Among his starrers, Akkineni Nageswara Rao once said that Dharma Daata was one of his favourite movies. There is a reason behind it. Though ANR had acted in dual roles earlier, it was in Ravindra Art Pictures’ Dharma Daata that he had played father and son for the first time, offering him a scope to emote the feelings of two generations, in contrast with the same age group characters of Ajay and Vijay that he had portrayed in his first dual role movie, Iddaru Mithrulu or later as Gopanna and Sekhar in Govula Gopanna or as the ideologically at loggerheads brothers, Madhavacharya and Gopi in Buddhimanthudu .
Remade from the Tamil hit movie, P Madhavan’s Enga Oor Raja featuring Sivaji Ganesan and Jayalalithaa, Dharma Daata produced by Tammareddy Krishnamurthy and directed by Akkineni Sanjeevi too was a super hit.
The story
Sripuram zamindar Raja Raghupathi Rao (played by ANR) is a philanthropist. Eyeing his wealth, the avaricious Bhageswaram zamindar Bhujanga Rao (Nagabhushanam) performs the marriage of his son with Raghupathi’s sister Lakshmi (Jhansi) but leaves her at the marriage hall insulting Raghupathi as he fails to pay him the agreed amount. Raghupathi pledges his bungalow ‘Sri Nilayam’ and with that money, sends Lakshmi to her in law’s home. Raghupathi’s wife Susheela (Shavukaru Janaki) delivers a girl child Jaya and dies. Now in penury, Raghupathi leaves home with his toddler daughter and two sons Sekhar (Master Adinarayana) and Chakravarthy (Master Visweswara Rao) with a vow to regain ‘Sri Nilayam.’ Years pass by. Sekhar (ANR) is now a civil engineer and Chakravarthy (Padmanabham) works as a guide. Raghupathi works in a printing press to earn money so that he can regain his bungalow. In spite of Bhujangam’s objection, Lakshmi intends to perform the marriages of her son Prasad (Easwara Rao) with Jaya (Anitha) and daughter Padma (Kanchana) with Sekhar. Padma befriends Sekhar. Despite Bhujangam’s treacherous plots leading to a dramatic turn of events, Raghupathi Rao succeeds in getting back his ‘Sri Nilayam.’ The family reunites.
Cast and crew
Shot at Sarathi Studios, the Telugu remake largely followed Balamurugan’s screen writing from Tamil. However, minor changes were made in the script, introducing new scenes to make the sequences appear more logical. And the credit for expanding the story was given in the titles to producer Tammareddy Krishnamurthy and eminent writer Yaddanapudi Sulochana Rani. The detailing resulted in an increase of 28 minutes of screen time when compared to the 160 minute long Tamil movie. Appropriate dialogues from Pinisetty added strength to the scenes whether it was emotional or comic.
Dharma Daatha was the second directorial venture for popular editor turned filmmaker, Akkineni Sanjeevi, after the ANR- Krishna starrer, Jagapathi Films, Akka Chellelu , which was released in January 1970. However, with his clean and neat narrative, Sanjeevi earned his first big success with Dharma Daatha . He was ably supported by cinematographer S. Venkatarathnam and editor Balu.
The makeup chief K. Narasimha Rao Chowdhary needs special mention for his craft in transforming the 46-year-old ANR into a 60 year old and also as a young man in his late 20s. His skill came to the fore when both the characters appear in the same frame. Without an iota of overbearing on histrionics, ANR convincingly portrayed Raghupathi Rao. As the young Sekhar, he was at his usual best. Kanchana made a sparkling presence. Billed as guest actors, Relangi played her foster father Bhushanam and Suryakantham appeared in a scene as Vijayapura Maharani. ‘Shavukaru’ Janaki reprised her role from the Tamil version.
Another contributing factor for the film’s mega success was the music composed by T. Chalapathi Rao. Three songs written by C. Narayana Reddy were shot in colour — ‘Hello engineer hello come near’ (singer: P. Susheela), ‘Chinnaari bullemmaa siggenduku levammaa’ (Ghantasala) and ‘O Parameswari Jagadeeswari Rajeswari’ (Ghantasala, P. Susheela) for which the opening lines were taken from Kannadasan’s Tamil lyric. While composing original tunes for these songs and for ‘O naannaa nee manase venna’ (C. Narayana Reddy; Ghantasala, P. Susheela, Jayadev) Chalapathi Rao borrowed M.S. Viswanathan’s tune from Enga OorRaja, for the hit song ‘ Yevvadi kosam yevadunnaadu pondiraa pondi’ (Kosaraju; Ghantasala).
Trivia
The two songs, ‘Hello engineer ’ and ‘Parameswari Jagadeeswari’ were picturised at Brindavan Gardens, Mysore.
In 1963, Tammareddy Krishnamurthy produced Lakshadhikari in which a song was filmed on Krishnakumari, wearing a swim suit, but the censors deleted it. However, in Dharma Daatha the song Chinnaari bullemma... which was filmed on Kanchana wearing a swimming dress, was allowed without a cut and the movie was given U certificate.
Tammareddy Bharadwaj was instrumental in his father Tammareddy Krishnamurthy acquiring the remake rights of Enga Oor Raja . Then a college student in Hyderabad, he saw the Tamil movie screened in Sunday morning show at Seesh Mahal and pressurised his father to remake it in Telugu with his favourite actor NT Ramarao. “I was a great fan of NTR then. But my father signed ANR for which I nagged him for two days,” guffaws Bharadwaj.
“In the song, ‘ Yevvadi kosam yevadunnaadu ’ ANR was required to go shirtless. But the thespian felt he will not look good without a shirt. The shooting was postponed for two days before ANR got convinced to remove his shirt. His performance in the song was a major draw,” he said.
A palatial bungalow belonging to a Dewan , located at Begumpet was shown as Sri Nilayam in the movie. Presently the Lifestyle commercial complex is on that site.
Released on May 7, 1970 Dharma Daatha ran for 100 days in 13 centres and the celebrations were held at Shanti Talkies, Hyderabad.
