Nyayam Kavali (1981) - Retro

Story:

Suresh Kumar (Chiranjeevi) Jayalaxmi (phata phat Jayalaxmi) are happy married couple of five years. They are childless. Jayalaxmi one day attends the Sharada Vidyaniketan anniversary function with Suresh and there she finds out Suresh is the father of Bharathi Devi's son.

On insistence of Jayalaxmi Bharathi devi tells her story, how she was trapped by Suresh in the typewriting institute and leaves her after she reveals that she is pregnant. She takes the matter to court with the help of Lawyer Shakuntala. In that process she faces lot of problems. Finally she wins the case and refuses to marry Suresh and sends him to the jail.

After the death of Shakuntala, Bharathi runs the institute started by Shakuntala. Suresh realizes his mistake and repents.

About the film:

Kranthi Kumar who made 'Pranam Khareedu' with Chiranjeevi wanted to produce another small budget film with him after the blockbuster 'Sardar Paparayudu' with Late Sri NTR. Chiranjeevi immediately agreed to that idea. Kodandarami Reddy who just released his first film 'Sandhya', a remake of Hindi film 'Tapasya' came on to the scene when the producer Doraiswami Raju recommended his name to Kranthi Kumar.

They were not satisfied with scripts that came into the discussion. Kranthi Kumar suggested couple of scripts, but Kondadarami Reddy was not keen on them, he informed the same to Chatterjee who was the close friend of Kranthi Kumar. Kodanda Ramireddy was looking for something new. Then Kranthi Kumar suggested to adopt a novel, 'Kottamalupu' written by D Kameshwari, that he read the novel in 'Chatura' a monthly magazine. He finally bought the rights from Kameshwari. Story sittings were held in Madras Palm grove hotel with writer Satyanand.

Hunt for the role of herione Bharathi started; initially they planned to approach Madhavi, later dropped the idea as she already did similar role in the film 'Kukkakatuku Cheppu debba'. They thought a new girl sans image would be good for the role and accordingly they approached Radhika for the role. Radhika, a new comer then, immediately agreed to do the role. The only itch was that Radhika did not know Telugu at that time. So they kept a tutor for her on the sets. Radhika really worked hard for the film to score marks in a language she is not familiar with. Veteran artist Sharada remembers some scenes in which Radhika almost gave competition to her. That was a great compliment recalls Radhika. Dubbing artist Durga, who was at the helm at that time, lend her voice to Radhika.

They title was another issue, initially they thought to keep Kotta Malupu which was the name of the novel, then they had thoughts to keep 'Adapilla', 'Anayayam', 'Mosam' etc and finally settled with Nyayam Kavali.

Interesting thing is that director Kodanda Ramireddy personally detests the lengthy court dramas but he had to shoot at least five reels of the court drama in the second half which is a must for the story. He handled those scenes very intelligently.

Kodanda Rami Reddy recalls about the film:

I was very much tensed with the film as it was a risky subject and I just started my career. When the film was released in Jaihind in Vijayawada, I was there for the morning show to see the reaction of the people. Until interval I was very tense. In the interval people started saying "it looks a different variety..", which gave me sigh of relief. Once the film was complete people came to me and congratulated me on making a good film. I was very happy. People liked the way we shown the opinions of the different people from the society in the film. They felt that concept was new.

This is the 30th film for Chiranjeevi and second film in the same banner. Later he acted films like Keerayi Rowdeelu, Idi pellantara, Agni gundam, Raiskhavodu in the same banner. This is the first film that Kodandarami Reddy made based on the novel, while for Chiranjeevi it is fifth. Later they made some memorable films based on the novels, 'Abilasha', 'Challenge', 'Dongamogudu', etc.

Popular lyricist Veturi sang the verse "Yatrinaste.." in the film. Radhika got her first Filmfare award as best actress for this film.

The film was made with fewer than five lakhs celebrated 100 days in more than Ten centers. Chiranjeevi was paid ten thousand rupees while Kodanda Rami Reddy and Sharada was also paid Ten thousand, Radika got five thousand. The hundred days function was celebrated at Taj Coramandal in Madras, same day they announced the team's next Keerayi Rowdeelu. Keerayi Rowdeelu was moderate hit at the box-office.

Nyayam Kavali was remade in four other languages and created history there in other languages too. K. Balaji brought Tamil rights and L.V. Prasad brought Hindi rights. Though they offered Kondadarami Reddy to direct the Tamil version, he refused as he was not well versed with the language. Tamil version was directed by K. Vijayan while Director K. Bhagyaraja did a small role as himself (like Dasari Narayana Rao in Telugu Version), titled 'Vidhi' which was also a huge hit, Poornima Jayaraman (later married to Bhagyaraj) did the role of Radhika while Sujatha did the role of Sharada, Jaishankar did the role of Jagayya while Mohan did the role of Chiranjeevi, Producer Balaji (father-in-law of Malayalam star Mohanlal ) appeared in the role of judge. The film was a blockbuster and ran for 500 days in some centers.

The Hindi version titled a 'Mujhe Insaf Chahiye' was directed by L.V. Prasad and produced by D. V. S. Raju under the DVS Productions had Rati Agnihotri in the role of Radhika, Mithun played the role of Chiranjeevi, Rekha played the role of Sharada and Danny played the role of Jagayya. The film's photography was handled by S. Gopal Reddy while Laxmikanth-Pyarelal scored the music. Made with less then 35 lakhs the film grossed more then a crore in some territories. It was a Blockbuster in Hindi that year.  Rekha was the only one who got nominated for the Filmfare awards for this movie.

Kannada version was titled Kerala Hennu in which our Vijayashanthi made debut into Kannada. The film was also a good hit there. It was also remade in Oriya.