Anthuleni Katha

Anthuleni Katha (meaning story without ending) is a Telugu film is directed by K. Balachander. This is Jayaprada's first starring role and is considered to be one of her best films. Rajnikanth and Kamal Hassan play key roles. This film was shot in black-and-white.

Plot

Saritha (Jayaprada) is a working woman in a middle class family. She works hard to support her widowed sister, unmarried sister, her blind younger brother, her mother, her drunkard brother Murthy and his family. Her father abandons the family and becomes a saint. Her brother not only does not take responsibilities, but also creates additional problems for her.

She has a longtime boyfriend, who wants to marry her, but she doesn't because of her commitment to her family. His eyes now wander to Saritha's widowed younger sister (Sripriya) who reciprocates his feelings. Saritha, after reading her boyfriend's love letter to her sister, arranges for them to get married, thus giving up her chance of having a life with him. She eventually accepts a marriage proposal of her boss (Kamal Hassan), when she realizes that her brother has become responsible enough to take care of her family. She also helps her distressed friend, played by Phataphat Jayalaksmi to settle in life. She decides to resign from hard work, but could not as the result of turning point in a typical Balachandar style climax.

Original and Remakes

The film is a remake of Tamil super hit film Aval Oru Thodarkathai (1974), also directed by K. Balachander. Sujata played the role of Jayaprada, Jai Ganesh did the role of Rajnikant, Kamal Haasan played the role of Narayanarao. Same tunes were used in both the languages. Sripriya, Phataphat Jayalaxmi and rest of the cast are same in both the versions. The Tamil film was later was dubbed into Malayalam as Aval Oru Thudarkatha (1975).

Balachander remade the film in Hindi [titled Aaina] (1977) with Mumtaz doing the role of Jayaprada with Sanjeev Kumar and Rajesh Khanna doing important roles. One noteworthy cast member is Jayasudha, who made her Hindi debut with this film. Kamal Haasan also appears briefly as a choreographer for Dharmendra and Neetu Singh in the film. His name appears in credits as choreographer along with Gopikrishna. Naushad had provided the music for the Hindi remake.

Also, in 1977, Mala Sinha starred in the Bengali remake titled Kabita playing the Jayaprada role. Kamal Haasan made his Bengali film debut with this film by acting in the same role that he played in the Tamil original film. Bharat Shamsher directed the black-and-white film.

The film was again remade in Hindi as Jeevan Dhaara (1982) by director Tatineni Ramarao. Rekha did the role of Jayaprada. Rakesh Roshan did the role of Kamal Haasan, Amol Palekar did the role of Narayana Rao. Kanwaljit did the conductor role, Simple Kapadia (sister of Dimple Kapadia) did Phataphat Jayalaxmi role. The film was a decent hit.

In 1983, Balachander produced the Kannada remake titled Benkiyalli Aralidha Hoovu directed by Chandulal Jain and starring Suhasini, whose real-life uncle Kamal Haasan played the guest role of a bus conductor in this remake.