I think 13 became an unlucky number for this series of posts. The last post in this series came in October 2009 (That’s awfully long for a series of posts). But i was so determined to post number 13 and interestingly i have chosen a very different movie for Number 13. Check it out.

Muhammad Bin Tughluq (1971)

Can you name a person in Tamil Nadu who can make a brutal, extremely sarcastic and honest political satire movie?I think there is only one person who made it and even got away with in flying colors (black and white??!)
Cho Ramaswamy, fondly called as Cho is a political analyst, a Tamil Political Magazine Editor and a writer. A lesser known fact is that he started as a playwright and a stage actor. Even his entre into stage was accidental as he puts it. He made his foray in to movies too and he was an instant success. His best movie and play is Muhammad Bin Tughluq (1971), which I would consider arguably the best political satire in India. Don’t ask me how many have come.

Muhammad Bin Tughluq was originally a play written by Cho in 1968 and staged by his troupe Viveka Arts many a times. The same group of people to make the successful play in to a movie in 1971.
Rangachari (Rajagopal aka Ambi) is a well known archeologist, who is on a mission to find the remains of Muhammad Bin Tughluq and identify his real cause of death. Once during the mission, he finds Tughluq (Cho) and Ibn Battuta (Peeli Sivam) alive. They claim that they were alive because of an secret herb. Tughluq enters back to the country with fanfare. Understands the political scene overnight. Participates in elections, becomes the prime minister in his own ridiculous way. Makes some innocuous decisions. But the mystery unravels slowly where Cho and Peeli Sivam are college students who wanted to change the way democracy is being misused in the country. They with the help of their guru impersonate as Tughluq and Battuta to make people understand the real value of democracy. On the day of revealing, the intoxication of power gets in to Cho’s head and he plots the killing of his friend by creating riot against him to stay as prime minister. The cast included Cho, Peeli Sivam, Ambi, Neelu, Manorama, music was scored by MS Viswanathan, produced by Alliance Productions and the story, dialogues and direction were handled by Cho himself.

Why it is so special?

1. The movie from start to end never deviates from the satirical mode and it crticised every decision made by the then governments. The decisions of Cho as Tughlaq has became a reality in later stages of Indian politics – like where he makes all the MPs as deputy PMs – Meghalaya’s 4 CMs? He makes one language for each state as the official language and even suggests Persian as the official language of India. The buying out of MPs, state sponsored riots what not. Although you tend to laugh at the movie, after a particular point in the movie we are hit with the reality of the country we are living in.

2. The sharp dialogues which makes you laugh and think at the same time. Actually if you watch it carefully, the best satirical ones are not given Cho or Peeli Sivam but the supporting cast of Ambi, Neelu and Manorama.

3. The apt cast and most of the actors are from the stage which made them natural. I think Manorama was the only one casted from the cine world and she was brilliant as the “kolgai parappu Seyalalar” (PR) of Tughluq. Casting the stage actors had it’s own flaw of making the movie a more like a drama but it can be overlooked for the brilliance of the movie.

4. For the man by the name “Cho” – the concept and the dialogues – he was just unmatchable. His dialogue deliveries and the slight jump he makes when he walks, lovely. He never smiles in the whole movie and you know how serious were his stupid decisions. He is matched  for every scene by Peeli Sivam as Ibn Battuta – nobody could have done the roles better than them. Cho scores in the final scene when power takes over him and his psychic acting proved that he is better actor than what he is remembered for.

Why it is in the list?

1. Arguably the best political satire to make it to the Indian screens and definitely the most honest portrayal.

2. The relevance of the plot even today. If you watch it tomorrow, you will relate to the current political situation and have a wry smile at the plight of common people like us

3. For the sheer brilliance of Cho and Peeli Sivam

Trivia

1. The drama troupe of Cho was named as Viveka fine arts because they were all graduated from Vivekananda college in Chennai

2. The movie was portrayed as against Muslim community by some political parties but when they saw the movie, they found it is nothing to do with the community. In fact the title song on Allah and sung by MSV is still revered as one of the best songs written in Tamil on Allah.

3. Due to the success of the movie, Cho named his political magazine as Tughluq and it was his another spat with DMK that Thugluq’s circulation went up. I will write about it later.

4. Ambi who acts as Rangachari in the movie and the convener of the drama troupe is the own brother of Cho

5. I think the stage play was in production till 2007 ( am not sure) but  could not continue because of the age factor of Cho. I dunno whether they do special shows. I do have a DVD of the stage play.

6. His famous plays include Judgement Reserved, Sambavami Yuge Yuge, Unmaiye un Vilai Yenna, Iraivan Iranthuvittana and many more. His book Enge Brahamanan ?, one of the definitive literary piece about Brahminism was serialized for Jaya TV recently. The second part is currently running.

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The definition of Anti-Heroism has been misinterpreted in many places referring it to those lead characters which have some Grey shades too. But according to me and even movie analysts, anti-hero is the one differs from the normal notions of an hero. A hero in Tamil movies is usually physically smart, has sharp features, strong, intelligent, suave, stylish, compassionate, girls fall for him naturally and he never does a mistake. The norms were never broken and actors like MGR were very successful proponents of this model.

But every one of these norms were broken in to pieces when a great actor entered this movie world. His name was Nagesh and the movie was Server Sundaram.

Server Sundaram (1964)

Server Sundaram was only the 5th movie of Nagesh. He was just a budding actor with only one hit in Nenjil Oru Aalayam and that too as a comedian. Server Sundaram is an adaptation of the play by the same name written by K.Balachander ( he is going to come again and again in this list), produced by AVM Pictures with music by MS Viswanathan – Ramamoorthy and directed by Krishnan – Panju.

The story is about a young wanna be actor (Sundaram) who comes to Madras to make it big in movies and ends up in a restaurant as a waiter. He meets his friend in the same hotel and his friend paves a way for him to get a big break in movies. In between Sundaram falls in love with the daughter of the restaurant owner, he works for without knowing that she is the bride to be of his friend. Sundaram becomes a star believing that making himself rich and famous will help him to get her. But eventually comes to know about his friend’s love and sacrifices his love for his friend’s sake. Finally, his mother’s demise teaches him the reality of life.

The movie is said to be semi-autobiographical of Nagesh as it traces the life of an actor, his rise and fall.

What’s so special about it?

1. If there are 100 reasons for this movie to be special, all the 100 reasons would be Nagesh. He makes you to laugh, cry, sad, think, retrospect and share the character’s emotions. I have not known any other movie which can make a normal person to relate to a character so much. In one scene where he goes to the heroine to express his love with a bouquet and she rejects his proposal. He asks for a gift from her. She asks “what you want?” He says ” Nothing much, I just want the dust bin you have. Because my heart would pain if you throw my bouquet in to the dust bin”… Nagesh gives an helpless expression at that moment which no actor would have matched. He was special…

2. The perfect supporting cast with Muthuraman as his friend Raghavan and KR Vijaya. Major Sunder Rajan as his restaurant owner and above all SN Lakshmi as Nagesh’ mother made to look the mother-son relationship so believable.

3. The witty one line dialogues which were KB’s trademark made it’s way to the big screen. I think Krishnan-Panju would have made a record being the only directors to be part of a film which had longest monologues and also be a part of movie which had short oneliners ( I can’t say shortest because later came Mani Ratnam, whose dialogues were mostly single words)

4. The movie has scenes which gave the inside view of the cinema world. How do they make sets, rain sequences etc. It was said that few producers showed their concerns for showing the cinema secrets to AVM. But AVM went on to make these sequences, which gave great impetus to the success of the movie.

5. The songs and music composition were at it’s best. Kannadasan and MSV were at their peak form. Songs like Avalukku Yenna (it even shows the live recording of the song) are still considered to be classics.. People never knew Nagesh could dance so well.

Why it makes to the list?

1. The critics, some directors and movie buffs are talking about movies which depict the reality of life. But I think Server Sundaram started it all. It broke the norms of Tamil Movies. I bet there would be no producer to take such a movie at this moment and that too with a 4 movie old comedian in the lead.

2. It also paved the way for demise of long monologues (it made a comeback with actors like Vijayakanth !!). Short, witty, powerful one -liners became the order of the day.

3. It brought two of the greats in Tamil Cinema in forefront, KB & Nagesh. They went to make a lot of meaningful movies together. Nagesh was casted in almost all the movies after 1964. He became a must have in a movie. There were times were directors were forced to include characters which will suit Nagesh. KB of course became one of the prolific film makers of Tamil and introduced the 2 Superstars – Rajini & Kamal.

4. It gave the concept of Anti -Heroism to Tamil Cinema. It changed the way people look at heroes. They started to relate to Sundaram like characters more because he was like just another person on the road.

5. It’s a complete package of a movie with the right doses of romance, comedy, sentiments with excellent music and classic acting.

Trivia

1. Although the play was directed by KB, the producers AVM opted for their successful director duo Krishnan-Panju. KB later made couple of successful movies for AVM.

2. The sequences were Nagesh does mono acting with a coin on the road and pining for his lady love were influenced by Chaplin’s City Lights.

3. Krishnan – Panju the ever successful director duo made 55 Movies together which include blockbuster hits like Rattha Kaneer, Parasakthi, Kuzhandhiyum Deivamum, Uyarntha Manithan and of course Server Sundaram.

4. Server Sundaram was remade in Hindi with Mehmood in the lead by the same directors and AVM as Main Sundar Hoon in 1970. Although it was not a blockbuster hit, it was a decent hit in Hindi.

5. The first picture in this article was taken originally as a promo pic but there was no such scene in the original movie. After seeing the first copy, AV Meyyappa Chettiar insisted on such a scene to make the promo shots authentic. He was vehemently against making fake promo shots without having it in the movie. But this picture eventually became a classic  photo for Nagesh

PS 2: I wrote a Tribute to Nagesh on his demise earlier this year.. Someone who i admired, loved and shared few coincidents..

PS3: In final moment of the scene which i have posted above, Sundaram says  “Love is a game of chance, I lost it in the finals” ( Hail KB for the Dialogue) – I lost one in finals too…

– Post From My iPhone.

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I am travelling 10 years back to talk about a legend. I am reading some books on Tamil Movies in order to give some good triviae. One of them which I read recently was AVM – 60 years by M.Saravanan. Avichi Meyyappa Chettiar is a pioneer when it comes to movies in India. In fact, his family is the oldest movie making family in India. He started making movies in 1935 and established AVM studios in 1945. The truth is this is the third movie produced or co-produced by AVM in the list.

Comedy has always been successful when it comes to Tamil Movies but if you make it bad, you will become a comedy in front of the audience. One of the earliest full length comedy movie is the 6th movie in our list.

Sabapathy (1941)

Sabapathy is a comedy character developed by Pammal Sambanda Mudaliar based on Handy Andy comic character created by Samuel Lover in English literature. Sabapathy is innocent stupid servant of a not so intelligent boss of the same name. AT Krishnaswamy was a writer-producer who worked in the drama troupe and he gave an idea to AV Meyyappa Chettiar to create a moviec around this character. AVM had already given two consecutive flops and was brooding about whether to make a movie. He wanted to give a try to comedy movie and they both started working on the script.

The story is simple and ran around the boss-servant characters. The boss is a young man who has failed in the pre-university exams and his father is worried about his future. So he decides to do a marriage of his son and after marriage the husband-wife are kept separated. The movie continues with comic extravagances of the boss servant ending up in a happy climax.

AVM roped in TR Ramachandran, who was at a high salary bracket of Rs.35 with Pragati Pictures that time. Kali N.Ratnam did the role of servant Sabapathy. Padma and Rajakantham did the lady loves respectively. Sarangapani, one of the most sought after comedians of those times, did a important role of a Tamil Teacher, constantly ragged by his students.

Why it’s so special?

1. Most probably the first full length comedy of Tamil Cinema and definitely the first comedy to become a hit.

2.The hilarious pair of Kali N.Ratnam and TR Ramachandram was awesome. There are some comic scenes which are unforgettable – especially the scenes where he asks to bring soda, coffee etc.

3.The pitiest part is that these movie scenes have been repeated enormously in many other movies in different forms and ways. The ragging of the Tamil teacher and the boss-servant swap sequences while seeing the bride have been often repeated in many movies. It actually shows the versatility of the comedy scenes.

Why it makes to the list?

1. It proved that comedy can be a genre and eventually paved the way for lot other comic movies in Tamil Cinema.

2. TR Ramachandran and Kali N.Ratnam. I think they gave the red carpet to duo comedies of later years.

Trivia

1. The whole movie was made with a budget of Rs.40,000. It was a resounding success and made AVM to get in to regular movie making and eventually movie mogul.

2. TR Ramachandran became a super star and MGR (then in initial times) was calling himself MG Ramachandar to avoid confusion.

3. AVM’s name made it to the title card as a director along with AT Krishnaswamy for the first time.

PS: Although the movie is very old, it is still played in Tamil Channels sometimes. May be the current movie goers will find it little bit hard to comprehend with the slow pace and editing. But the movie is absolutely enjoyable.

– Post From My iPhone

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A few things before I go to the next movie.

1. Sorry for the infrequent posts and short hiatus, there are some DNS server problems with my blog. My hosting guy is working on it. I hope he gives me a good solution. And I lost two of the posts with my iPhone crash. I do my blogposts during my daily travel and my phone wonderfully crashed on Friday night and my backup is in Macbook, which is also not working currently. Aww, that’s life.

2. I hope some of my readers would be thinking why I am running around 50s and 60s in the movie list and not with the later years. The first set of movies (may be 15-16) will be till 1969, the next set will be from 1970 – 1989 and the last set will be 1990 – current running period. So wait for some more nice movies to come.

Now for the next movie in line.

Parasakthi (1952)

Krishnan – Panju, the most successful director duo have made some wonderful movies which are blockbuster hits and at the same time critically well received. But they were never spoken in the breadth of other famous directors of those times (like CV Sridhar). In fact, I have 3 of their movies in my list. The most obvious reason I could see is that the lead actors have become more famous than the director duo in those movies. If it was MR Radha in Rattha Kaneer, Parasakthi announced the arrival of greatest Tamil actor of all times, Sivaji Ganesan ( the third one is more prolific and loved of all the three according to me).

Parasakthi was one of the most controversial movies of those times. Those days were full of historical movies and commercial entertainers, even the elusive social genre movies had cliched characters and political correctness. Parasakthi was the first movie to break the shackles and tried to talk about social problems openly in main stream cinema.

The story had a backdrop of World War II. Three rich brothers from war torn Rangoon, travel to India to meet their widowed sister. Fate plays the game, separating the family. Gunasekaran, one of the brothers becomes a protector to his sister (Kalyani) without knowing the original identity while she is struggling to save herself and her child from hunger. All the men including a priest ask her body as a price for helping her. She gets dejected and eventually tries to kill herself with the child. All end up in court and the family is reunited.

Parasakthi was directed by Krishnan – Panju and produced by National Pictures. The music was composed by Sudarsanam and Maruthi Rao wielded the camera. The cast included Sivaji Ganesan, SS Rajendran, SV Sahasaranamam, Sri Ranjani and Pandari Bai. The most important of all which became the prime reason for success of the movie were the dialogues of the movie written by M.Karunanidhi ( the present CM of Tamil Nadu)

What so special about the movie?

1. The wonderfully written dialogues. Karunanidhi was part of the newly formed DMK party which had Dravidian ideologies in the roots. He used the characters of the movie as the mouth pieces of propagating dravidian thoughts. The movie had fiery monologues shunning the social problems of those times like casteism, cheating through religion, black marketing, poverty, women abuse and the rich-poor divide.

2. The acting and mainly the dialogue delivery of Sivaji. Nobody expected a new comer to perform so well and the long monologues were new to Tamil Cinema. He became a instant hit and the final court scene is still considered to be a master piece.

3. The wonderful performances of the supporting cast. Sri Ranjani, Pandari Bai, the evil priest and SS Rajendran especially were aptly casted characters.

Why it makes to the list?

1. The first movie to openly talk about the social problems and created a big impact showing that movies can be used as an social medium too ( and succeed in it).

2. The movie which brought the dialogue culture and showed the might of pen. The dialogues were so successful that the producers released Gramaphone records and books after the movie’s success. The dialogues were considered to be so provocative that there was a special censor board to censor the movie before release.

3. I have only one word for the third reason which will speak volumes – Sivaji

Trivia:

1. Although an old trivia – the name Sivaji was given by the Dravidian leader EVR Periyar after watching his portrayal of Maratha leader Sivaji, in a stage play.

2. Sri Ranjani or Sri Ranjani Jr was a Telegu actress who started her career in Bhishma in 1941. She made some memorable portrayals in Tamil including of forlorn wife of MR Radha in Rattha Kaneer. She also did the role of blind girl in the remake of City Lights – Raj en Kanmani. She passed away in 1970.

3. The songs of Parasakthi were based on some famous Hindi film songs of those times . Sudarsanam rehashed the tunes of Sunehre Din (1949), Babul (1950), Dopatta (1951) and even a Urdu song by legendary Ghulam Haidet from a Pakistani movie , Akeli (1952).

4. Although the movie was said to be produced by National Pictures, it’s a partnership production between AVM & National Pictures. AV Meyappa Chettiar, was involved in the script discussion and publicity of the movie. The movie was completely shot in the AVM Studios. A memorial has been erected for Sivajai in the AVM Studios, where he shot the first scene. The first dialogue he spoke was “Success”.

5. Incidentally, Sivaji’s grand son was launched as Junior Sivaji in a movie by the name ‘Success’. The movie was a disaster and of course the grand son too..

6. I will reserve the trivia about Krishnan-Panju for their next movie in the list.

– Post From My iPhone

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For those who are fond of international movies ( other than Indian movies and Hollywood), UTV World Movies is a boon. They run a series called 50 Movies to watch before you die handpicked by different directors like Anurag Basu, Kunal Das Gupta etc., A wonderful series of movies you cant miss.

I thought why not a similar list for Tamil Movies. Tamil movies had a very limited audience in the past. Globalization of movie world and the advent of Internet has given a wider audience to Tamil Movies. From Rajini fan clubs in Japan to Billa running full houses in China, Tamil movies have come of age.
Tamil movie world is called Kollywood as to hollywood and bollywood. It gets its name from Kodambakkam, a locality in Chennai, where the Cinema Studios like AVM are present. Tamil movies are a perfect blend of action, comedy, music, dances, fanfare, glamor and sentiments. The expectations of the audiences are so high that they expect the perfect blend for every movie.

I have tried to hand pick some of the unknown gems in the Tamil Movie world for the readers. All these movies are main stream movies and not documentaries from the racks of film schools. These are the movies which created histories, changed trends, broke the norms and entertained the Tamil Audiences.

1. Andha Naal (1954)

All the Tamil movies in the yester years ran for atleast 3 hours, had a minimum of 10 songs, one stage dance and few stunts. Andha Naal broke the norm being the first movie with No songs, No dance and No fight sequences. It was produced by the legendary A.V.Meyyappa Chettiar, directed by Veenai S.Balachander and the cast include Sivaji Ganesan, Pandari Bai, Javert Seetharaman ( yes, he got the name from Les Miserables character and it was his best portrayal in the Tamil Adapatation) etc.,

The story revolves around the murder of Sivaji Ganesan, with each of his relatives claiming the other one as the killer. Each one gives a different version of the story and Javert Seetharaman is the CID officer, who cracks the case. Sounds similar?

As most of you think, it has resemblances with Rashomon, a Japanese Thriller by Akiro Kurosawa. But originally it was a adapatation from the British movie called Woman in Question by Anthony Asquith.

Although its an inspiration, the director had intelligently woven the national fervor with the murder coinciding with the Japanese Bombing the city of Madras on October 11, 1943. It has a vast significance in the plot of the movie.

What makes the movie so special?

The brilliant acting of the characters. Even the smallest of the roles, catch your attention. Pandari Bai as the enstranged wife, Sivaji with negative shades and the neighbourhood old man were brilliant. If they were brilliant the chemistry between Javert Seetharaman and his assistant was fantabulous. The dialogues (Javert) are crisp, sharp camera work (Maruthi Rao) and slick, flawless screen play (Javert), makes the movie so watchable.

Although the movie didn’t make money ( which discouraged AVM to foray in to such movies), its hailed as a master piece in Tamil Cinema. I don’t think a director can become complete without analyzing the facets of this movie. A perfect study material for making a perfect screen play.

Why it makes to the list?

Just because it broke the norms and created history. It also stands as the testimony to the fact that Tamil Cinema is not about only song and dance. It tops the list of my all time favorite movies. I am yet to see a movie which can beat it.

References:

1. “Eye of the Serpent” by Randor Guy.

2.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antha_Naal

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