Star Interviews
Interview : Producer C.L.Narasa Reddy
By Sri
Aug 8, 2008 - 11:35:41 AM

C.L.Narasa Reddy

  Related Links : Retrospect on Geetanjali
Geethanjali has a special place in the history of the Telugu Cinema. Who can forget the melodies of the movie or the camera wonders of P.C. Sriram who did an awesome job without any DI! The producer of this classic is none other than C.L. Narasa Reddy. For the last twelve years, he was not in touch with the industry much. In fact, he was not even interested in giving interviews or talking about movies. As he was not a member of the Film Chamber any more, his name and contact information was not even listed in the MAA diary that's updated each year and released. His being in Chennai made it harder to trace him. Finally, I got his office number with the help of Sree Pulagam Chinnanarayana. His office opened after 10:00 a.m. each day and it was tough time for me to contact them as it'd be past midnight for me on the East Coast of the USA. At last, when I was able to get in touch with his office, I learnt that he was in the USA and that they cannot give me his number without his prior consent. However, they did take my number and told me that they'd pass it on to him. they informed that he is in USA and they cannot give the number without contacting him but were kind enough to give my number. To my surprise, Narasa Reddy gaaru called me and we spoke at length! Here are the excerpts from the interview, exclusive to TeluguCinema.Com:

Sri: The routine question first - about your background...
C.L.N.R.: My father is a noted financier in Nellore. I did most of my schooling in Nellore, Chennai, and Bangalore. After my graduation, I wanted to continue our business but in a different area. So, I came to Chennai where I had friends like Late Satya Reddy (director of films like Daaku, Dongalostunnaaru Jaagarttha, Heccharika, etc., and brother of Dr. Mithra, Chiranjeevi's political advisor), and Viswanath of Purna Pictures. Thus, I started a film finance business under the name "Sree Satyanarayana Film Finance" in 1983. It was Satya Reddy who wanted to make a film with all new talent. Thus, we did the film Heccharika with Bhanuchander. The film marked the debut of six technicians, including the Diwakar Babu as the cameraman, Stuntman Horseman babu, Editor Ramogopal Reddy, Music director Sivaji Raja etc.. The film was a hit and we made good money.

Sri: How did your association with Maniratnam happen?
C.L.N.R.: Our cameraman brought some stills of Mounaragam and showed them to me and suggested that we should watch the film. I went and saw the film, and I liked it immediately ...

Sri: Mounaragam is a big hit, but it had the shades of Suhasini's first film Nenjithai Killaade ( Mounageetham in Telugu) and also the role of Karthik was almost same of Anil Kapoor in the first movie of Mani's himself ( Pallavi-Anupallavi)...
C.L.N.R.: True, but because of Karthik, the film is a big hit in Telugu, I believe. After that film, I saw Mani's Agni Natchattiram and want to remake in Telugu with Nagarjuna and Venkatesh. Venkatesh was ready to do it, but Nagarjuna was not really keen on doing a remake. He offered to do a direct Telugu film with us. So we dropped the idea of remaking it and just dubbed the film and released as Gharshana.

Sri: I remember seeing the film in Devi 70 mm in Hyderabad. It's a big theater and used to cater only direct films. How could you release a dubbed film there?
C.L.N.R.: (Laughs) Actually, the distributor was not happy with my decision to screen the movie there. He refused saying that it is the dubbing film, like you said, and does not have so much potential to be a hit in such a huge theater. I took him to the theater in Madras and showed public response to the Tamil version. He was still not convinced, since he believed that the film had Tamil stars and the craze was because of that factor. I pursued him still to release in that theater and agreed to cover any losses that he may incur because of this decision of mine. ...And, you know the result of the movie later - it became a huge hit!

Sri: How much did you pay for the rights?
C.L.N.R.: (Laughs) You'd not believe if I say that I got the rights for just three lakh rupees! It was really a big success and I made a lot of money in that venture! It ran beyond 100 days in Devi and we celebrated that function in the sets of Geethanjali . Nagarjuna gave away the shields for that function.

Sri: Tell me about Geethanjali, how did you get Maniratnam agree to do the film for you?
C.L.N.R.: Actually, I approached Mani to do a film for me after he did Agni Natchattiram Gharshana). He readily agreed to do the film as he wanted to do films in other languages too. He liked the way Rajasri wrote dialogues for the dubbed film Gharshana though he was not familiar with Telugu, and thus he asked Rajasri to work with him for this film. Rajasri is an excellent writer who knows both languages very well. The dialogues were first explained in Tamil and were then written by Rajasri gaaru in Telugu. In the same way, he got all the lyrics translated in English to know the exact meaning of each word in Telugu. (

Sri: What inspired you to make Geethanjali instead of some action thriller or something else?
C.L.N.R.: Mani liked the theme of the movie called Young Die First, and wanted to do something similar to that. At about that time, a Delhi-based 11-year old girl called Geethanjali was suffering from blood cancer; she wrote her feelings in a diary which was later published. Mani read the book and was moved by its content, and thus chose the film's title, and the heroine's name, as Geethanjali.

Sri: How was Girija selected for the female lead?
C.L.N.R.: Girija was cricketer Srikanth's sister's friend from London. When she came to Chennai, she came to Maniratnam and Suhasini's marriage along with Srikanth's sister. Mani saw her and offered her the movie after the marriage. Her mother is a doctor from Karnataka, while her father is a British businessman. Senior Associate Director Gadiraju Keshava Rao gave dialogue coaching to Girija for two months. She used to write them in English and used to practice them under his guidance for perfection.

Sri: What is Girija doing now?
C.L.N.R.: She went back to London...

Sri: I heard that you used to send two lorries of ice everyday from Chennai to Ooty...
C.L.N.R.: (Surprised) Yes, we did that to create the mist effect in the film! We could have used smoke bombs like others,  but the effect is not like real mist, which we can get with sub-zero temperature of ice.

Sri: Doesn't such a decision shoot the budget high?
C.L.N.R.: Nope. Mani is an MBA graduate and was clear about the budget and was also very conscious about it. He gave the budget along with the schedules, clearly outlining how much would be the budget for each schedule, ...and he stuck to it! Even then, he used to ask us from time to time, between schedules, whether he was crossing the budget, and I used to tell him to go with what he wants and not to bother about how much it'd cost. He is a producer's director who wanted to make it clear that he does not want to spend for anything that's not required.

Sri: Though the film won seven Nandi Awards and a National Award, what I heard was that the film was break even film for you, and is not so highly successful like other movies...
C.L.N.R.: I made profit in Telugu too, anDI - not a big one but it's not a loss venture! To tell you the truth, I made more profit in Tamil than in Telugu. We dubbed the film into Tamil in a partnership with Maniratnam and it made huge profits there. I made around 15 lakh rupees of profit in Telugu, at the most, while my share alone in Tamil was almost fifty lakh rupees!

Sri: What about the Malayalam version?
C.L.N.R.: It was just an average film in Malayalam. It was not a big hit but it was not a loss either, as it was only dubbed into the language.

Sri: What went wrong with the Hindi version then?
C.L.N.R.: Actually, we were not aware of the Hindi version until the last minute. Maine Pyar Kiya was released as the same time as Geethanjali, and it was a big hit. Tarachand Barjatya of Rajshree Pictures came to Chennai to dub Maine Pyar Kiya, saw the film Geethanjali and was so immensely impressed with the movie that he wanted to do it in Tamil and sent me a letter of appreciation. I was really happy and went to meet him and readily agreed to give rights to him. While this was going on, one day my PRO said that Atluri Purnachandra Rao was curious if I gave rights to the film Yaad Rakhegii Duniya which was in final stages of shooting.. (My PR also happens to be the PRO for Atluri Purnachandra Rao). I was really shocked and went to the court to stall the project. The film was eighty percent completed and the producer also kept his Mercedes with the debtors to clear the loan he took. Seeing his plight, we gave away the rights finally. The film was really badly made which showed the result. (Like Mani's another remake Naayakan when remade in Hindi as Dayaavaan, it is a dud!)

Sri: I heard that you were forced to distribute Geethanjali in some areas..
C.L.N.R.: True! Distributors in Vizag and Guntur backed out in the last minute as they felt that people may not like the film which has to do patients who know they are dying. They said the movie had no commercial elements. When I announced the movie first, I only said that I was doing a movie with Maniratnam of Gharshana fame, but I didn't talk about the story. I thus kept my word and had not forced them to buy. But, to release it as per schedule, I took these areas on my own and distributed them. I made good profits in those areas, in fact! Nellore we distributed with the partnership of a friend. Rest of the areas were distributed by outsiders totally.

Sri: After such a classy movie, why is that you moved to mass-oriented films like Chinarayudu and Vajram?
C.L.N.R.: Actually, I didn't have any plans to do the film Chinarayudu. Our plan was to make a film in the combination of R.K. Selvamani and Venkatesh. Venkatesh, Krishnam Raju, and Vijayashanti were supposed to be the stars. We shot the film for five days, but Venkatesh suddenly changed his mind and said he couldn't do that film due to some reasons. (At the same time, Yarlagadda Surendra also started a movie with Venkatesh under the direction of Bapayya, and even that film was stopped for unknown reasons.) So, we got the rights of Chinna Gownder and remade it in Telugu under the direction of B. Gopal.

Sri: What went wrong with Vajram? It's Malayalam original, Sphatikam, was a phenomenal hit...!
C.L.N.R.: Yes, the Malayalam version was a big hit but in Telugu, the director was not able to handle the subject to suit our nativity. A remake needs to capture the soul of the film and not its scenes.

C.L.Narasa Reddy Receiving the Award from President Venkatraman

Sri: Why is that you never gave such a big film after Geethanjali?
C.L.N.R.: I think working with a top-notch director like Mani in my initial stages as a producer, and the fame that was donned upon us with the film Geethanjali, put me on a high mountain and other things didn't work out as well later. Though I wanted to do some more films with Mani, he was doing films only on his banner and it didn't work out.

Sri: What's the reason behind your hibernation?
C.L.N.R.: To tell you the truth, I dubbed good Tamil films like Police Adhikari, Captain Prabhakar, etc. into Telugu and they were all real profitable ventures. I used to be the distributor for Guntur area under the name Datta Sai Films and distributed films like Shiva, Karthavyam, etc. in that area, but we discontinued it later. I got the rights for the film Manathi from Malayalam and want to do it under the direction of Ram Gopal Varma, who suggested Gunnam Gangaraju's name. We started the film Triveni LKG, but that didn't work out. I got the rights for almost 15 movies, but after the death of G. Venkateshwaran (Maniratnam's brother), I stopped thinking about it.

Sri: I know you are one of the board members of G.V. Films which is the first public limited company in filmdom. What went wrong with it ?
C.L.N.R.: Yes, I was one of the board members of the G.V. Films along with Maniratnam, G. Srinivas, and G. Venkateshwaran (G.V.) gaaru. Michael Jackson show was announced and G.V. invested so much on that, but the show never happened, as Jackson cited health reasons as an inability to participate in the how. Since it's the event manager that signed the contract and not Jackson himself, we could not get any compensation from him, and finally the company ended up in losses. At the same time, some films that were released through the G.V. Films ran into losses too! ...We had plans to do a  remake of the in Tekugu which was a hit with Vijaykanth in Tamil under the direction of Bhagyaraja, but G.V.'s sudden death put a sad stop to everything.

Sri: How is the company now?
C.L.N.R.: The company is fine. After the death of G.V., all of us resigned and one Mr. London Ganesh took over the company, ...and he is doing good business now!

Sri: What are you doing these days?
C.L.N.R.: I am doing granite business. We export most of it to the USA and also to U.K. (London) and Germany. I have a son Gautham who is also taking care of the business in India. (Remember the kid who eyes on Girija in the market scene in the film Geethanjali?) My daughter lives in Boston, USA.