Krishna’s best movie till date

The film Alluri Seetharama Raju completes 40 years on May 1. The film was produced by Krishna himself and was released on May 1, 1974. This was Krishna’s 100th film and created many records and is one of the best films in Telugu cinema. On this occasion, the veteran actor shared his memories about the making of the film. “When I was 30 I acted in this film. From age 10 to 30, I was inspired by many incidents that lead to the making of this film,” he says.

Krishna made his debut with Tene Manasulu in 1965 and then went on to act in many hit films. Talking about how the film started, Krishna recounts his interaction with D.L. Narayana, who produced the classic Devadasu. “The producer announced plans for making Alluri Seetharama Raju with Sobhan Babu. But the film did not start. He then gave the story to me as I showed interest in producing the film,” says Krishna.

That’s how the film started. Krishna then approached director V. Ramachandra Rao to direct it. “We all went to Chintapalli forest near Visakhapatnam for the shooting. At that time, equipments had to be transported using cranes and we had a lot of difficulties,” he recollects.At that time distributors had the upper hand. Navayuga distributors, who had distributed most of Krishna’s films backed out of this one as it did not have romance or action scenes.

“Even people from the industry were discouraging me. But I believed in the story and approached other distributors,” says Krishna. This was the first cinemascope film. The song from this film Telugu Veera Levara sung by Ghantasala got a National Award, the first Telugu song to have won an award at the national level. The film was also screened at the Tashkent Film Festival.

Late N.T. Rama Rao wanted to make a film on Alluri Seetharama Raju and asked Paruchuri brothers to write a script for it. “He watched the movie and said that there couldn’t be a better film and dropped the idea of making a film on the same topic,” he recollects. Krishna’s wife Vijayanirmala played the female lead. Adi Narayana Rao provided the music. The film also got Nandi Award.