Gudavalli Ramabrahmam · Telugu History

Gudavalli Ramabrahmam was a Telugu film producer and director of the late 1930s and 1940s.¹² His films Mala Pilla (1938) and Raithu Bidda (1939) helped turn Telugu cinema from stories of the gods to the problems of society.³¹ Most of what we know about him comes from the writer Kodavatiganti Kutumbarao, who knew him for many years. His essays on Ramabrahmam are in Telugu and are cited, not quoted.⁴

Learning the trade

Ramabrahmam began to learn film-making when P. V. Das started production at Madras, Kutumbarao writes.⁵⁴ He managed production for many years before he came forward as a producer and director himself.⁴ In 1953 Kutumbarao also wrote that Ramabrahmam had gained his experience at Vel Pictures.¹ K. N. T. Sastry adds that he started a paper, Prajamitra.⁶

Mala Pilla and Raithu Bidda

In 1938 Ramabrahmam released Mala Pilla.¹ Kutumbarao says its story grew from a single seed: a Brahmin youth falls in love with a girl of the Mala caste, a Dalit community.⁷ He gave a new standing to film production, Kutumbarao wrote, and won people’s trust in his films.⁷ The success of Mala Pilla and H. M. Reddy’s Gruhalakshmi began the age of social films.¹ When the Krishna Patrika attacked Mala Pilla, Ramabrahmam asked Kutumbarao to answer it in Prajamitra.⁵

His Raithu Bidda (1939) took up the quarrel between landlords (zamindars) and their tenants.⁸ Even though the story made peace with the landlords, the film was banned.⁸ Kutumbarao thought that, in Ramabrahmam’s position, nobody else would have dared even to dream of making it.⁹ The great stage actor Bellary Raghava acted in it.¹⁰ Kutumbarao watched Ramabrahmam struggle to direct the actor he calls Raghavachari in this film. He judged that Ramabrahmam was an able producer but not a gifted director.⁵

The souvenir of 1956 says Ramabrahmam made his films under the name Sarathi Films, and that Mala Pilla and Palnati Yuddham were great hits.¹¹ Its list of films gives both Mala Pilla and Raithu Bidda to Sarathi Films.¹² Kutumbarao names him with B. N. Reddi as the two men who led the turn to social films. Ramabrahmam’s films, he says, carried a purpose and a feeling for the nation.³

Money and the market

In 1941, Kutumbarao writes, Ramabrahmam raised the cost of making a film to a lakh of rupees, to compete for the market.¹³ In 1940–41 he spent 40,000 rupees on publicity alone.¹⁴ Kutumbarao criticised this in the Andhra Patrika. Ramabrahmam defended himself in Prajamitra in articles written under another name.¹³ The quarrel did not spoil their friendship.¹³

He made one film just for money, Mayalokam, which earned well. Yet he told Kutumbarao it was not a picture worth his seeing.²⁵

The Palnadu dream

Ramabrahmam’s lifelong wish was to film the story of the war of Palnadu.⁵¹³ He read everything he could find about it, like a small researcher.¹³ In 1945 he gave books on it to Nazar, the burrakatha (ballad) singer, who was writing a ballad on the same story.⁵ He began Palnati Yuddham but could not finish it. He shot only two sequences, both about Manchala.⁵¹³

The man

Kutumbarao describes Ramabrahmam as a cultured man, for whom cinema was a means of culture.¹³ He was a firm Congressman and did not approve of the Communists.⁴ Yet he was moved by a play of the Praja Natya Mandali, the people’s theatre movement, and praised its actors.⁴⁹ He loved the folk arts. He had burrakatha records made, and once sang a jamukula katha (a folk ballad) for Kutumbarao.⁵⁴

By October 1953 Ramabrahmam had died. Kutumbarao then wrote of “the late Das and Ramabrahmam” among the producers who had brought Telugu cinema fame.¹⁵ A memorial volume for him came out in 1976.⁹ After his death, Kutumbarao says, Sarathi Films faded for a while before it returned with realistic films.¹⁶

Where the sources disagree

How much he spent on publicity. In one essay Kutumbarao says Ramabrahmam spent 42,000 rupees on the publicity of his film Illalu.² In another he says Ramabrahmam spent 40,000 rupees on publicity alone in 1940–41.¹⁴

Kutumbarao, “Telugu chitralu: simhavalokanam”, Andhra Prabha, 1 October 1953, in Cinema Vyasalu, Vol. 1, p. 172 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵
Kutumbarao, “Gudavalli Ramabrahmam”, Kinema, 15 February 1972, in Cinema Vyasalu, Vol. 1, p. 286 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³
Kutumbarao, “Telugu cinema vishishta charitralo konni mailurallu” (1952), Cinema Vyasalu, Vol. 1, p. 159 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩²
Kutumbarao, “Gudavalli Ramabrahmam” (1972), Cinema Vyasalu, Vol. 1, p. 288 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶
Kutumbarao, “Gudavalli Ramabrahmam” (1972), Cinema Vyasalu, Vol. 1, p. 287 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸
K. N. T. Sastry, Chittoor V. Nagaiah: A Monograph (New Delhi: Publications Division, 2000), p. 4 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩
Kodavatiganti Kutumbarao, “Mana directorlu” (“Our directors”), in Cinema Vyasalu, Vol. 1 (Viplava Rachayitala Sangham, 2000), p. 52 (in Telugu) (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩²
Kutumbarao, “Mailurallu” (1952), Cinema Vyasalu, Vol. 1, p. 160 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩²
Kutumbarao, “Samskara hrudayudu Ramabrahmam” (1976), Cinema Vyasalu, Vol. 1, p. 290 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³
M. Nagabhushana Sarma, “Bellary Raghava: The Man who Made the Modern Telugu Theatre”, Sangeet Natak, No. 57 (1980), p. 9 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩
“Telugu Film”, unsigned article in Indian Talkie, 1931–56: Silver Jubilee Souvenir (Bombay: Film Federation of India, 1956), p. 91 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩
Silver Jubilee Souvenir (1956), p. XXII, list of Telugu talkies, 1936–1952 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩
Kutumbarao, “Samskara hrudayudu Ramabrahmam”, in the Gudavalli Ramabrahmam memorial volume (1976), Cinema Vyasalu, Vol. 1, p. 289 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷
Kutumbarao, essay on the cost of making films, in Cinema Vyasalu, Vol. 2 (Viplava Rachayitala Sangham, 2000), p. 130 (in Telugu) (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩²
Kutumbarao, “Toli mali darsakulu”, Telugu Swatantra, 23 October 1953, in Cinema Vyasalu, Vol. 2, p. 248 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩
Kutumbarao, “Telugu cinemalu” (written about 1962), Cinema Vyasalu, Vol. 1, p. 230 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩