40 years of Alluri Seetarama Raju

Superstar Krishna’s film, ‘Alluri Seetarama Raju’ released 40 years ago, on May 1, 1974. Celebrating the milestone, a press meet was held at the veteran actor’s house in Hyderabad.

Senior actor Naresh said, “While Krishnagaru and Vijaya Nirmalagaru are prominent figures of the film industry, this film is a milestone in Indian cinema. I must have watched ‘Alluri Seetarama Raju’ 100 times. It was a tough task to shoot the film in Chintapalli forests and after great effort the film was brought to the screens.”

His mother, and wife of superstar Krishna, Vijaya Nirmala, who also starred in the legendary film said, “Krishna worked really hard for the film. In the early morning, he used to shoot with bare body. After the film when we once went to Andaman, a few ladies there were singing the song ‘vastadu na raju…” from our film and it was an amazing feeling. I feel blessed to have been a part of such a great film.”

Speaking about his experience in the film, Krishna said, “I was 30 years old when I worked for the film. The reason I produced this film was the influence of incidents in my life from the age of 10 till 30. While we were shooting the film, Alluri Seetarama Raju’s brother, Alluri Satyanarayana garu filed a case on us saying that we were romanticizing the story of the rebel freedom fighter. But then the court viewed the film and gave a verdict that there isn’t anything like that in it. There were many more hiccups that the film faced. But in the end, all those remain as sweet memories now.”

‘Alluri Seetarama Raju’ ran successfully for 100 days in 19 centres. The film also received a National Award for Best Lyrics for the song ‘Telugu veera levara’.