Appula Appa Rao

Appa Rao (Rajendra Prasad) is a bachelor who manages every day by living off the loans he takes from others. He manages to coerce the local MLA Nadendla Anjaiah (Babu Mohan) into promising to repay his debts in exchange for the votes in Anjaiah's favor from the debtors of Appa Rao. One night, he meets a lady constable Subba Lakshmi (Shobana), who slaps him for trying to protect some rowdies who tried to molest her. They meet again and spar with each other, this time over a lottery ticket for Rs. 10 lakhs, and end up tearing the ticket. The seller (Ali) refuses to take it back instead advises them to keep the two halves with them so that if they win the lottery, they could share the prize money. As luck would have it, their ticket wins the lottery and Appa Rao fakes a story about his family troubles to retrieve the other half of the ticket from Subba Lakshmi. Though aware of the pretense of Appa Rao, she donates the other half as she comes to know that the ticket didn't win the lottery and it was mistakenly printed in the newspaper earlier. Appa Rao later realizes the same and confronts her, but she tells him that she sacrificed her ticket as she believed his story. As a result, Appa Rao falls in love with her and overcome by emotion, tries to kiss her, but she slaps him for the second time. Subba Lakshmi also falls in love with Appa Rao.

Appa Rao meets an astrologer Shastri (Brahmanandam), who foretells him that he would inherit huge sums of money if he married a woman who could slap him thrice. Appa Rao reveals to Shastri about his encounters with Subba Lakshmi and Shastri foretells him that he would marry her. Just as he was about to finish his statement, enter Iron Leg Shastri (Ironleg Sastri), who so influences the prophecy of his brother that whatever his brother foretells, it turns out to be the opposite way. He tells Appa Rao that Subba Lakshmi would die as his brother had intruded into their conversation. However, he tells Appa Rao that he could avoid this bad omen if he married a dying woman. His initial attempts go in vain. Finally, he accidentally meets Ammaji in a temple and convinces her into marrying him with her dying elder daughter, Bangari (Sindhuja). However, his plans turn upside down after marriage after he realizes that he was tricked into this marriage by Ammaji. Appa Rao plans to have a divorce from Bangari, but Ammaji sets a condition that, before taking divorce, he should get her other daughters married. With the help of Subba Lakshmi, whom he manages to convince about his marriage with Bangari, he is able to arrange the marriage of his sisters-in-law at the same time. After the marriages, Ammaji requests Appa Rao to reconsider his decision of getting a divorce, but to no avail. Finally, Subba Lakshmi is revealed to be the eldest daughter of Ammaji and Appa Rao ends up marrying both Subba Lakshmi & Bangari.

Music composed by Rajan-Nagendra. Music released on Surya Music Company.

• Appula Appa Rao at IMDb