Barely into its seventh year in talkies, Telugu cinema witnessed its first ‘oomph’ girl in Kanchanamala in Gruhalakshmi (1938), directed by the pioneer of Telugu talkie, HM Reddy. Hailed as the most beautiful actress of the time, the wide eyed Kanchanamala played the ‘oomph girl’ Madhuri in the movie.
HM Reddy and the film’s writer Samudrala senior (credited in the titles as SV Raghavacharya) derived inspiration to create her role on the lines of the character Kitty Packard from George Cukor’s 1933 movie, Dinner at Eight . In the Hollywood movie, Jean Harlow played Kitty, a conceited woman and wife of Dan Packard (Wallace Beery), a successful but crooked businessman. She entices Doctor Wayne Talbot (Edmund Lowe), an unfaithful husband. Madhuri’s role was rehashed as that of a harlot who lures a rich doctor with her voluptuous beauty. Feigning illness, she visits the doctor and makes him touch her to titillate him, a scene lifted straight from Dinner at Eight . And in the process of enticing him, Madhuri performs a sensual dance, the first of its kind in Telugu cinema.
Samudrala wrote the sybaritic lyric and Prabhala Sathyanarayana set an appealing tune to it. “Since playback singing was yet to arrive in Telugu cinema, Kanchanamala, though not a great singer, rendered the song well. More than her rendition, it was her on-screen performance, coupled with her beauty, that made the song and the scene a great hit with the audience of the day,” opines musicologist J Madhusudana Sarma.
The song
Bigi kougita jerpaga raaraa / Madhuradhara sudha nidi poraa / Maaraakaaraa raaraa / Bigi kougita .../Aatalalona Radhika kanna / Jaana navudunura – nenu- Nera / Teniya lela paaneeyamela / Ledaa premasudhaa, naadhaa / Bigi kougita.../ Bigi kougita jerpagaraaraa / Nava yauvvana phalamosagedaraa / Nava jeevana phala madiyeraa / Nanu kougita jerpagaraaraa / Bigi kougita...
The scene
Dr Krishna Rao (played by Ramanujacharyulu) is a happily married man, living with his devoted wife Radha (Kannamba). A woman of ‘low morals’, Madhuri (Kanchanamala) enters his life and, to wean him towards her, sings the song and dances to this seductive number.
It was shot at Kartikeya Studio (now housing Jiddu Krishnamurthy Foundation) in Madras. The studio was founded by the film’s cinematographer K Ramnoth and art director AK Sekhar. Though the video is not available today, the audio of some of the songs, including the song bigi kougili... is thankfully available. Prabhala Sathyanarayana, with a rich theatrical backdrop, composed a semi-classical tune for the song which in today’s parlance can be called an ‘item’ song. Interestingly, Prabhala made his debut with C Pullaiah’s Lava Kusa (1934) in which, apart from using some of the popular stage compositions, he contributed a few original tunes. The talented composer scored music for only four films, the other two being Anasuya (1936) and Bhanumathi Ramakrishna’s debut movie, Varavikrayam (1939).
Gruhalakshmi was also the debut film for Chittoor V Nagaiah. He played the role of Gopinath, elder brother of Radha and a social reformer. And this was the only film in which Ramanujacharyulu had acted. The tall and handsome lawyer from Tenali, was famous for playing the role of Gireesam in the stage play, Kanyasulkam .
HM Reddy’s commercial ploy of showcasing Kanchanamala as a seductress and the bawdy comedy scenes worked out well at the box office, raking in good money. However, it was not to the liking of BN Reddi’s aestheticism. Parting ways with Rohini Pictures, he, along with Nagi Reddi, KV Reddi, Samudrala, Ramnoth and Sekhar, formed the Vauhini Pictures to make quality films.
For Kanchanamala, the film won more fan following, especially among the youth. The same year, she had essayed brilliantly an offbeat character of a Harijan girl Sampalatha in the path-breaking movie, Malapilla .
