Mantri Gari Viyyankudu

<p>Kobbarikayala Subba Rayudu ( ) is a self-made millionaire, who after attaining a high status, forgets the people who helped him initially and spends life counting his successes. A chance meeting several years later between his son, Siva ( ) and his former friend Ravulapalem Rambhadrayya’s ( ) daughter ( ) leads to both of them falling in love. Subba Rao invites his friend and his wife Annapoornamma ( ) to his mansion and insults them reminding of their lower status in society. The rest of the movie is about how Annapoornamma- who challenges Subba Rao that he would one day come to her house begging for their help – gets it done with the main lead taken by her son Babji ( ) with help from others. While Bapu-Ramana wanted to have (who was their usual choice) as the composer, producer insisted on having as the composer, since – ‘s first combination, (1983) was a major musical and commercial success. According to Ramana, the film was remade from a Malayalam film. was the only movie with Chiranjeevi-Bapu/Ramana combination. Heroine was the top heroine in Malayalam and was introduced to Telugu movies through this movie. The budget was 22 lakh rupees [2.2 million] and ‘s remuneration was 1.5 lakh rupees. Both and were given 60,000 Rupees. Cinematographer was paid 50,000 INR. The shooting was done mostly in and around except for a couple of songs [Emani Ne Cheli Paduduno] and one fight, which were shot in . The shooting was completed in 40 days. All songs were composed by Maestro . Ilayaraja later recreated “Emani Ne” as “Kaise Kahoon” for Hindi film (2006). The movie was both a critical and commercial success and completed 50 days in most of the centers it was released. While the movie was the first foray for Bapu/Ramana combination into pure commercial cinema, it was praised for still having the Bapu/Ramana touch. The movie became a rage among youth, especially the college scenes and the songs endeared the youth of Andhra to the movie. The movie would have done even better had it not released a week after , which was breaking all kinds of industry records at that time.</p>