For a romantic scene, Das wanted Santhakumari to show a loving expression on her face while talking to Lakshmanaswamy.

He cut 30 records for Hutchin recording company. Trained by Dantu Suryarao at Young Men's Happy Club, Kakinada, he played a wide variety of characters and also staged plays in Burma. Lakshmanaswamy was a popular stage actor and singer from Juthika village near Tanuku. Subbamma was adamant and resorted to hunger strike.

They wanted to see her as classical singer. Her parents were against her joining films. Subbamma's acting experience was restricted just to two characters – Prahlada and Krishna that she portrayed in school plays while studying in Kadapa. Das was bowled over by her mellifluous voice and innocence, essential qualities to portray Sasirekha's character. A teenager, she was then teaching music at Vidyodaya School, Madras after learning classical music from Prof. He finally found her in Subbamma at a music concert. Sriranjani (Subhadra).ĭas was scouting for a young girl to play Sasirekha. The other actors were – Thurlapati Anjaneyulu (Balarama), Rayaprolu Subrahmanyam (Duryodhana), Nellore Pahilwan Rajamreddy Rami Reddy (Ghatothkacha), Pothuri Sathyanarayana (Sakuni), Sr. Master Saluri Rajeswara Rao whom he had introduced with Srikrishna Leelalu (1935) played child Abhimanyu while S.P. Rajen, Das' partner and a successful Madras city electrical contractor primarily dealing with the electrification of cinema theatres was the presenter.ĭas chose stage stalwarts Yadavalli Nageswara Rao to play Lord Krishna. Ramnoth whose trick photography contributed much to the film's success and art director-cum-sound recordist A.K. Das produced and directed Mayabazaar – Sasirekhaparinayam in Telugu under Vel Pictures banner with the creative support of writer-director Murugadasa, cinematographer K. The third version- Vatsala Kalyanam (1935) in Tamil was directed by R. The first talkie – Mayabazaar – Surekhaharan (1932) was made by Nanubhai Vakil in Hindi.

Lord Krishna was played by Santharam with Ganpat Bakre in a lead role. movie in six reels was produced by Maharashtra Film Company, Kolhapur and was directed by Baburao Painter who trained many later day stalwarts including V. The first film on the tale of Sasirekha's marriage with Abhimanyu and the precedent and subsequent events was made as a silent film – Surekha Abhimanyu – Vatsalaharan which was released on October 6, 1921. Somewhere down the ages, some very imaginative writer authored the fiction episode that was popularised through stage plays and later through cinema. Strangely, neither in the Puranic Encyclopedia nor in ‘Poorvagaadhalahari' one could find the character Sasirekha or Surekha or Vatsala as she is named in different languages. ‘Mayabazaar' is the only film that was made eleven times in various Indian languages and the two Telugu versions turned out to be super hits.

Sasirekha parinayam movie cast