Devadasu is a 1953 Indian romantic drama film directed by Vedantam Raghavayya and produced by D. L. Narayana for Vinodha Pictures.

The film was produced in Telugu and Tamil languages (the latter titled Devadas) with slightly different casts.

Both versions proved to be a major breakthrough in both Savitri's and Nageswara Rao's career, although they also led to the latter being typecast in similar roles.

The film begins at the village Ravulapalli, where two infant neighbors, Devadas & Parvati, share a camaraderie.

Hereupon, Parvati's grandmother forwarded the alliance, the Zamindar mortifies Neelakantham about their low level of caste & status.

The following day, he affirms his decision to Zamindar but loses the ability as his father shows the danger of suicide.

Parallelly, Neelakantham arranges an aged alliance with Zamindar of Durgapuram, Bhavana Babu, which Parvati accepts.

Parvati settles into her new house, adores her husband, revives his disintegrated family, and showers motherly affection to his progeny.

Currently, she visits her parents’ home and implores Devadas to stop drinking but pleads not to withdraw a little peace.

Devadasu was directed by Vedantham Raghavayya and produced by D. L. Narayana under the production banner of Vinodha Pictures.

[8] The film was launched by Vinoda Pictures with Akkineni Nageswara Rao and Sowcar Janaki as the lead pair.

After a week of shooting, the film was shelved due to the view that such a story might not succeed in Telugu; the production company instead produced Shanti, which became a failure.

[18][19] Though Samudrala is credited as the lyricist in the film, M. L. Narasimham of The Hindu believes that Malladi Ramakrishna Sasthri also wrote some of the lyrics.

[18][19] The soundtracks were a huge commercial success, with "Jagame Maaya" and "Kala Idani", in particular, achieving cult status.

Reviewing the Tamil version, Randor Guy of The Hindu stated that the songs "contributed to the [film's] success".

[7] Reviewing the Telugu version, M. L. Narasimham from the same newspaper also praised the songs, noting, "The major contribution to the film's success, however, came from the music director, a genius called C. R. Subbaraman.

"[3] S. Theodore Baskaran in his book The Eye of the Serpent noted, "One factor that sustains the popularity of this film to this is the songs [sic]".

[3] Randor Guy, however noted that after the film's release, there were bickerings between the partners over the division of profits and Subbaraman's widow had to go to court, as did Lalitha for her balance remuneration.

He added that B. S. Ranga's "excellent" cinematography and C. R. Subbaraman's music were the film's highlights apart from Vedantham Raghavayya's direction.

[3] Reviewing Devadas, Randor Guy wrote that the film was remembered for "empathetically brilliant performance of Nageswara Rao in the title role and equally impressive acting by Savithri".

[34] Film archivist P. K. Nair noted, "Akkineni Nageshwara Rao identified himself with the character so intensely [...] that it remains one of Telugu cinema’s outstanding performances.

"[35] The 2002 book Living legend, Dr. Akkineni (edited by M. K. Ramu) called Nageshwara Rao "the perfect manifestation of Sarat's vision" of the title character.

[36] In contrast, Nageswara Rao at one point did not rate the film so highly because he felt it did not "convey the Sarat mood well enough.

"[37] C. S. H. N. Murthy, author of the 2012 Routledge article Film remakes as cross-cultural connections between North and South, praised Devadasu for "follow[ing] closely the text of the novel as a hypotext".

His article endeavours to make a critical intervention in current South Asian Studies by aiming to provide novel theoretical frame work, hitherto unknown and unheard in Indian film studies, to which philosophical and traditional tenets grounding the novella of Devadas can be anchored.

[42] The success of the film made him known as the "Tragedy King" of Telugu cinema and also led to his becoming typecast in similar roles.

[44] Savitri too appeared in Missamma, and her character in that film was described by Pa. Dheenadhayalan of Dinamani as an antithesis of her role in Devadasu.

[1] In July 2007, S. R. Ashok Kumar of The Hindu asked eight Tamil directors to list ten of their favourite films.

[47] Actor Sivakumar stated, "You can’t reproduce movies like Parasakthi, Pasamalar, Devadas, Veerapandiya Kattabomman or Ratha Kanneer [...] By remaking such films, you are lowering yourself, while it enhances the original artists’ image.