Bala Nagamma (1959)

Bala Nagamma is based on one of the best-known Telugu folk tales. Bala Nagamma, a devoted wife and princess, is lured away by a powerful magician who holds her captive in his enchanted fortress for years. Her son grows up, learns the truth and sets out on a perilous quest to rescue her, facing magic and treachery on the way. Anjali Devi plays the long-suffering heroine, S. V. Ranga Rao the menacing sorcerer, a kind of role at which he excelled, and N. T. Rama Rao the hero. Directed by Vedantam Raghavaiah, himself a celebrated Kuchipudi dancer, the 1959 film retells a story that had already been a hit on screen in 1942, with songs, trick photography and the folklore spectacle Telugu audiences loved in that era.