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Saakshi
1967 142’ b&w Telugu d/sc Bapu pc Nandana Films st/dial Mullapudi Venkatramana lyr Arudra, Dasarathi c P.S. Selvaraj m K.V. Mahadevan lp Krishna, Vijayanirmala, Jagga Rao, Ramana Panthulu, Rajababu, Sivarakrishnaiah, Chalapathi Rao, Saakshi Rangarao
Bapu’s debut is regarded as an ‘experimental’ movie (it flopped) about rural politics. The villain Fakir (Jagga Rao), a truck driver paid by a local politician, kills two men. A boatman (Krishna) witnesses the murders and the entire village, hoping to get Fakir imprisoned, supports the witness when the case comes to court. However Fakir claims self-defence and he gets a light jail sentence. When Fakir comes out, he publicly announces his intention to kill the boatman. Eventually the boatman’s lover (who is also Fakir’s sister) (Vijayanirmala) kills Fakir. The film introduced the then unknown lead pair of Krishna and Vijayanirmala acting without make-up in outdoor sequences, a standard aspect of New Indian Cinema realism.