Both films were produced by Parvatamma Rajkumar.
Both Bahadur Gandu and Nanjundi Kalyan were based on Shakespeare’s play The Taming of the Shrew.
From Hindi to Kannada film industry, all were influenced by English literature. There have been many movies inspired by the greatest playwright of all time, William Shakespeare. Similar inspiration has been seen in Kannada films as well. For example, Rajkumar was a popular actor in the Kannada film industry and many of his films took inspiration from various novels.
According to reports, Rajkumar’s wife Parvatamma was a producer in Rajkumar Industries. She used to read a lot of novels and movies based on them one after the other. Popular actor Rajkumar’s brother, SP Varadaraj, and screenwriter Chi Adya Shankar were also very keen on understanding western stories and portraying them on the silver screen. As a result, of his 200 films, Rajkumar had various films that were based on western plays and novels.
Bahadur Gandu starring Rajkumar was released in 1976. It was reported that the film was based on the famous play The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare. The film also starred Jayanthi, Aarthi and Vajramuni in lead roles. It was directed by AV Seshagiri Rao, and the screenplay was written by Chi Udaya Shankar. Bahadur Gandu was a huge hit and received rave reviews from the critics as well as the audience. According to reports, the film ran for 19 weeks in theatres.
There is another film which was based on the play The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare. It was a 1989 Kannada film Nanjundi Kalyan and starred Rajkumar’s son Raghavendra Rajkumar in the lead role. It also starred Malashri, Girija Lokesh and Sundar Krishna in lead roles. It was directed by MS Rajasekhar and proved to be a huge hit at the box office. As per reports, Nanjundi Kalyan was one of the highest-grossing Kannada films of 1989 and saw a theatrical run of 90 weeks. Later, the film was dubbed in Telugu as Naku Mogudu Kavali.
Both these films were backed by Parvathamma Rajkumar and performed well at the box office.
Keywords: Kannada movies inspired by William Shakespeare, Bahadur Gandu, Nanjundi Kalyan, Rajkumar, Parvathamma Rajkumar, The Taming of the Shrew, The Taming of the Shrew movies, Movies based on William Shakespeare plays