Music And Movies

(Sankarabharanam) Links to earlier parts: Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 & Part 4  In the year 1980, a film was released which had all the necessary requirements to be a huge disaster at the box office. The hero was an unknown drama actor, a middle aged man. The heroine, an unknown dancer, again playing the role of a middle aged woman. Subject of the film: Carnatic music. The only two well known faces were those of Chandramohan, a middle tier hero and Nirmala, who acted as his mother. Neither of them were box office draws. The music was heavily classical music based, an anathema for Telugu film music of those times. K. Vishwanath, who had directed the film had a tough time releasing it as no distributor wanted to touch such a sure shot disaster. Finally somehow the film was released and the first week proved that whoever had shied away from buying this film were correct. Then a miracle happened. The next week on the film picked up and within no time everyone in Andhra Pradesh wante...