Movie Retrospect
Movie Retrospect: Khaidi (1983)
By Sri
Oct 8, 2008 - 3:44:07 AM

Samyukta Movies
Khaidi (1983)

Technical:
Color
Release Date: October 28, 1983
Reels: 16

Cast:
Chiranjeevi ... Suryam
Madhavi ... Madhulatha
Sumalatha .. Sujatha
P.L. Narayana ... Annabathula Venkateswara Rao (Suryam's father)
Rao Gopala Rao ... Veerabhadraiah (Madhavi's father)
Samyuktha ... Rosy
Chidatala Appaarao ... Barber In police station
Chalapathi Rao ... Forest officer
Nutan Prasad ... Raghava (Village munsif)
Rallapalli ... Sarma
Ranganath ... Sub-Inspector of Police
Sangeetha ... Bhagyam (Suryam's sister)
Sutti Velu ... Beggar
Sivaprasad Reddy ... Beggar
Other Cast: P.J. Sarma, 'Silk' Smitha, Satyavathi, Kalpana Rai

Story, Dialogues: Paruchuri Brothers
Photography: Lok Singh
Editor: Vellaiswamy
Dances: Saleem, Raghu, Shiva Subrahmanyam
Music: Chakravarthy
Playback: S.P. Balasubrahmanyam, P. Susheela, Anita Reddy
Lyrics: Veturi Sundararamamurthy, Rajasri
Action: Raju
Art: Bhaskara Raju
Editing: Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao
Make-up: Shiva, Naidu, Subbarao
Presenter: Dr. M. Tirupati Reddy
Producers: K. Dhanunjaya Reddy, S. Sudhakar Reddy, K. Narasa Reddy
Screenplay, Direction: A. Kodandarami Reddy

Songs
idEmiTabbaa...? idi adEnu, abbaa!
Playback: S.P.Balasubramanyam, P.Susheela
Lyric: Veturi Sundararamamurthy
Cast: Chiranjeevi, Sumalatha

meramera merupula mEnakani (vEdam, naadam, mOdam, mOksham annii neelO choosanE)
Playback: S.P.Balasubramanyam, P.Susheela
Lyric: Veturi Sundararamamurthy
Cast: Chiranjeevi, Madhavi

ragulutOndi mogalipoda, vagalamaari kanne eda
Playback: S.P.Balasubramanyam, P.Susheela
Lyric: Veturi Sundararamamurthy
Cast: Chiranjeevi, Madhavi

gOrinTa poochindi, gOrinka koosindi
Playback: S.P.Balasubramanyam, P.Susheela
Lyric: Veturi Sundararamamurthy
Cast: Chiranjeevi, Madhavi

Playback: Anita Reddy
Lyric: Rajasri
Cast: 'Silk' Smitha

What's it about?
Sooryam (Chiranjeevi) is a college student and he falls in love with Madhulatha (Madhavi) who is daughter of his village's feudal lord Veerabhadraiah (Rao Gopal Rao). Sooryam's father Venkateswarlu (P.L. Narayana) owes money to Veerabadhraiah. Knowing that his daughter is seeing Sooryam, Veerabadraiah hatches a plan to nip the budding romance. He kills Sooryam's father, later harrass his sister prompting her to commit suicide. Veerabhadraiah implicates Sooryam in the death of his sister and makes police arrest him. The rest of the movie is how Sooryam takes revenge on the feudal lord.

Presenter Dr. M. Tirupathi Reddy speaks...
I hail from Nellore, and I came to Madras to get into film financing business. We started Tirupathi Finance and provided finance to many films. That was when I got Introduced to Chiranjeevi and Kondarami Reddy. Kodandarami Reddy also hails from the same place of ours, and we thought of doing a film together and worked on a couple of subjects in Chiranjeevi and Kodandarami Reddy combination. However, I liked the subject of First Blood, and I asked Paruchuri brothers to come up with a story based on that film. They gave a wonderful script for the film. ...The protagonist was just a villager in our initial script but we changed it to a student, and it clicked! The title Khaidi was my choice indeed!

...Madhavi and Chiranjeevi were a hit pair, but Madhavi didn't work with Kondadarami Reddy before and thus I wanted to cast her in the film. Nitya already acted in a Tamil film. I liked her character in the film and we signed her in for the bubbly character of Rosy. Our banner name being Samyuktha, we rechristened Nitya as Samyuktha, and she continued to do more films such as sirivennela under the same name.

...The film's shooting was started at Prasad Labs on May 10, 1983, with the muhurtam shot on Chiranjeevi and Madhavi. (It was the continuation scene of Menaka-Vishwamitra song vEdam, naadam..., where Madhavi asks Chiranjeevi about their love). The film was completed in three schedules. The number of shooting days were forty; forty film rolls were exposed for the movie.

The movie was sold for 25 lakh rupees even when we just announced it! Chiranjeevi was paid Rs.1,75,000, Madhavi Rs.40,000, Sumalatha Rs. 20,000, and the director Kondarami Reddy was paid Rs.40,000 too. As we wanted to make the film a very prestigious one, we spent all our money and we had not made much profit in the film's first run. As the film's rights were sold once every five years to exhibitors, we made profit on this film after five years and through the following years. After five years, we made a profit of 20 lakh rupees, and some more during the subsequent years. We have not made much profit on satelight rights as we were not aware that it would boom so much today!
.

Most of the shooting was done in the village called Rebala near Nellore, while the climax was shot at Porur near Madras. The blasting of houses, and some other such scenes were done there at a specially erected set. The house set, indoors and minor patchwork of shooting was done in Madras. Madhavi, being a lady artiste, had an exclusive house in Talakona location, while everyone else adjusted in huts and houses in and around the village.

The now famous costume of Chiranjeevi for (which we see in the posters even now) was his own idea! We first thought of doing it ordinarily, but he wanted the getup to be somewhat different. In the last minute, he got a black trouser and black t-shirt from the house, took off the sleeves of the shirt and had the belt above the t-shirt. The getup clicked so much that he became a Khaidi in the hearts of lakhs of audiences with this movie! ...In Tirupathi, an old lady was unable to bear Chiranjeevi being hanged in the end and cried out loud in the theatre that he should not be hanged! Such was the impact of the film and the artistes' performances on the audiences of that time.

The film was later remade in Kannada and in Hindi too. Vishnuvardham did in Kannada while Padmalaya brought the rights for Hindi and made it with Jitendra there. Madhavi played the lead role in all three languages. Madhavi lives in New Jersey, USA, now with her husband Mr. Sharma who has a pharmaceutical business there. She helps him with the business and is a happy mother of three children. She is away from the show business after she is married.

Director Kodandarami Reddy talks about the film...
We initially planned the film with the story given by a Tamil writer, but it didn't work out. Tirupathi Reddy gaaru then gave the cassette of First Blood and suggested that we should develop the story based on the initial scenes of the movie. Paruchuri brothers gave wonderful story based on it. ...In those times, we never used to think that it could be risky to go out of the way to do something different! We always wanted to experiment on various things. The song ragulutOndi mogalipoda... and idEmiTabbaa...? were super hits at that time, because we did them differently! This was the first film of Chiranjeevi that crossed the one crore mark in collections, thus also giving him the star status.

Trivia:

• Khaidi marked the first mega hit in Chiranjeevi's carreer.

• Madhavi's sister Keertika was the costume designer for Madhavi in the film.

• The film's songs ragulutOndi mogalipoda... and idEmiTabbaa...? were big hits at that time. Dances by Siva Subrahmanyam for the song ragulutOndi mogalipoda... were the talk of the industry at that time! Many others tried to copy that song later but failed to get the same impact. One such examples is a song in Bhanuchander-Tulasi starrer Vastad.

• Chiranjeevi had 14 releases in the same year 1983, the highest number per year in his 30-year career. Palletoori Monagadu, Abhilasha, Maga Maharaju, Khaidi, Sangharshana were hits among those Chiranjeevi's films released that year. All films of Chiranjeevi released in 1983 are:
  
  

  1. Prema Pichollu (Heroine: Radhika; Director: A. Kodandarami Reddy; Release Date: Jan. 14)
  2. Palletoori Monagadu (Heroine: Radhika; Director: S.A. Chandrashekar; Release Date: Feb. 05)
  3. Abhilasha (Heroine: Radhika ; Director: A. Kodandarami Reddy; Release Date: Mar. 11)
  4. Aalyashikaram (Heroine: Sumalatha; Director: Kodi Ramakrishna; Release Date: May 07)
  5. Shivudu Shivudu Shivudu (Heroine: Radhika; Director: A. Kodandarami Reddy; Release Date: Jun. 09)
  6. Puli-Bebbuli (Heroine: Radhika; Director: K.S.R. Das; Release Date: Jun. 16)
  7. Gudhachari No. 1 (Heroine: Radhika; Director: Kodi Ramakrishna; Release Date: Jun. 30)
  8. Maga Maharaju (Heroine: Suhasini; Director: Vijaya Bapineedu; Release Date: Jul. 15)
  9. Roshagadu (Heroine: Madhavi; Director: K.S.R. Das; Release Date: Jul. 29)
  10. Maa Inti Premayanam (Heroine: Madhavi; Director: Alluri Ravi; Release Date: Aug. 11)
  11. Simhapuri Simham (Heroines: Radhika & Madhavi; Director: Kodi Ramakrishna; Release Date: Oct. 20)
  12. Khaidi (Heroines: Madhavi, Sumalatha,Director: A. Kodandarami Reddy; Release Date: Oct. 28)
  13. Mantri Gari Viyyankudu (Heroine: Poornima Jayaram; Director: Bapu; Release Date: Nov. 04)
  14. Sangharshana (Heroines: Nalini & Vijayashanti; Director: K. Muralimohanarao; Release Date: Dec. 29)

Centers:

Andhra	Ceded	Nizam
Vijayawada – Shailaja A/C & Rajakumari Guntur – Naaz, Harihara Mahal Vishakhapatnam – Saraswathi, Sri Surya Gaajuwaaka – Sesh Mahal Nellore – Madhav Rajahmundry – Saraswathi Kakinada – Padmapriya A/C Tenali – Aasha Vijayanagaram – Leela Mahal, Balaji Eluru – Kesari Bhimavaram – Swaameeki, Srinivasa Machili Patnam – Radhika Gudivada – Lakshmirama Tanuku – Narendra ChithraMandhir Tadepalligudem – Vijaya Ongole – Venkateshwara, Srinivasa Srikakulam – Murali Palakollu – Venkatrama Chirala – Balaji Jangareddygudem – Sri Lakshmi Mandapeta – Vijaya Mahal Ravulapalem – Srinivasa Kottapeta – Sri Sathya Lankalakoderu – Srikala	Tirupathi – Mini Pratap A/C & Ramraj Kadapa – Lakshmiranga 70mm & Krishna Kurnool – Alankar Anantapur – Neelam Proddutur – Balaji Chittoor – Prameela	Hyderabad - Shanthi A/C, Konark 70mm A/C, Raja Deluxe, Meera, Sri Ramana, Jyothi (R.C. Puram), Sathyam, Vimal, Vikranthi (1 show) Secunderabad – Prashant A/C & Paradise (1 show) Warangal – Gemini A/C Hanamkonda – Sridevi Khammam – Sathyam, Sundar Nizamabad – Vijaya

Khaidhi (first release details only)

Direct 100 days centers

Vijayawada – Shailaja A/c – 112
Tirupathi – Ramraj - 111
Vishaka Patnam – Saraswathi – 104
Hyderabad – Shanthi A/c - 104
Warangal – Gemini A/c - 104
Nellore – Madhav – 104

Single shift

Rajahmundry – Sarswathi A/c – 42 days (42 days houseful and forcibly shifted for Poraatam to Ganga A/c) + Ganga A/c – 64 days

Kakinada – Padmapriya A/c – 69 days + Lakshmi – up to 100 days

Direct 50 days centers

Anantapur – Neelam – 83
Guntur – Naaz – 78
Kakinada – Padmapriya A/c – 69
Eluru – Kesari – 69
Machili Patnam – Radhika - 63
Thadepalli Gudem – Vijaya – 56
Kurnool – Alankar - 56
Bhimavaram – Swaameeji - 50
Tenaali – Venkateshwara - 50
Ongole – Venkateshwara – 50
Chirala – Bhavani – 50
Tanuku – Narendra Chithramandhir – 50
Srikaakulam – Murali - 50

Acknowledgements : Sri Tirupathi Reddy garu, Kondaramireddy garu
Theatre Info and 100 days Centers by Sri Vijaybhaskar
Edited by Nachaki
Article By: Sri