Gulebakavali

<p>A king has two wives. He banishes his first wife as an astrologer told him that he would lose his vision because of her son Dasan. The mother and son live in the woods and when he meets his father without knowing his identity, the king loses his sight. When the son gets to know about the sad tale from his mother, he sets out to bring a rare flower from the kingdom of Bakavali, which would restore the king’s sight. To achieve it, Dasan undergoes many adventures — enters into a debate with the queen Bakavali and wins the battle of wits, challenges a woman Lakbesha held captive by a crook Sukur in a fake dice contest, and rescues a slave dancer Mehmoodha of a tribal chief. Dasan wins them all and succeeds in getting the flower along with the three women who turn out to be princesses and siblings. Meanwhile, his stepbrothers try to steal the flower, but are exposed. is the second Tamil film to be based on the story from the Arabic folklore collection , following a 1935 film. The film also involved a fight sequence between lead actor M. G. Ramachandran and a lion. , who wrote the screenplay, also wrote the songs’ lyrics. The soundtrack was composed by the duo and all lyrics were written by Thanjai N. Ramaiah Dass. The song “Mayakkum Maalai” is one of the earliest film songs to be set in the named . It was originally composed by for Ramanna’s previous film (1954). As that film was getting delayed and the song was yet to be filmed, Ramanna instead used it in . Viswanathan–Ramamoorthy were credited as the composers instead of Mahadevan. was released on 29 July 1955, and was distributed by K. S. Pictures in Madras. The film became a commercial success. The 2018 film was named after this film, but with a different spelling. To connect these two films, director Kalyaan devised a “special flashback sequence”.</p>