“Strange Brothers”, it was called, as was the custom in 1949, to give Indian movies an English Title as well.
The villain’s role was acted by one of the greatest legends of Indian Cinema, Padmashri R. Nagendra Rao – my venerable grandfather (father’s father).
In this picture below from the movie, he (the villain, on the right) locks swords with one of the “brothers” (hero, left).
And the beauty of this picture, is that the “hero”, Padmashri M.K. Radha, is actually the grandfather of one of my best childhood friends from India, Rajaa Murugan.
Murugan and I used to joke that our grandfathers fought with swords in the movie, maybe we should also try it sometime, fighting with each other
Here’s a review of the movie from the NY Times:
Following up on S. S. Vasan’s 1948 mega-hit Chandralekha, this sequel was inspired by Douglas Fairbanks Jr.’s 1941 film The Corsican Brothers. The film opens with the dastardly Zoravar Singh vanquishing a rival kingdom and usurping its throne. A trusted servant spirits away the twin princes Vikram and Vijay who are heirs to the crown. Though raised separately, Vikram grows up in the city while Vijay lives his childhood in a forest, both become obsessed with avenging their father and both fall for the same beautiful lass (Bhanumathi). This film was produced in three different languages– Tamil, Telugu, and Hindi — with three different directors credited — T. G. Raghavachyran, C. Pullaiah and S. S. Vasan respectively. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide (link)
Some of the movies my grandfather, R. Nagendra Rao, acted in / directed / produced, are:
As a young boy, I remember going to the movie preview of “Pallavi Anupallavi” with my father.
It was Anil Kapoor’s first movie ever. Even director Mani Ratnam was not yet the big name that he is now. In fact, my father and Ilayaraja (music) were bigger names than the director and the hero of the movie. The heroine was virtually unheard of – Kiran Virale. She was pretty much unheard of even after the movie was released.
And then of course, there was “Julie” Lakshmi. One of the most amazing, most beautiful actresses India has ever produced.
Believe it or not, I acted as her son in a movie – “Hosa Kavya” – that she produced to launch her daughter, Aishwariya. Huge dud, of course. But more on that later.
Having grown up in Chennai, I was always a huge fan of Ilaiyaraja. I consider this one of Raja’s greatest tunes.
