Lava Kusa

Lava Kusa (1934)

లవ కుశ

This is the Ramayana story of Seeta (Sriranjani) who retires to the forest and gives birth to twin boys, Lava (Bhimarao) and Kusa (M. Rao). They later take on the might of Rama (Subba Rao) unaware that he is their father.

Date of release
1934-12-22
TMDB
8.0 / 10 (1)
Runtime
2h 45m
Genres
History, Family, Drama, Music
Director
Chittajalu Pullayya

Interesting facts

Lava Kusa is a 1934 Telugu-language Hindu mythological film directed by C. Pullayya and produced by Motilal Chamaria under the East India Film Company. The film is based on the a play of the same name, written by K. Subrahmanya Sastry, and marks an important milestone in early Telugu cinema. It was one of the first Telugu films to feature recorded songs, following the trend set by Sati Savitri (1933). All the songs in Lava Kusa were well received, contributing to its success.

Production

Prior to Lava Kusa, a total of nine films were produced in various Indian languages based on the same storyline. The first adaptation was a silent film made in 1919 by R. Nataraja Mudaliar. The East India Film Company made an attempt to produce the film in Telugu in 1934. The dialogues were written by the prominent poet Balijepalli Lakshmikantam.

For the role of Rama, Parupalli Subbaraju was selected. Sriranjani Sr. played the role of Sita. Masters Bhimaraju and Mallikarjuna Rao were cast as Lava and Kusa. B. C. H. Narasinga Rao was chosen for the role of Rajakudu. Notably, Sriranjani was already famous for playing male roles in plays.

Lava Kusa was filmed in Calcutta. The chariots and settings used were repurposed from Debaki Bose's Bengali film Seeta (1934).

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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