Devadasu movie was released on 26 June 1953, it was critically and commercially successful, it has since achieved cult status. Devadas movie was made 16 times till date, in different Indian languages like Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam. After a week of shooting, the film was shelved due to a perception that such a story might not succeed in Telugu, the production company instead produced a movie by name Shanthi which was a disaster. D.L.Narayana producer decided to revive Devadasu on his own and, Janaki was replaced by Savitri, Sowcar Janaki was taken earlier for the female lead role. Akkineni Nageswara Rao recalled in an interview that, the director shot him only in the nights so he could give the character Drunken DROOPY look. Vedantam Raghavaiah director, being a Kuchipudi dance exponent and veteran stage artist used to enact scenes before the actors thereby making their job easy and perfect.
