For his second production, producer Ponnaluri Vasanthakumar Reddy bought the remake rights of the 1949 super hit Hindi movie, Dulari produced and directed by A.R. Kardar with Madhubala, Geetha Bali and Suresh in the lead. Vasanthkumar Reddy signed Kamalakara Kameswara Rao to direct the Telugu version, Sobha and D.V. Narasaraju to write the dialogues.
Without altering the main plot, Kamalakara and Narasaraju brought in some changes in the script to make it more palatable to the native audience.
One of the major changes they made was converting two males into female characters – the heroine’s father and foster father as her mother and foster mother.
In Dulari the heroine was a motherless child but in Sobha she was a fatherless child.
The Story: Seethamma, a widow, is the sister of Sankaram. On her fifth birthday Seethamma’s daughter Sobha is kidnapped by a tribal robber gang led by Sardar.
He hands over Sobha to his sister Nagamma to bring her up along with her daughter Kasturi. Years pass by.
Sobha grows up in the hamlet as Rani, a street dancer.
Sardar’s right-hand man, the young and vicious Lala eyes Rani whereas Kasturi is in love with him. Sankaram’s son Raja, not knowing that she is his cousin Sobha, falls in love with Rani after watching her at a street dance.
She too is attracted towards him and their love irks Lala who tries every ploy to end it but pays for it lying dead besides Kasturi whom he killed. Nagamma reveals that Rani is none other than Seethamma’s missing daughter Sobha. Raja weds Sobha.
Cast & Crew: Thanks to Kamalakara’s taut screenplay, the narrative flows smoothly and he received good support from cinematographer D.L. Narayana (Annayya) and editor N.C. Rajan. Narasaraju’s brilliance in light banter is evident one more time and his usage of the dialogue ‘ Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje ’ through Mukkamala to indicate that with Rani’s dance they can mint money, has become so popular that it is still in use among people and in films. Producer Vasanthkumar Reddy wrote the lyrics and poet ‘Ellora’ (Godavarthi Bhaskara Rao)’s folk songs were also used.
For the seasoned actors playing the parts assigned to them posed no challenge. It was an easy task for NTR who played Raja and Anjali Devi as Sobha/Rani, Rajasulochana (Kasturi), Mukkamala (Lala), Ramana Reddy (Sambhu, a confidente and servant of NTR) Relangi (Sankaram) and Vijayalakshmi as his wife. Dr. Sivaramakrishnaiah enacted Sardar and Venkumamba the role of Nagamma. Mukkamala needs special mention as he also participated in a romantic song number besides showing off his whiplashing villainy.
Dulari was more of a musical hit thanks to Naushad’s superb melodic score.
A.M. Raja who had debuted as a music composer with Sobha did not disappoint either.
Some of his popular songs include ‘ Raave Raave jaabilee… ’ (Jikki), ‘ Ee nela reyi… ’ (K. Rani) and the duet ‘ Andaala chindu taaraa…’ (A.M. Raja & Jikki). Ghantasala rendered the poems shot on Relangi.
Raja had used only one of Naushad’s tunes, for Rajasulochana’s dance number in the tribal hamlet. Strangely, the super hit song from Dulari , ‘ Suhani Raat Dhal Chuki… ’ (Md. Rafi) found no replacement and was left out in Sobha though the scene was retained.
Trivia: A soft natured man, D.L. Narayana who was fondly called ‘Annayya’ by the industry folks was a highly talented cinematographer and was a close relative of H.M. Reddy. His other famous works include – MahakaviKalidasu and Mahamantri Thimmarusu .
In this clean and neat film, the censor members found an objectionable scene. Still they allowed it in one place and cut it in the other. In a romantic scene with Mukkamala, Rajasulochana lies in a particular posture wherein her upper cloth slips slightly revealing her bosom. The censors ordered a cut. There was a similar posture of hers in a tragic scene, but the censors allowed it citing that the audience attention will be on the tragedy and not on her anatomy.
Sobha was shot mostly in the morning shifts between 7 am and 1 pm as NTR had to report for a Telugu film and Anjali Devi, for a Tamil movie in the afternoons.
The climax boat fight between NTR and Mukkamala was shot at Adyar River.
Ravi Kondala Rao made his debut both as an actor and assistant director. He had to don the one scene role of a doctor after the chosen actor fumbled to deliver his dialogue in the presence of his idols, NTR and Anjali Devi.
After several takes, a fed up Kamalakara asked his assistant to put on the doctor’s coat and act.
Ravi Kondala Rao completed the scene in one take and later went on to act in over 500 films including Ram Gopal Varma’s 365 Days .
Released on May 21, 1958, Sobha fared reasonably well at the box office and celebrated a 100 day run at Vijayawada.
