Gumasta

1953 187’[Te]/184’[Ta] b&w Tamil/Telugu? d/c R.M. Krishnaswamy pc Aruna Pics s/lyr Acharya Athreya from his play NGO m C.N. Pandurangam, Chittor V. Nagaiah, G. Ramanathan lp Chittor V. Nagaiah, Ramasarma, Sivaram, Pandharibai, B. Jayamma

Influential realist effort in Telugu and Tamil cinemas based on a major Telugu play (1949) which introduced, along with Vasireddy’s Mundadugu, a new generation in Telugu theatre. Nagaiah plays a clerk in a government office who looks after a sick father (Ramasarma), an unmarried sister and an unemployed brother (Sivaram) who sells tooth powder on the street. The clerk accepts a bribe, is found out and arrested. The father dies and the younger brother delivers the play’s morality lecture on honesty. Athreya added scenes for the film such as the sister’s marriage to a man who promptly dies after the wedding.

Film