RECHUKKA 1954

Directed by:
P. Pullaiah

Produced by:
Krishnamurthy Ghantasala .

Music Department:
Krishnaveni Jikki .... playback singer
Ghantasala Venkateswara Rao ....playback singer

Cast :
Rama Rao Taraka Nandamuri ... Kannaiah / Yuvaraju
Anjali Devi ... Nana
Devika ... Lalita Devi
Mukkamala
Nagabhushanam
Sivaram Peketi
Nageshwara Rao Akkineni

Story:
Ghantasala Balaramayya of Pratibha Pictures gave ANR his first lead role in 'Sri Sita Rama Jananam'. He made movies of the Janapadam genre, and 'Chinna Kodalu' in 1952 was his first social cinema, starring Krishna Kumari and GM Swami. The general manager of Pratibha Pictures, 'Pratibha' Sastry came up with a story idea inspired by 'The Prince Who Was A Thief' starring Tony Curtis. Rechukka was born with script, dialogues and lyrics by Malladi Ramakrishna Sastry.

The story is set in a kingdom. The minister wants his daughter to marry the King's only son. The King scoffs at the idea, and the jilted minister captures and arrests the King and runs the Kingdom. A loyal countryman Veeranna (Nagabhushanam) takes the Prince and leaves him in the forest away from the evil minister's hands, but gets captured himself. The Prince grows up as Kannayya (NTR), the forest chief's adopted son and Veeranna's daughter Nana (Anjali Devi) grows up to be a thief. The old King escapes finally and stays at Nana's house. Nana steals the Princess' (Pramila/Devika) necklace and Kannayya returns it to her, who falls in love with him. Nana falls for the Kannayya too. He gets to know his true identity, defeats his enemies and gets back his Kingdom.

Ghantasala Balaramayya saw ANR on Vijayawada railway platform and that changed the latter's life forever.
Balaramayya wanted ANR to play the lead, but ANR was busy with AVM's Vadina. NTR was roped in for the main lead. Ashwathama, Nagayya's musician assistant in Nirupeda was chosen as the music director.

A portion of the movie was completed when tragedy struck. Balaramayya passed away due to a sudden heart attack. Pratibha Sastry desired to finish the movie, so he requested P. Pullaiah to wield the megaphone. The condition was that the script should not be tampered with, and Pullaiah readily agreed. The financers wanted the actors to take remuneration only after the completion of the movie, to which everyone consented. NTR, however, declined to give a letter stating the same to the financer and addressed it to Pratibha Pictures instead.

Pullaiah wanted a new face for the Princess' role. 'Stills' Satyam sent him pictures of Raghupathi Venkat Ratnam's grand niece, Pramila. She did the role, after which she changed her name to Devika and became a big star in those days. The star of the hit play 'Raktha Kanneeru', Nagabhushanam plays the role of Chitti Veeranna. He was later introduced as a lead in 'Edi Nijam' of Pratibha Pictures. NTR's dupe was Swaminathan, is stunt master Vijayan's father, who was working under stunt master Somu in this movie.

Anjali Devi who plays Nana in this movie was unavailable for the 'Subham' shot. Pratibha Sastry managed the situation by using a dupe and later superimposing a negative from 'Swapna Sundari' and finished the movie. Balaramayya's 20-year-old son (Ghantasala Krishnamurthy) took over as producer. He later produced Edi Nijam, Dongalunnaru Jagratta. ANR, whose mentor was Pullaiah and who was made a lead actor by Balaramayya, wished to appear in this movie. So he makes a guest appearance, one of the 14 times ANR and NTR were seen together in a movie.

The movie completed a 100-day run. It was dubbed into Tamil by producer Kalyana Raman, and it ran as well as a straight movie would have done. After that, Raman became a big time producer. The movie is a Janapada movie with a social theme, with songs, sentiment and emotion.