Thirty years after his death, and seven years after India became independent, the NTR starrer Aggi Ramudu (1954) would feature a burra katha (folk ballad) venerating Alluri Seetha Rama Raju. An eleven-year old watching the film would be incredibly moved, and would begin dreaming of a film based on the revolutionary. This boy, Krishna, would go on to be the first South Indian “Super Star”, and for his hundredth film he would both produce and star in Alluri Seetha Rama Raju (1974), a project which was in imminent danger of being upended by NTR’s own version, which never ended up taking off.
A few months ago, at the hundred and twenty-fifth birth anniversary of the revolutionary, the usually mild-mannered veteran allowed himself to revel in pride when he said “That film played for a year. Even though I acted in three hundred and sixty films, the number one film in my life is Alluri Seetharama Raju”. This was, finally, the story of Alluri told in images by Indians in glorious Cinemascope—only the first or second Scope film in South India—and it still remains one of the biggest, most long-running hits of the Telugu film industry.
Unsurprisingly, the film itself has not all aged well—particularly its first hour. It has stretches of broad comedy and Telugu actors in whiteface playing the British, as well as a Tamil stereotype. And yet, there is much to admire: its epic scope, a lot of it shot on location in forests (practically unheard of in the set-heavy era of Telugu cinema) with many extras, Krishna’s performance, the anti-colonial “punch” dialogues, and its depiction of the guerilla warfare between the adivasis and the British. Among its songs, written by the celebrated poet Sri Sri would go on to win the national award.