Raju (Chiranjeevi) is a do-gooder who helps his co-workers in a Visakhapatnam shipyard, but when his mother suffers a paralytic stroke, he moves back to Hyderabad and looks for a job. Uma Devi (Nagma), daughter of industrialist Bapineedu (Raogopal Rao) takes over the business from her father and helps it to reach new heights, which also sees her head-strong ways reach new heights. In this scenario, she not only rejects Ranganayakulu's (Kaikala Satyanarayana) son's marriage proposal, but insults them when the father-son duo show up at her house. To get their revenge, they send goons to kill Uma Devi. As fate would have it, Bapineedu shows up in the car instead of Uma Devi and is rescued by Raju, who asks him for a job, which Bapineedu readily agrees to.
Raju wins over the employees in no time and takes on the high-handedness of Uma Devi and her management. This leads to constant conflict and Uma Devi decides to marry Raju, so that he will not interfere anymore. To this end, she emotionally blackmails Raju's mother and eventually makes Raju agree to marry her. But Raju continues to trouble her even after marriage. Uma Devi's secretary, Bhavani (Vani Viswanath), is also a friend of Raju, which leads to jealousy. In the meantime, Ranganayakulu, with the help of Uma Devi's manager Sarangapani (Ahuti Prasad) schemes against Uma Devi to sabotage her factory. The rest of film deals with how Raju thwarts the schemes of Ranganayakulu and teaches Uma Devi to be humble.
The music and background score for the film were composed by M. M. Keeravani, with lyrics provided by Bhuvanachandra and Keeravani himself.[5]
Originally, the song "Bangaru Kodi Petta" had a different tune, but Chiranjeevi requested a more energetic, "peppy number" where he could showcase his full energy. Keeravani quickly composed a new tune at the producer's home, initially penning the lyrics as "Smuggled Goods Bandi Vachinandi." Bhuvanachandra later revised the lyrics to "Bangaru Kodi Petta," completing the writing in just half an hour.[6]
"Bangaru Kodi Petta" was later remixed by Keeravani in the Magadheera (2009).[7][8] Keeravani later reused "Hey Pilla" as "Hey Babu" for the 1996 Hindi film Is Raat Ki Subah Nahin.
Gharana Mogudu became the highest grossing Telugu film of all time, collecting a distributor share of over ₹10 crore in its initial release.[3] It also emerged as the first South Indian movie to collect a distributor share of over ₹10 crore.[2]
Gharana Mogudu collected a distributor share of ₹1.35 crore in its opening week.[9]
The film had a 100-day run in 39 centres[3] and a 175-day run in three centres, including a 183-day run in Sandhya 70mm, Hyderabad.[10]
It was dubbed in Malayalam as Hey Hero. It was successful in Kerala; it collected ₹1 crore with a distributor share of ₹0.4 crore, and it had run for 175 days in the same theatre in Trivandrum.
^ ab"28 Years for Gharana Mogudu: 4 fascinating things about the Chiranjeevi starrer". The Times of India. 10 April 2020. Retrieved 26 June 2021. Gharana Mogudu was a commercial success, and it went on to become the first South Indian film to collect over Rs 10 crore share at the box office. Chiranjeevi is probably the first hero in the history of Indian cinema to take Rs 1 crore remuneration for a film.
