KANYASULKAM TELUGU CLASSIC MOVIE (1955).

After tasting success with Sarathchandra Chatterjee's cult classic, Devadasu, Vinoba Pictures boss Dronacharya Lakshminarayana (D.L.) had set his eyes on Gurajada Apparao's hugely popular 1890's satirical play, Kanyasulkam. Despite the fact that by 1950s the menace of bride price (Kanyasulkam) has given way to another social evil, dowry (Varakatnam), as a stage play Gurajada's Kanyasulkam still drew crowds. D.L. approached P. Pullaiah to direct its movie version. Writer Vempati Sadasivabrahmam and Pullaiah compressed the nearly eight hour drama into a three hour movie script, taking cinematic liberties. Top actors of the time did not shy away from taking up characters with shades of grey, if they offered challenge. N.T. Ramarao's jackal like Girisham and Savitri's portrayal of the harlot Madhuravani are fine examples.
The Story: Girisham (NTR) the cunning bluff master lives at the expense of pootakoolamma (Chaydevi) who runs a mess. He befriends a wench Madhuravani (Savitri). To escape from debts, he accompanies Venkatesam (Master Kundu) to whom he teaches English, to his village. There he tries to woo Venkatesam's widowed sister Buchamma (Janaki). Venkatesam's father Agnihotravadhanalu (Vinnakota Ramannapanthulu) despite pleas from his wife Venkamma (Hemalatha) agrees to perform the marriage of his nine-year-old daughter Subbamma (Baby Subhadra) to the rich old man Lubdhavadhanlu (Govindarajula Subbarao) for a bride price negotiated by Ramappa Panthulu (CSR) a paramour of Madhuravani. To thwart the marriage, Karataka Sastry (Vangara), a stage actor and brother-in-law of Agnihotravadhanlu dons his disciple Mahesham (Master Sudhakar) in a girl's attire and lures Ramappa Panthulu with a huge sum to cancel the earlier proposal and marry his 'daughter' (Mahesham in disguise) to Lubdhavdhanlu. With the help of Madhuravani, the so-called marriage is performed. Lubdhavdhanlu later learns the truth and also a lesson. Meanwhile, Girisham elopes with Buchamma to Vizag and seeks the help of lawyer and social reformer Soujanya Rao (Gummadi). All the characters shift to Vizag, Madhuravani narrates the entire drama to Soujanya Rao. He lauds Madhuravani and chides Girisham. Girisham and Buchamma are married.
Cast and Crew: Though he did not follow Gurajada's script, Pullaiah came up with a neat and decent movie version of the classic. NTR took special care in his expressions and body language right from the way he holds the cigar. Gurajada's Girisham was an 'Ashadabhuti' a total jackal in human form, cunning and deceiving. But it was toned down in the movie version, perhaps keeping in view of the player's image. Yet, NTR gave one of his career best performances. Madhuravani may be a whore but when Savitri is enacting the role you have no other choice than to admire her. She helps rescue a girl child from marrying an old man, brings in a sea change in that old man who donates half his property to the cause of widow re-marriage and nails down the opportunistic Girisham to marry the young widow Buchamma. Savitri excelled throughout and especially in the scene in which she laughs at the word, 'Lottipittalu' read out from a letter by C.S.R. The laugh soon turns into a long hackle-chuckle at him. It was one of the best laughter scenes in world cinema.
Govindrajulu Subbarao as Lubdhavdhanlu literally lived in the role. Interestingly, he had played Girisham on stage, over a hundred times with Sthaanam Narasimha Rao as Madhuravani. It was a cakewalk for Vinnakota Ramannapanthulu as he was only reprising his most popular stage role - Agnihotravadhanlu. Janaki came up with a neat portrayal as Buchamma. Suryakantham as Meenakshi, the widowed sister of Lubdhavdhanlu and Chadalavada Kutumbarao as Polisetty also made an impact. Ghantasala Venkateswara Rao composed the music. Pullaiah cleverly used Gurajada's 'Puthadibomma Poornamma katha' (rendered by Ghantasala) a ballad on child marriage (enacted by Kumari Prameela Rani and dancers) in a relevant scene. The surprise package is the inclusion of Sri Sri's lyric, Anadnam Aarnavamaithe... from his collection of poems 'Mahaprasthanam'. Ghantasala made a musical feat of sorts by tuning the forceful free verse as a semi-classical melody. It was filmed on Savitri (choreography: Pasumarthi Krishnamurthy, rendered by P. Susheela). Malladi Ramakrishna Sastry's 'Chitaru komanu mithayi potlam...' (Ghantasala) shot on NTR and Janaki is popular too.
Trivia: 'Shavukaru' Janaki magnanimously agreed to play Buchamma despite the fact that D.L. had replaced her with Savitri after first signing her for the role of Parvathi in Devadasu. Sarada (then Saraswati) made her screen debut in the children's song sequence, 'Bommala Pelli...' Faithfully sticking to Gurajada's play, Ravi Kondala Rao directed a 26 part Televisionserial with Gollapudi Maruthi Rao as Girisham. The serial won nine television nandi awards for 2001. Released on 26th August, 1955, Kanyasulkam was an average grosser. Twenty eight years later, in its reissue, the movie was amoney spinner!
-Challapalli Srinivas Chakravarthy-  
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