BHAKTIMALA 1941

Banner: Bhaskar Pics
Story and Direction: Harilal Desai
Camera: MA Rehman
Music: Kopparapu Subba Rao

Cast:
BR Panthulu,
Bhanumati,
M Lingamurthy,
Coconada Rajaratnam,
Shanta,
Venkatagiri,
Kutumba Sastry,
Annapurna,
Kondala Rao and GV Sitapathy

Story:
Here is a story paying tribute to Varkari tradition of Marathi saint poets. Radha (Bhanumati), a devadasi (south Indian form of ritualized prostitution, in which a woman is wedded to God), converts herself into a worshipper of saints. The pimp Timmayya Sastry (Kondala Rao) the villainous Brahmin Ramanujachari (Sithapaty) persecutes her. The hero Mohan (Panthulu) joins her struggle for social reform. When Ramanujachari has her framer for Mohan's murder, she is saved through divine intervention.

One of the best known films of Harilal Desai, a Gujarathi graduate of the New York Institute of Cinematography as well as the manager of Lakshmi films and the Suvarna Studio in Poona, and the founder of Bangalore-based Surya Film. This studio became a conduit for other Bombay based directors (e.g. Sundarrao Nadakarni) to work in Telugu, Tamil and Kannada cinemas, bringing their influences of Marathi, Hindi and Gujarathi cinema to the south.