Gundamma Katha is one of the finest Telugu films of all time. The evergreen film is nothing less than a roller coaster of emotions and entertainment. The film was released in 1962 and has completed 60 years of its premiere. Gundamma Katha was a massive success and has various interesting facts attached to it. Even after 60 years, when we look back at the film, it feels so refreshing and new.
Gundamma Katha was the remake of the 1958 Kannada film, Mane Thumbida Hennu. Nagi Reddi acquired the rights to the films from filmmaker Vittalacharya.
Vittalacharya sold the rights to Nagi Reddi on the condition of providing him the studio facilities and financial assistance for expansion in the Telugu film industry.
Gundamma Katha was also a special film as it marked the 100th film of the veteran actor NTR and ANR.
It is believed that few veteran personalities criticised the film and called it out for lacking a strong storyline. They even predicted that the film would not run beyond three weeks. However, the film was a commercial success.
Interestingly, the makers used the car of Nagi Reddi’s sons for a scene. The Herald (MSW 6009) car that ANR drives in the movie was made roofless at Nagi Reddi’s garage. Herald didn’t manufacture roofless cars at that time.
The film had two lead actors, not one. Chakrapani wanted to give equal importance to ANR and therefore, introduced two leads in one film, which was quite uncommon at that time.
The film’s credits didn’t show the names of the actors but instead used the photographs of them in place of the names. NTR’s photo was placed on the left and ANR on the right.
Gundamma Katha celebrated its silver jubilee in Vijayawada. The money that the makers were supposed to spend for the celebrations was donated to the National Defence Fund as the China war was on at that time.
