DEVATHA 1941

Director:
B.N. Reddi
Writers:
Samudrala Raghavacharya (dialogue)
K. Ramnoth (writer)

Cast
Chittor V. Nagaiah ... Venu
Kumari ... Lakshmi
Mudigonda Lingamurthy
Bezawada Rajarathnam ... Vimala
Subba Rao
Narayana Rao C.H. ... Sukumar
Tanguturi Suryakumari ... Seeta
Master Ashwathama

B.N. Reddi directs this controversial and wildly successful melodrama about the evils of class and traditional sexual morels.

The story of the film begins with Venu (Nagaiah), a London educated Bar-at-Law returning home after completion of studies. Mangamma is his mother, and Sithamma, charming and well behaved is his younger sister. The father Venkaiah is given to drinking and does not bother about the family.

Venu's uncle Balaramaiah, brother of Mangamma, is a lawyer in Madras and intends to marry off his daughter to Venu and hand him over all his practice. Both the families are affectionate towards each other. One day Mangamma sets out to Madras on a bullock cart, and Venu unwilling to undertake the journey, stays at home. Lakshmi serves him meal and goes to sleep in the hall. Her brother goes to bed in the shed out side. When Venu comes down to go to bed after studying till late in the night, he sees Lakshmi asleep in the hall. Her beauty tempts him and he seduces her. Returning home after midnight, Mangamma and Sithamma go to bed as usual. The next morning they don't find Lakshmi coming for the harathi (sacred camphor flame offered to God as part of worship). They see her crying near the well. Venu, noticing her absence at the pooja, finds her near the well, and consoles her by assuring her that he will marry her. She attends pooja.

Venu starts his practice as a lawyer in Madras High Court. In course of time, as has been decided already, his marriage has been fixed with Vimala, his uncle's daughter. Venu unwilling to hurt his uncle and bowing to his mother's wishes agrees to the marriage. He meets Lakshmi who has come along with his mother and sister to Madras, alone and tries to convince her of his decision. He attempts to satisfy her by giving her money. Lakshmi rejects the money and returns with her brother to the village.

Vimala's friend Sukumar is a poet of sorts, and is up to any thing for achieving what he wants. He can impress others with his smart talk. His desire is to marry Vimala if her marriage with Venu does not come off. Sukumar chances upon Lakshmi's purse in the back yard of Vimala's home, steals ten thousand rupees from it and returns the empty purse to Venu. Understanding that a marriage between Venu and Vimala is not going to take place, he elopes with Vimala.

Returning home, Lakshmi finds her father bedridden. He proposes that she marry Chenna, his assistant in the toddy shop. She tells him that she is pregnant and that a marriage is out of question. Shocked and unable to afford treatment, the father dies. Mangamma, Venu and Sithamma return home. As Mangamma and Sithamma go to Lakshmi to comfort her in her sorrow over her father's death, Lakshmi tells them that she is pregnant. Venu too confesses that he is the cause of her pregnancy. When Mangamma decides to accept Lakshmi as her daughter in law, Lakshmi with her brother leaves the village. The story then takes a number of turns like Venu going in search of Lakshmi, Lakshmi delivering a boy child in a temple, her being sent out of the place, and her finally reaching Bhuvaneswari Maatha Asramam, and the like. Finally, however, all are reunited and the movie ends with the reunion of Lakshmi and Venu.