Bhuvana Oru Kelvi Kuri

<p>Nagaraj and Sampath are garment salesmen and roommates in . While Sampath is a straightforward person who believes in honesty, Nagaraj is a , in contrast to Sampath who believes in true love. Sampath’s lover Raji, while fleeing from a rogue bull, dies due to an accident. A depressed Sampath attempts suicide, but Nagaraj stops him, and Sampath decides to stop selling garments, instead confining himself to remaining Nagaraj’s assistant. Aboard a train bound for , Nagaraj and Sampath encounter Muthu, a temple trust clerk who has a suitcase full of cash. But Muthu dies of a heart attack and Nagaraj steals his suitcase, over Sampath’s objections. Muthu’s sister Bhuvana visits them at Nagercoil to enquire about the lost cash (which is all ). Nagaraj denies knowing anything, but Bhuvana remains suspicious. He pretends to love her; Bhuvana falls for his lust and has sex with him. Nagaraj uses some of the black money to open his own garment store. To make the rest of the money legitimate, he decides to marry Manohari, the daughter of a wealthy businessman. Bhuvana, pregnant by Nagaraj, refuses to abort the baby and wants Nagaraj to marry her, but he refuses. To save Bhuvana’s honour and help his friend, Sampath marries Bhuvana but they only share a , while Nagaraj marries Manohari and his business flourishes. Sampath wants to have a physical relationship with Bhuvana but she rejects him, saying he is like a god to her. Sampath raises Bhuvana’s son as his own. Meanwhile, Nagarajan and Manohari yearn for a child as the former has now become impotent due to his excessive libido. Nagaraj demands that his son be given to him for adoption but Bhuvana refuses. When the child becomes ill and needs an injection, Nagaraj enters into a bargain that he would give the medicine from his pharmacy, provided it is agreed that the child is given to him in adoption. However, Sampath arrives on time to deliver the injection and the child is saved. A short while later, Sampath succumbs to , the result of years of excessive smoking and drinking. Bhuvana prefers to live as his widow. Writer and director initially wanted to play a small role in a low-budget film. But after meeting him, the duo found him to have “brightness” and decided to cast him in “something bigger, better”. The film was , an adaptation of the novel of the same name by . Produced by N. S. Mani under the banner M. A. M. Films who earlier worked as production controller for AVM Productions, its screenplay was written by Arunachalam. The film was the first collaboration of Rajinikanth and Muthuraman, and was conceived during . The film had a role swap as , then known for playing clean and positive characters, played an while Rajinikanth, then an established villain, played a positive character Sampath. Muthuraman said he deliberately cast Rajinikanth against since he wanted to “experiment with his acting skills”. He also explained that his decision to shoot the film in black-and-white, rather than colour, was to save costs. Since Rajinikanth was not fluent in Tamil at that time, he was trained by S. L. Narayanan, who was popularly known by the prefix “Vaadhyar”. Cinematography was handled by Babu. Some scenes were filmed in Panagudi, Tirunelveli. A group song was shot in Tada area and it was decided that the song sequence could be shot in one day but due to a technical fault in the playback equipment which occurred when the half of the song scene was over, it was not possible to continue the shooting, the crew had no other option but to stay there for the night and finish the shoot next day. The film was initially shot with the ending of Sampath and Bhuvana ( ) marrying; however after watching the preview, Muthuraman felt Bhuvana’s purity seemed to have been spoiled when she was allowed to live together so the team discussed together various endings and half-heartedly agreed to the conclusion of Bhuvana living a widow’s life after Sampath’s death which was well received by audience. The film was edited by R. Vittal, and its final length measured 3,976.12 metres (13,045.0 ft). composed the music and Panchu Arunachalam wrote the lyrics. The song “Vizhiyile” is set in the known as , and “Poonthendrale” is set in . In June 2013, A. Muthusamy of Honey Bee Music released a version of the soundtrack. was released on 2 September 1977. The film shocked audiences who were used to seeing Rajinikanth in negative roles, and Sivakumar in heroic roles. Nevertheless, it won the and Muthuraman won the award at the . Rajinikanth’s performance earned him the Thirai Kathir Award for Best Supporting Actor. In 1978, the critic from stated that although dealt with social questions, it “neither had the motivation nor the justification very much essential to make a film realistic; at best [it] appeared frivolous.” praised the performances of the cast, dialogues and direction but panned the humour and music. The success of paved way for Rajinikanth the opportunity to do more hero oriented films. Although Sivakumar’s fans disliked seeing him play a negative character, he received numerous offers to play negative roles following this film’s success, and felt accepting to play Nagaraj was a mistake; he elaborated, “I do not wish to be typed either as a goody- goody leading man or a villain. I would like to act all types of roles.” Muthuraman called it one of the favourite films he had directed. Film producer and writer wrote that it is one of five films Rajinikanth considers “close to his heart”; the other four are (1978), (1979) and (1982) and (1985).</p>