Satya Harishchandra (1965 Kannada film)
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Satya Harischandra (Kannada: ಸತ್ಯ ಹರಿಶ್ಚಂದ್ರ) is a 1965 Indian Kannada epic film directed by Hunsur Krishnamurthy and produced by K. V. Reddy. It stars Rajkumar in the lead role, as Harishchandra, an Indian mythological king, who was renowned for upholding truth and justice under any circumstance. The film is based on poet Raghavanka's work, Harishchandra Kavya. The supporting cast features Udaykumar, Pandari Bai, Narasimharaju, M. P. Shankar, K. S. Ashwath and Baby Padmini. K. V. Reddy simultaneously produced a Telugu version of the movie also titled Satya Harishchandra starring N. T. Rama Rao.
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At the 13th National Film Awards, the film was awarded the President's silver medal for the Best Feature Film in Kannada. The film was hugely successful at the time of its release and is seen as a milestone in Kannada cinema. Satya Harishchandra was the third Indian and first South Indian film to be digitally coloured. The coloured version, released in April 2008, was a commercial success.
Cast
Production
The film was shot mostly shot at the AVM studios in Madras (now Chennai). It was reported that actor N. T. Rama Rao was very keen to make the film in Telugu language with Rajkumar in the lead role after seeing him act with finesse in one of the scenes at the studio. But, it did not take off as the latter showed no interest to act in a film of any language but Kannada. Later, the film was also made in Telugu simultaneously. However, unlike the Kannada version, it failed to perform.
Soundtrack
Pendyala Nageswara Rao composed the soundtrack and lyrics were written by Hunsur Krishnamurthy. The soundtrack album has twenty soundtracks.
Colourisation
Satya Harishchandra was the third Indian and the first South Indian black-and-white film to be digitally coloured, after Hindi language films, Mughal-e-Azam and Naya Daur. Film producer and distributor K. C. N. Gowda of M/s KCN Enterprises, teamed up with Goldstone Technologies Limited, a California based company to colour the film digitally. C. Jaganmohan, the media division business head of Goldstone Technologies said that each frame in the film was converted to colour. The conversion was from the original 35 mm film to 16 mm film with colour in CinemaScope and DTS sound system. The colourising work was carried out by a team of close to 175 personnel in Hyderabad. The work on sound effect in the dialogues, background music and the musical track in the DTS system was carried out in Chennai. The entire soundtrack of the film digitally restored by music composer, Rajesh Ramanath. The entire project costed an amount of ₹30 million (US$470,000).
Re-releases
Prior to the release of its coloured version, the film had been released many times across Karnataka state. The digitally coloured film was re-released for the first time on 24 April 2008, to coincide with the birth anniversary of Rajkumar, in 35 screens across the state. Like each of its previous releases, it completed a 100-day run.