Gandhada Gudi

Gandhada Gudi
DVD cover of the movie
Directed by	Vijay
Produced by	M. P. Shankar
Screenplay by	Vijay M. D. Sundar
Story by	M. P. Shankar
Starring	Rajkumar Vishnuvardhan Kalpana M. P. Shankar
Music by	Rajan-Nagendra
Cinematography	D. V. Rajaram
Edited by	Bal G. Yadav
Distributed by	Bharani Chithra
Release dates	1973 (1973)
Country	India
Language	Kannada

Gandhada Gudi (Temple of Sandalwood) is a 1973 Indian Kannada-language film directed by Vijay and produced by M. P. Shankar. The film stars Rajkumar in lead role. Vishnuvardhan appears in a villainous role, though his character is redeemed at the end of the film. A similar film was then made in Telugu in 1977 as Adavi Ramudu, starring N. T. Rama Rao.^[1] In 1979, it was remade in Hindi as Kartavya. Because of Gandhada Gudi's success, a sequel was made in 1995 with Shivrajkumar as the lead, titled Gandhada Gudi Part 2. The film was seen as a milestone in the careers of both Rajkumar and Vishnuvardhan.^[2]

Plot

Kumar (Rajkumar) is a range forest officer who goes to the Nagarhole National forest to protect the natural resources. His main rival is the poacher Anand (Vishnuvardhan) who unknown to him has been kidnapped and raised by Raja Venkatappa Naika (Balakrishna) to exact revenge on his father. In the final scenes, Anand gets hold of Kumar's mother and asks him to not interfere or that he will set fire to the forest. But Kumar shoots Anand, fatally injuring him in the chest. Venkatappa then comes in climax and reveals that Anand is Kumar's younger brother and he had done this to take revenge on his family. He tries to kill Kumar, but Anand kills venkatappa and dies on the lap of his mother.

Cast

• Rajkumar as Kumar, a forest range officer
• Kalpana as Lakshmi
• Vishnuvardhan as Anand
• M. P. Shankar as Johnny
• Narasimharaju as Shivaji
• Balakrishna as Venkatappa Naika
• Advani Lakshmi Devi
• Thoogudeepa Srinivas
• B. Jaya

Production

The film has brilliant cinematography of the Nagarhole and Bandipur forest in Mysore which is the birthplace of Vishnuvardhan. The entire cast has given excellent dimensions to their role especially Vishnuvardhan who was acting in his third movie in a negative character.

During the shooting of the film where Vishuarvadan's character "shoots" Rajkumar's character's mother, the prop gun was accidentally switched to a real gun by Phabakaran, a forest ranger who realized someone took the gun. Just as Vishnuvardhan was about to pull the trigger, Phabakaran begged for him to stop.^[3] The incident caused trauma for Vishuvardan and the family used to receive threatening calls and abuse from Rajkumar's fans.^[4][5][6][7] Despite this, both Rajkumar and Vishuvardhan remained on good terms afterwards.

Soundtrack

Gandhada Gudi
Soundtrack cover
Soundtrack album by Rajan-Nagendra
Released	1973
Genre	Feature film soundtrack
Length	12:30
Label	Saregama

Music for the film and soundtracks were composed by the duo Rajan-Nagendra.

Reception

Gandhada Gudi was a box office-hit, which fetched around ₹3.5 million (US$52,000) in 1973. The title song, filmed on Karnataka and Kannada is still popular among the Kannadigas. The song can be heard even today on any festival or function in Karnataka.

The power-packed dialogues, confrontation and fighting scenes between Rajkumar and Vishnuvardhan are the main highlights of this movie. At that time, Rajkumar was an established leader in the Kannada moviedom, while Vishnuvardhan had acquired the image of an angry young man, with the super-successful Naagarahaavu.

References

External links

• Gandhada Gudi at the Internet Movie Database