Adavi Ramudu: South India's Sholay

1977 will be an unforgettable year for Telugu cinema with the release of Adavi Ramudu. Adavi Ramudu can be easily considered as before and after Telugu cinema commercial success! The gigantic success of Adavi Ramudu created unforgettable history and commercial formula in Telugu cinema forever. A lot of backstories behind this classic are unheard of for today's movie lovers. With a mass hero of NT Rama Rao (NTR) range, Adavi Ramudu showed the Telugu cinema's stamina in the late ’70s.

 Adavi Ramudu proved two things. One is, an old story can be said in a new style with crowd-pleasing ingredients with dialogues, comedy, sentiment, emotions, and foot-tapping songs. Second is, the more the director makes good use of the hero's public image the more interesting you move the story. Adavi Ramudu started the trend of films set beyond reality which makes an audience forget their worries and just enjoy the wholesome entertainment the film provides. 

NTR, who was enthralling Telugu audience in historical, mythological, folklore, and social films with an unbeatable following in South India, commenced his real commercial films journey with Adavi Ramudu and went on shaking Telugu cinema box office till he became Chief Minister and towards the end of his career with Major Chandrakanth (1993, directed by Raghavendra Rao!). 

In 1973, Kannada legendary hero Dr. Rajkumar’s 150th film Gandhada Gudi was a blockbuster with a forest backdrop story. Adavi Ramudu was planned with a similar story just taking inspiration and suiting the story to Telugu audience and NTR image. The forest backdrop premise, villains making illegal business in the forest, hero coming as a forest range officer and one scene was taken from Gandhara Gudi and rest of the script and dialogues was reworked by writer, the great Jandhyala and Gollapudi Maruthi Rao as suggested by the team. 

The producers Satyanarayana and Suryanarayana produced their first film with Sobhan Babu starrer Tahsildar Gaari Ammaayi (1971), directed by K. S. Prakasha Rao, father of K. Raghavendra Rao; Raghavendra Rao was an assistant director in the film and it was one of the big hits for Sobhan Babu who played a dual role in the film. After that film, they made Prema Bandham (1976) with Sobhan Babu and Vanisree but it became a flop at the box office. The producers while planning for their next film, approached Raghavendra Rao to work for them, whom they already knew as an assistant director in Tahsildar Gaari Ammaayi, as he has just begun his directing career. 

NTR and Director K Raghavendra Rao combination was much celebrated for rewriting box office history with their subsequent films beginning with Adavi Ramudu. Raghavendra Rao had just begun his career as a director with Sobhan Babu starrer Babu (1975) and had directed strong story-oriented and performance-oriented films like Jyothi (1976). NTR already knew Raghavendra Rao as assistant director in 2 of his films- Pandava Vanavasamu (1965) and Stree Janma (1967), so agreed readily to do the film. Raghavendra Rao narrated a small thread of the story in 20 minutes and NTR liked it. 

The songs by music director KV Mahadevan and lyrics by Veturi were a chartbuster and one of the main pillars for this film. ‘Krushi Vunte Manushulu Rushulautaru’ song will remain as one of the greatest solo songs ever in Telugu cinema for the inspiring lyrics by Veturi. Any person who wants to achieve his ambitions in his life can't stop getting inspired by this song. Raghavendra Rao, who was surprised with the opportunity of getting to direct NTR very early in his career wanted to make the best use of the given opportunity. Since he didn't know whether he'll get another chance to direct NTR, Raghavendra Rao had NTR appear in Valmiki, Eklavya, and Lord Rama characters in this song which was a highlight. Coincidentally in NTR’s last film Major Chandrakanth (1993) directed by Raghavendra Rao, in the song ‘Punyabhoomi Naa Desam’ NTR portrayed freedom fighters Chatrapathi Shivaji, Veerapandiya Kattabomman, Alluri Seetharamaraju, and Subash Chandra Bose get-ups! 

‘Kokilamma Pelliki’ song was a wonderful delight and will remain an audiovisual extravaganza on the big screen. The highlight of the song was the way birds and pet animals were used fantastically like no other director matching the music beats. 

NTR being very popular in mythological and god roles used to be welcomed with flowers by the audience the moment he appears on the screen. This made Raghavendra Rao think that he should do something different. Akkineni Nageshwara Rao was famous for his dances so Raghavendra Rao decided he should make NTR also dance for a mass song to wow the frontbenchers! So the song 3 ‘Aarasukoboyi Paaresukunnanu’ just shook the masses like never before as this song created. The moment this song starts, the audience went raptures and started throwing coins on the screen! In many places, the song was played twice due to audience demand! After each show, theatre staff used to find so many coins thrown all over the theatre. The song was also called ‘One Crore Song’ those days! The pink saree worn by Jayaprada in the song became Raghavendra Rao's sentiment color and he used the same color pink dresses on many beautiful heroines he worked in his career later on. 

Raghavendra Rao didn't want to give a cinematic feel in the story so he had romance comedy songs with all entertainment in the first half to have a grip on the audience and then give an interval twist revealing the hero is an ‘undercover’ forest range officer. Another specialty is NTR chemistry with the elephants in the film. This was a huge attraction for small children giving them ample joy. The audience got a chance to see elephants blessing the hero, help the hero take shower and rescue him from the villains. Additionally, NTR fighting with a lion was a goosebumps moment for the audience. In today's filmmaking where CG is compulsorily used for animals, those days this scene was shot without any CG with risk. All these things added a lot for the audience to see the film n number of times repeatedly. This was possible just because Raghavendra Rao and his team spent time before the shoot in the forest observing the behavior and nature of the animals to use the best in the film. 

Before committing to Adavi Ramudu, NTR was busy completing his magnum opus Daana Veera Soora Karna (Jan 1977) at the same time, which he planned to complete before January to ready it for release. NTR promised the producers he'll allocate bulk dates once he completed the shooting for Daana Veera Soora Karna. Except for the first shot taken in Savera Hotel, Chennai, all the movie shooting was done in Mudumalai forest. Adavi Ramudu was the first film where NTR gave dates for more than a month (35 days) to shoot outside Chennai! 

The producers have to be applauded for the great care they took for the cast and crew of 300 plus people as they were only three Government guest houses in Mudumalai forest during the shooting time, and they could not accommodate everyone. The producers hired carpenters, welders, painters, etc. to the forest and built new guest houses, and took special permission for electricity. The nearest place to the shooting spot was Mysore, 250 km away and the team used to get all of the day's needs each morning from Mysore. 

The dialogues of the film were another trendsetter and used by the common public in their daily life those days! Dialogue writer turned director Jandhyala got a big break with Adavi Ramudu with his trendy dialogues like “charithra adakku, cheppidhi vinu”, “Ramaa anna boothugaa vinapaduthundhi" and the most famous one being “puli upma tind enti chepma”.

 4 Adavi Ramudu made Jayasudha and Jayapradha overnight “stars” after the release. Before Adavi Ramudu, both the heroines were known for performance-oriented roles. Jayasudha had worked with K. Raghavendra Rao in Raja (1976, remake of Majboor) and Jyothi (1976, inspired from Mili). Jayasudha, at the same time, was making waves in Tamil films too with films like K Balachander’s Apoorva Raagangal (1975) and Jyothi got her huge recognition as an actress. Jayasudha, having faith in Raghavendra Rao signed Adavi Ramudu before Jyothi release, but she got huge recognition for her performance in Jyothi and people were disappointed seeing her doing second heroine and letters were written to Jayasudha asking her not to do second heroine roles! Jayaprada made heads turn with her stunning performance in films like K Balachander’s Anthuleni Katha (1976, remake of K Balachander’s Aval Oru Thodarkathai) and Bapu’s Seeta Kalyanam (1976) was chosen as heroine. After Adavi Ramudu, both the heroines got huge stardom making them stars.

 The main person whose life changed completely after Adavi Ramudu was director Raghavendra Rao. Adavi Ramudu put Raghavendra Rao into the league of big directors in South India and later on ruled Bollywood too. Just a small point of forest officer on a duty to nab poaching in the forest, Raghavendra Rao gave non-stop entertainment from the first scene to climax to the audience. This film started the commercial trend of films which became so popular that it became Raghavendra school of commercial filmmaking and his assistants turned directors A. Kondarami Reddy and B. Gopal also carried on this commercial route perfectly and became successful in their careers! In fact, 1977 was one of the best years for Raghavendra Rao, as some of the best films in his career were released - Kalpana (April 22, 1977), Adavi Ramudu (April 28, 1977), Prema Lekhalu (September 9, 1977), Amara Deepam (September 29, 1977), Aame Katha (November 19, 1977) - all the films were hits and had different stories! 

1977 was an awesome year for NTR where his name and fame reached new heights by seeing pinnacle success. Daana Veera Soora Karna, Adavi Ramudu, Chanakya Chandragupta, and Yamagola ruled the box office. Only Edureeta and Maa Iddari Katha flopped in the same year. NTR's mass appeal, fights, songs, comedy scenes, and top of it NTR being at his glamorous best boosted the film's prospects.

 Coming to the box office, right from the first show, Adavi Ramudu broke all the existing records in Telugu cinema history and created unbeatable records having unimaginable revenues, thanks to the audience for watching the film repeatedly more than once! Before Adavi Ramudu, Lava Kusa (1963) and Dana Veera Soora Karna (1977) were the only films in Telugu to collect 1 crore, the highest, and Adavi Ramudu created history collecting 4 crores!!! In most of the places, Adavi Ramudu collected 5 double or triple the money the previous film collected at that particular place. Those days, when films were struggling to have 3 or 4 shows per day, Adavi Ramudu had 5 shows per day in some places due to uncontrollable audience which was unheard of. Some of the newspapers, magazines, and trade people nicknamed Adavi Ramudu as South India's Sholay! Sholay (1975) became the first film in India to complete 1 year in a single state (Maharashtra) at 3 centers (Mumbai, Pune, and Nasik). Adavi Ramudu broke this record by running 1 year in Andhra at 4 centers (Hyderabad, Kurnool, Vijayawada, and Vishakhapatnam). Later Premabhishekam (1981) and Hum Aapke Hain Koun (1994) equaled this record! To say in a nutshell, adjusted to today's money value Adavi Ramudu collections will be near to 400 crores! 

Adavi Ramudu 100 days celebration was a grand affair at Vijayawada with Dilip Kumar as chief guest. NTR was carried on an elephant-like in the film, from Vijaya Pictures distribution office to Apsara theatre amidst huge crowds. 

Adavi Ramudu 200 days function was held in Chennai Taj Hotel with Raj Kapoor as chief guest. Raj Kapoor, the showman of Indian cinema, praised Raghavendra Rao for picturing the ‘Kokilamma Pelliki’ song with all the birds and pet animals according to the music which he also can't imagine doing it like Raghavendra Rao! 

Coming to some similarities some other films shared with Adavi Ramudu! Director B. Gopal who assisted Raghavendra Rao in Adavi Ramudu directed State Rowdy (1989) with Chiranjeevi and had Chiranjeevi play an undercover cop in the film. Later B. Gopal used the title Adavi Ramudu once again and made the film with Prabhas as a hero for a different story and remixed the song ‘Aarasukoboyi Paaresukunnanu’ on Prabhas and Late Aarthi Aggarwal. Later on, in 2006, Pokiri also had Mahesh Babu playing an undercover cop! Another huge coincidence is Adavi Ramudu and Pokiri releasing on saw date April 28th! After 40 years exactly, the magnum opus Baahubali 2 was also released on the same date - April 28th!