Legends Of Telugu Cinema, NTR and ANR Options

[Abdur Rehman]

I am starting a new post on the Legends of Telugu Cinema NT Rama Rao and A Nageswar Rao. I know the foot fall of this post will be few but still I want to complete my collection and sharing the albums available with me of these two legends. These two need no introduction as far as Telugu Cinema is concerned. They were fortunate enough to have reigned the Golden Period of Telugu Cinema accompanied my Ghantasala's music. Here is the brief biography of these two stars followed by their filmography.

[swarapriya]

(NTR) Raju-Peda (1954)

This movie was based on an English film “The Prince and the Pauper” which itself was based on the novel of the same name written by the great American humorist and novelist Mark Twain. The book was published in 1881 and was made into movies and plays many a number of times. It was also published as a comic book in 1946.

The Telugu film is almost a carbon copy of the 1937 version of the film including the funny looking wardrobe worn by the royalty. Many variations of the story were filmed in all languages, with some adapted to current social environments. Most notable among these are “The Parent Trap” made by Walt Disney in 1961 and “Trading Places” made in 1983. Disney’s picture was made in most of the Indian languages, as “Letha Manasulu” in Telugu in 1966 and “Do Kaliyan” in 1968 in Hindi. The Telugu film “Iddaru Mithrulu” made in 1961 also borrowed heavily from the Twain novel.

“Raju-Peda” with all its stellar cast did only an average business. Interestingly it is Relangi, the comedian, who played the role of a soldier, a champion of the poor and not Rama Rao as one expects. In the English version Earl Flynn played the role Relangi played. Rama Rao played here as a petty thief who is an abusive husband and father. His role was very limited, may be about 15 minutes, less than that of Relangi. But playing an offbeat role, Rao performed brilliantly. The movie actually belonged to the child artiste Master Sudhakar who played the roles of both the prince and the pauper. He has most of the screen time, nearly 80% of it. That left for other veteran actors not much scope. Ranga Rao, a great actor he was, kind of disappointing in the role of the king.

Does anyone know what happened to Master Sudhakar? I would like to know more about him if someone can elaborate on his whereabouts and his career after this movie.

I am uploading songs from this film taken from a DVD in two back-to-back posts. The audio quality is passable. Unfortunately I don’t have details of the singers for many of the songs. Please help fill the gaps if you can. Thanks.

Now for the songs in the first post…