''Kuzhandai Ullam'' () is a 1969 Indian

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

-language

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

directed, produced and written by Savitri. The film stars

Gemini Ganesan Ramasamy Ganesan (17 November 1920 – 22 March 2005), better known by his stage name Gemini Ganesan, was an Indian actor who worked mainly in Tamil cinema. He was referred as Kaadhal Mannan (King of Romance) for his romantic roles in films. G ...

Sowcar Janaki Sankaramanchi Janaki (born 12 December 1931), widely known as Sowcar Janaki, is an Indian actress known for her works in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada films. In a career spanning over seven decades, Janaki has appeared in nearly 390 fil ...

and

Vanisri Vanisri (born Rathna Kumari) is an Indian actress known for her works predominantly in Telugu, Tamil, and Kannada films. In a film career spanning 40 years, she has received three Filmfare Awards South, the Nandi Awards and the Tamil Nadu St ...

. A remake of Savitri's

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of South India ** Telugu literature, is the body of works written in the Telugu language. * Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Tel ...

film '' Chinnari Papalu'' (1968), it was released on 14 January 1969 and became an average success.

Plot

A rich painter meets a tribal girl at a forest and falls in love with her. He finds himself married to her without knowing it, spends a night with her blissfully and then is forced into marrying a city girl to satisfy his mother. His emotional involvement with the tribal girl, whom he just cannot erase from his memory complicates things. Ultimately, thanks to two children, the broken hearts are united.

Cast

R. S. Manohar Rasipuram Subramaniyan Iyer Manohar (29 June 1925 – 10 January 2006) was an Indian actor who performed roles ranging from hero to villain to comedic characters. He was born at Namakkal in 1925. He acted in over 200 films. He is known for hi ...

Thengai Srinivasan Thengai Srinivasan (21 October 1937 – 9 November 1987) was an Indian actor who appeared in Tamil-language films and plays from the 1960s to the 1980s. He was given the prefix ''Thengai'' (coconut) after his role as a coconut-seller in th ...

Rama Prabha Rama Prabha is an Indian actress who performs in Telugu, Tamil and Hindi films. She has acted in more than 1,400 films and is credited as a character artist who shared screen space with superstars across most generations of South Indian Cin ...

* V. K. Ramasamy * A. Veerappan

Production

Though Savitri's Telugu film '' Chinnari Papalu'' (1968) was a

box-office bomb A box-office bomb is a film that is unprofitable or considered highly unsuccessful during its theatrical run. Although any film for which the combined production budget, marketing, and distribution costs exceed the revenue after release has te ...

, it received critical acclaim; this prompted her to remake it in Tamil as ''Kuzhandai Ullam''. Savitri, in addition to directing, produced it under Sri Savitri Productions, and wrote the screenplay while M. Lakshmanan wrote the dialogues. Singh and Sekhar, the cinematographers of the original, returned in their positions, and editing was handled by M. S. N. Murthy. The film marked the debut of art director Mohana.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack was composed by S. P. Kodandapani, and the lyrics were written by

Kannadasan Muthiah Sathappan Chettiar better known as Kannadasan (; 24 June 1927 – 17 October 1981) was a poet, film song lyricist, producer, actor, script-writer, editor, philanthropist, and is heralded as one of the greatest and most important l ...

Release and reception

''Kuzhandai Ullam'' was released on 14 January 1969, during Pongal. ''

The Indian Express ''The Indian Express'' is an English-language Indian daily newspaper founded in 1932 by P. Varadarajulu Naidu. It is headquartered in Noida, owned by the ''Indian Express Group''. It was later taken over by Ramnath Goenka. In 1999, eight y ...

'' wrote on 25 January, " avitrihas on the whole weaved a fairly appealing product though old-fashioned in style and treatment." The film was an average success.

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, id=1464245 1960s Indian films 1960s Tamil-language films 1969 drama films Films scored by S. P. Kodandapani Films set in forests Indian drama films Tamil remakes of Telugu films Tamil-language Indian films