ANR - the Legend of Telugu film industry is no more

Andhra woke up today to the sad news of the demise of one of the doyens of Telugu Film Industry Akkeneni Nageswara Rao, (popularly known as ANR).  ANR has been one of the strong central pillars (along with NTR) on which the Telugu film industry stood and flourished for more than half a century.   In the earlier phase of their career both NTR and ANR acted together in many movies of Vijaya banner like Guddamma Katha, Maya Bazar and Missamma all of which remained in the top list of all time great Telugu movies

ANR had great limitations compared to the colossal NTR, who had fantastic personality, charm, dialogue delivery because of which he suited in wide variety of roles.   In the early part of his career since lot of mythological movies used to be made in Telugu and NTR has acquired the status of Demi-God, there was no option for ANR but to try his hand in mythological roles, but he never suited the roles like Rama, Krishna and not to talk about Ravana and Duryodhana which needed a massive physical personality like that of NTR and SV Ranga Rao.    So he used to play it safe by falling back on roles like Arjuna, Abhimanu, Narada etc (almost a second fiddle to NTR who donned the powerful roles Rama, Krishna, Ravana, Duryadhana), but he could never made any mark in mythological roles.   Same thing goes for action movies, his personality and soft dialogue delivery style never suited them.   

But it is to the credit of ANR that he always tried to remain within his limitations, chose subjects and films that suited him and developed a huge fan base specially of class audience and female audience and for more than 30 years gave run for the money to NTR and stretched his career to over 70 years.    He mostly did family oriented movies, movies based on famous novels and as and when required he used to fall back upon the tried and tested `alcoholic tragedy king’ role.    He immortalized the role of Devdas which released in 1953, though the movie was made and re-made in many languages and many times no one including the famous Dilip Kumar could come anywhere near his essaying of the character  and it prompted Dilip Kumar to say, "there is only one Devadas and that is Nageswara Rao’.    After Devdas there was no looking back forhim.    He did similar tragedy-lover role in Prem Nagar and Premabhishekam with the same effect and stupendous success.   He developed great rapport and excellent understanding with banners like Jagapati, Suresh Productions, Vijaya, Prasad productions who used to repeat him film after film.    Music used to be a highlight in his movies with Gantasala rendering some of the most memorable super hit songs for him.    Mid way through his career he developed his dancing skills and in late 60s and entire 70s, he was probably the only South Indian hero who became famous for his dances which forced other heros to try their hand in dancing including NTR, who used to have two left feet.    After 90s dancing has become a mandatory requirement for every hero, but one should credit ANR to have pioneered dancing by heros in film industry which domain was reserved for heroines before him.     Devdas, Gundamma Katha, Maya Bazar, Missama, Dr. Chankravarthy,Mooga Manasulu,  Dasara Bullodu, Prem Nagar, Premabhishekam have been massive hits and at the same time, his roles in these movies were critically acclaimed

In my childhood I knew Andhra being divided only on one issue ANR FANS AND NTR FANS.   In Vijayawada, there used to be two theaters Durga Kalamandir and Alankar and a small foot bridge used to be there in between the two theaters.    Durga Kalamandir used to release all NTR movies whereas Alankar used to release ANR movies and the vice versa has never happened till mid 70s when I was there.     The day either a NTR or ANR movie used to be released there used to be pitched battles on that bridge with people throwing soda bottles on each others, in the entire city huge posters used to be garlanded by the respective fans but by the night cow dung used to be thrown by the rival fans.     Both NTR and ANR used to have thousands of fan clubs and the fans used to be die hard variety.     Though both NTR and ANR always maintained that they did not have any personal differences and it was only fan-created rivalry, they did not act together for more than two decades and only came together once again in late 70s and acted in 2-3 movies together like Chanakya-Chandragupta.

Another great quality of ANR was that he has always been simple, amenable and remained non-controversial.     He had always been kind, courteous to fellow artists, heroines, producers, directors and technicians and always avoided controversies in his interviews even after persistent probing.    Though he worked with more than 80 heroins in his career spanning more than 60 years, including Sridevi and Jayaprada in 1980s when they were age of the age of his grand-children, he was never linked up with any heroines and always maintained a good family-man image – on and off the screen.    Even when he was diagnosed with cancer, he called a press meet and announced himself that he was detected with cancer and fans need not worry, he will battle out with it and come back healthy as he did with his heart ailment in mid 70s rather than rumor mills working overtime.   

He is the man who was credited with taking the first step in moving the Telugu film industry from Madras to Hyderabad by building the first film studio Annapurna Studio (in the name of his wife) in Hyderabad and at present major part of telugu films are being shot in Andhra itself with more studoes like Suresh, Padmalaya and Ramoji film city coming up in Hyderabad.    The Telugu film industry and artists specially the junior artists will always remain indebted to him for this initiative.    He also produced many meaningful movies under the Annapurna banner.

Being a south Indian actor, like many other greats, he did not get his deserved due at national and international level, but nonetheless he was conferred with Padma Vibushan (the second highest civilian award), Dadabai Phale Award, and four film fare awards and equal number of Nandi award by AP Govt.  It surprises and shocks me that he has never won a National Award (this unfortunate distinction he shares with NRT).      He made his debut in 1941 and acted in 256 movies and completed his last movie `Manam’ in 2013 at the age of 90 which makes it  72 years acting career and he literally died with his acting shoes on.   I am sure both acting for 72 years and acting at the age of 90 must be world records.   His Son Nagarjuna and grandson Nagachaitanya are also popular telugu stars.    

Even in his last movie he created a record in Telugu Industry where Grandfather (ANR), son (Nagarjuna) and grandson (Nagachaitanya) worked together and it is unfortunate that he missed the release date by a month or so.

As long as Telugu film industry lives ANR and NTR continue to remain as its two eyes and Telugu audience remain indebted to him for the great entertainment.  After SVR, NTR with the demise of ANR an era in Telugu film industry has come to an end.      May the great soul rest in peace.   

S. Prabhakar

22.1.2014

1 – Nenokadine – but surely will not be on top position No. 1

Coming close on the heels of hat-trick of super duper hits by Mahesh Babu the expectation were sky high for this movie and everyone expected that it may better Pawan Kalyan’s Attarintiki Daredi.    But the law of average has caught Mahesh Babu soon and this one is going to be a moderate hit at the most and going the `Atidhi’ and `Sainikidu’ way.

No doubt Mahesh Babu, Producers and Director Sukumar should be appreciated for coming up with an experimental movie – a psycho thriller of identity crisis and memory disorder.      But in the last decade or so, the Telugu movies have started banking so heavily on the comedy track with star comedians like Brahmanandam, MVL Narayana, Ali, Sunil and Late D Subramanyam that whatever may be subject of the movie without their support it is difficult for any movie to sail through.    May be it too was part of the strategy that  director wanted to maintain the serious and gripping feel of the movie and did not want to distract the viewers with comedy, but if that be the case same should have been applied for songs which too seems to be unnecessary and out of place. 

The biggest minus point of this movie has been its confusing story and more confusing narration – not only the hero but the audience too get confused whether what is happening is real or illusion.    Till interval one may grant that director could maintain tight grip on the movie but still could not justify why he has to fall back on memory disorder theory when he could not unfold the reason even after interval.   The incidents of memory loss/illusion were too many and become repetitive (even Mahesh acting to great extent, rubbing his forehead as if he like the audience is having head-ache and giving a stare look).   After killing the first villain and after interval the movie shifts to London searching for other villains, lockers and what not.   Added to the confusion close to 2:45 hours length of movie and extremely poor editing have not helped the cause.   

Such type of movies have obvious disadvantage vis-à-vis other masala commercial flicks, but any day it is better than Amir Khan’s Talash where too director who lost plot and resorted to introducing `Bhoot/Atma’ to solve the mystery which Amir khan was puzzled to solve.    

   

For Mahesh Babu it will be remembered as one of his better acting assignments and elevate him as an actor, but commercially it will surely bite the dust and he will miss few steps in the race against Pawan Kalyan, if that be the only competition his followers perceive.    Kriti Sanon made a confident debut and her tall and lean figure is matching that of Mahesh’s trendy new look.    Mahesh’s son Gautam (who looks like a carbon copy of his mother Namrata Shrodkar) has done very good job in small but interesting and pivotal role.    

Devi Sri Prasad gave wonderful back ground music which enhanced the mood the movie but songs were bit of let down compared to his own high standards and super success.    As usual Peter Hein and his team of stuntmen did a great job and the motor cycle and speed boat/jet skiing chasing scenes were picturised wonderfully and am sure at much cheaper budget than Dhoom-3 for a better end results.    Cinematographer has done great job in capturing these stunts.

S. Prabhakar

13.1.2014

SHOLAY - 40 YEARS SINCE RELEASE NOT LOST SHEEN

Over the last 40 years technology of movie making changed by leaps and bounds, but the popularity and entertainment value of SHOLAY has not diminished a wee bit.    I lost count the number of times i saw this movie, mouthed the dialogues and sang songs.   When the digitalised version of the movie was released in January, 2014 I took my entire family to the movie  and I enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed it when I saw it for the first time in Leela Mahal in Visakhapatnam in 1975 when I was doing my 10th class.  

At a Delhi Theater on 5.1.14

My photo with SHOLAY characters in 1975

Sholay is one of the most nostalgic adolescent stage memory which will stay on with me forever specially this photograph with cut out of Amjad kha.  I had to stand in the long Q in the exhibition for my turn to get photographed with the cut out of cult character Amjad khan.   The funny part is that i was to take the photograph with Amjad khan and a curtain was to be put on the curtain with the painting of Amitabh and Dharmender which the assistant in the studio forgot but to my luck i was standing in the middle and all four of us came in the frame 

Leela Mehal, Visakhapatname where i saw Sholay in 1975

What Amjab Khan once said is so true that no one including Ramesh Shippy can claim that they can make a movie like SHOLAY or re-create a character like Gabbar Singh (incidentally he was having a dig at Ramesh Shippy who claimed that the character `Shakal’ in Shaan created by him will be better than Gabbar Singh) .

What worked for SHOLAY (all most everything)

Screenplay and Dialogues : Though there was hardly any story what worked for Sholay was its very tight screenplay and dialogues.   Incidentally whatever very thin story line was there, it was heavily borrowed from MERA GAON MERA DESH (though not publicized much and reported to be adopted from Seven Sumarois or Magnificent seven).   The only difference between these two movies is MGMD has Dharmendra against Dharmendra and Amitabh hired to catch the dacoit.   by Jayant (incidentally father of Amjad Khan in real life) loses one hand in MGMD as against Sajeev Kr. loosing both hands.    Can you imagine in MGMD the daku was named Jabbar Singh (fantastically essayed by Vinod Khanna)  and in Sholay it was Gabbar Singh immortalized by Amjad Khan.  But what really worked for Sholay was so many mini-sub plots and assembly of so many great characters and their charterisation.

Dialogues : The duo Salim-Javed have more than made for lack of story by penning all time super hit dialogues not only that of Amjad Khan which was a rage, but every character, whether it is fun-loving variety of Dharmendra,measured crisp variety of Amitabh, motor mouthed Hema Malini  or the most dignified dialogues of Sanjeev Kumar.   Understandably, there was no looking back for the super hit pair of Salim Javed till they decided to part their ways for no ones benefit.    Sholay has the unique distinction of being the first movie whose dialogues were released as audio cassettes


Action :   Special mention should be made the way the action scenes were choreographed by Ravi Khanna with the help of many foreign technicians (ably assisted by Veeru Devagan father of current heto Ajay Devgan).   Those were the days when no cables were used nor were there any special effects, all the stunts were absolutely raw stunts done by stuntmen.  The Train chase scene with racing horses was highlight of the movie which could not be replicated in the last forty years.    He assembled best of the horses and horsemen who really broke their bones falling from the horses at very high speeds.   For ages they stood as bench mark for all Indian movies and though I saw thousands of movies  over the last four decades but action scenes of no Indian movie could reach anywhere near Sholay even with the help of cables and hi-tech gadgets.    This is one Indian movie which demonstrated that director can do wonders with the help of the Action-director in creating most captivating stunts which synchronized so well with the movie.    John woo (Broken Arrow, Face off and Mission Impossible II fame) is another director who stages the action scenes in a brilliant manner which become the highlight of all his movie.

Cinematography : The action scenes were really elevated to the level they were by the fantastic cinematography by  Dwarka Dwivichar (who died immediately after this movie).    He used so effectively ground level shots, very uncommon and unique camera positioning - wheels of the rails and galloping horses simultaneously captured, the fantastic rocky landscapes, dacoits falling from horses and from high rocks in slow motion were breath taking in those days.  

Music : In 70s great music means churning out super hit songs, but in Sholay for the first time apart from songs (couple of songs Yeh Dosti and Mahbooba being hits and other just manageable), RD concentrated more on background music and produced very specific and fantastic pieces instead of using stereotyped recorded pieces being used in many movies of that era.     Starting from the title music (which is still used by many as their caller tunes), the melodious piece on sarangi and mostly on Mouthorgan in the scenes between Amitabh and Jaya, the fast tabla beat in horse chases specially while dacoits chasing Bansani and most importantly very special music when Gabbar Singh enters ( i still could not make out by which instrument he created that kind of shrill and chilling music) which enhanced his menacing dialogues.    He also sang the memorable Mehbooba Mehbooba.   The stereophonic sound enhanced the value of action scenes to dizzy heights.

Acting : One of the rare movies where the entire cast has put up commendable performance.   Both Dharmendra and Amitabh had exhibited sizzling chemistry and the veeru-jai dosti is legendary and always remained as a reference point for friendship, Hema Malani's Chatpatar Bansanti role, the restrained performance of Jaya, the dignified essaying of Thakur role by Sanjeev Kr. and above all thunderous and towering performance of Amjad Khan.    It was really destiny that Amjad khan bagged the role on a rebounce.   First many names considered like Sunil dutt, Shaturghan Singh not getting finalised and ultimately Danny who was finalised and signed could not start shooting since he committed the dates to Firoz Khan for Dharmatma.   Even those who have just 5 to 10 minutes roles like Asrani, Jagdeep, Helan, Kesto and AK Hangal left long lasting impression.    Who can forget Asrani’s `Hum Angrejoki Jamane ke Jailer hai’ and Jagdeep’s Surma Bhupali act and Hangal’s `Itna sannata kyo hai bhai’ `baap ke khamdepe bete ka janaja' dialogues.   Halen’s item number Mehbooba Mehbooba can put `Chikni chemili’s to shame.

Production and Direction : GP Sippy has not spared any effort in making the movie into one of the biggest multy starer and backed his young son Ramesh Sippy who was in his early 30s.    Ramesh Sippy has done great justice to the confidence reposed by his father. He simply woven magic and it appears he  lost all his tricks after this movie because none of his subsequent movies were not a patch on Sholay.

As can be expected Sholay created unbreakable records all over India.    Gabbar Singh has become a cult figure and for more than four decades his character has been used for many advertisements and even till date in many Comedy shows Gabbar singh character is adopted.  Apart from seeing Sholay many time in theater in its first release over the 100 days run it had in Visakhapatnam, we used to go to the theater frequently to listen to the songs and dialogue played in the theater premises by Polydor music company.  The characters of Sholay became so popular that in local exhibition in Vizag apart from top Telugu stars like NTR, Krishna, etc., cut out of Characters of Sholay were put to take photographs.

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with wife in Delhi Theater on 5.1.14

with wife and kids at Theater 

Right from Ramesh Shippy’s next venture Shaan to many more action movies till today are tipped to be one up on Sholay but none could be pale shadow of Sholay.    

What Sholay means to me 

 It will be in the top of my chart of favourite movies in any language not only for what it was but for the nostalgic value of it.    Those were the days i was seeing almost every Hindi movie released in Visakhapatnam to improve my Hindi (basics of which i picked up in my one yeear i stay in delhi in 1973).  Nothing helped me more than Sholay with so many characters and every character speaking the language in its own different style, Basanti, Veeru, Jai, Thakur to Gabbar Singh.    Leela mahal in Vizag used to be very near to my jr. college BVK college, Daba Gardens.     Polydor, which released the music of sholay, has set up a big stall in the premises of the theater and throughout the day used to play the dialogues and songs of the movie.    Daily i used to go to the theater with friends while returning from the college and listen to the dialogues and by heart them.   Many of my Telugu speaking friends, though used to enjoy the movie were not able to follow the dialogues specially of Gabbar singh and heavy dialogue like `baap ke khande pe bete ka janaja' type and i used to be the translator to them.    Though Hindi movies of top stars had all India market even in those days but no movie has every been accepted by all the way Sholay was accepted.     It had a 100 days run in cities like Vizag silver jubilee in Hyderabad and second highest weeks run in Bangalore (just behind Bombay).    I lost count the number of time i saw the movie in theaters and on video cassettes and disks and never i got bored or found a dull moment in the movie   I am sure i will keep seeing Sholay many more times and keep enjoying it.   For me, even for next 100 years to come, there can never be another SHOLAY like the way they can never be another Moghale Azam or Telugu movie Dana Veera Sura Karna (the first one for the dialogues of Dilip Kumar and Pritvi Raj Kapoor  and second one for the dialogues of NTR occupying screen presence for 3.30 hours out of 3.45 hours movie in triple role of Krishna, Karna and Duryodhana).   

Thanks RAMESH SIPPY and entire CAST AND CREW of SHOLAY for such a memorable experience called SHOLAY

S. PRABHAKAR