphony of vendettas and villains, yet amid the dust and dynamite, there stands Asrani like a misplaced vaudeville act, a character from another time, another genre. He is a khaki-clad relic whose barked orders feel like punchlines from a colonial playbook. The genius lay not merely in his Hitlerian moustache-trimmed to perfection and quivering with self-importance-but in the inspired audacity to mimic the Fuhrer's oratorial inflections, that staccato rhythm of command laced with a theatrical ha-HA flourish, as if tyranny were but a poorly rehearsed soliloquy.

Director Ramesh Sippy had handed Asrani a book with pictures of Hitler, urging him to channel the poses. As...