Retrospect: Vijetha (1985)

Movie: Vijetha (1985)
Technical: 15 Reels; Color; 35 mm
Censor Date: October 18, 1985
Release Date: October 23, 1985
Duration: 2 hrs 20 minutes

Cast:
Chiranjeevi ... Chinnababu a.k.a Madhusudana Rao
Bhanupriya ... Priyadarshini
Sarada ... Saraswathi
Satyanarayana ... Harischandra Prasad
K. Vijaya ... Sumathi
Sreelakshmi ... Radha
Samyukta ... Lakshmi
Somayajulu ... Narasimham
Allu Ramalingayya ... Anjayaneyulu
Allu Venkatesh ... Bobby
Nutan Prasad ... Narayana Rao
Kantarao ... Venkayya (guest)
Other Cast: Giribabu, Ranganath, Subha, Vankayala, Arunkumar, Haribabu, "Dham", P.J. Sarma, Allu Arjun, Koppineedi Vidya, Koppineedi Deepthi, Naresh, Jaggaiah (guest)
Story: Rajan Rai
Dialogues: Jandhyala
Lyrics: Veturi Sundararamamurthy
Playback: S.P. Balasubrahmanyam, P. Susheela, S. Janaki
Makeup: Jayakrishna
Asst. Cameramen: Jogarao, K. Dattu, Sunil Kumar
Operative Cameraman: Vijay
Co-director: Rachuri Srinivas Rao
Art: Thota Thalami
Camera: Lok Singh
Co-producer: K. Nagendra
Banner: Geeta Arts
Producer: Allu Aravind
Direction: A. Kodandarami Reddy

Story:

Madhusudana Rao, also known as Chinnababu (Chiranjeevi), is the last son of retired employee Narasimham (Somayajulu), whose elder sons (Giribabu, Nutan Prasad, Ranganath) are all working. Chinababu's ultimate goal is to play league matches in football. While in that process, he keeps failing in his studies. When their younger sister Lakshmi (Samyukta) gets engaged to a doctor, the elder brothers of Chinnababu do not offer any help to their dad, but Chinnababu sells his kidney and makes the marriage possible, making everyone realize his good heart.

About the film:

This subject was originally made in Bengali, and the same director (Anil Ganguly) later remade it in Hindi with Anil Kapoor and Amrita Singh. The film was a hit in both languages. Before making the film in Telugu, there were a lot of discussions whether to make the film or not. By the time this movie was made, Chiranjeevi already made a name as a action star, but there was not much scope for fights in this film. Nevertheless, they went ahead with the film. The movie in fact starts with an earnest appeal to the audience by Chiranjeevi himself to accept him in this soft role, and this worked! And, the film was a good hit in Telugu too!

Kodandarami Reddy earlier directed one other remake of Anil Ganguly's film – his first film Sandhya was based on Anil Ganguly's Tapasya with Rakhee Gulzar. Thus, AKR was an apt choice for this film. In the Hindi version Saheeb, Rakhee Gulzar did a role, that was played by Sarada in Telugu.

Most of the outdoor scenes were shot in Mumbai, where Saheeb was shot. Mukesh Udeshi helped them a lot in the Mumbai shooting. Later he remade a Tamil film in Telugu with Chiranjeevi and Sridevi in the lead (S.P. Parashuram).

Rohini dubbed Bhanupriya's voice in the film. Sreelakshmi, who played the wife of Giribabu, also had her voice dubbed by someone else for the film. K. Dattu, who worked for camera in this film as an assistant, worked for films like Shankar Dada MBBS later. Both Allu brothers, Arjun and Venkatesh (a.k.a. Bobby), acted in the film. Allu Venkatesh appeared as Nutan Prasad's son and has a couple of dialogues. Allu Arjun, a two-year old boy at that time, appears in two scenes as Subha's son.

Tunes for two songs (jeevitamE oka payanamu... and 6 o' clock ki siggulu dulupu...) were used from the Hindi film. S. Janaki has sung both these songs, in both languages (under Bappi Lahri's music direction in Hindi) Rest of the songs in Telugu were tuned by Chakravarthy. In Telugu, two duets were inserted more than in Hindi, due to the popularity Chiranjeevi has acquired.

Allu Aravind carefully planned for the film to be released during the Dasara/Diwali holiday season and also that no other Chiranjeevi-starring movie is released before that calendar year ended. (Some of his other films were released in short span before Vijetha hit the screen.) This, apart from a smoothly handled theme and a soft role for male lead, gave the film a clear chance to have a decent 100-day run. Chiranjeevi's other films that year were: Chattamto Poratam (Jan. 11), Donga (Mar. 14), Chiranjeevi (Apr. 18), Jwala (Jul. 14), Puli (Jul. 26), Rakta Sinduram (Aug. 24), and Adavi Donga (Sep. 19). Nagendra Babu co-produced the film under the name K. Nagendra.

Lots of discussions went into zeroing in on a title for the movie. Chinnababu was considered earlier, as both Bengali and Hindi versions had the male lead character's name as the title. There was also an advertisement in popular film magazine Jyothichitra asking for title suggestions, and Vijetha won the majority votes. A lucky draw of those voter names was held and the winners' names were credited in the film too!

An Article by Sri Atluri