Underplayed Gems

Bhakta Prahlada (1932)

Bhakta Prahlada poster
Original title
భక్తప్రహ్లాద
Directed by
H. M. Reddy, Chilakalapudi Seeta Rama Anjaneyulu
Genre
fantasy film
Country
British Raj
Runtime
1h 48m
Rating
8.0 of 10 from 1 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
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How it feels

This 1932 Telugu film tells the story of Prahlada, a devotee of Vishnu, from Hindu scriptures. It was an early sound film adaptation of a stage play, but today only a few stills and reviews survive.

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What happens

Bhakta Prahlada (transl. Prahlada, the devotee) is a 1932 Indian Telugu-language film based on the story of Prahlada in the Srimad Bhagavatam and Vishnu Purana directed by H. M. Reddy and produced by Ardeshir Irani of Imperial Film Company. It features Sindhoori Krishna Rao as the titular Prahlada, along with Munipalle Subbayya, Surabhi Kamalabai, Doraswamy Naidu, Chitrapu Narasimha Rao, and L. V. Prasad. No complete synopsis of the film is known to survive, but it is an adaptation of a play of the same name. Having achieved success in Hindi cinema by releasing India's first sound film Alam Ara in 1931, Irani wanted to expand his scope to South Indian cinema. Bhakta Prahlada was released on 6 February 1932, and was positively received by the audience but variedly by critics, who panned its resemblance to the stage version, poor sound recording, and low-quality images. It is now lost; surviving artefacts include a few stills, advertisements, and reviews. It was believed to be the first sound film of Telugu cinema, until film historian Rentala Jayadeva found out that H. M. Reddy's debut film Kalidas had Telugu dialogues and was released much earlier, on 31 October 1931. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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