Thamarai Kulam

<p>A greedy bars the villagers from using Thamaraikulam, the village tank. Under the leadership of Chellaiah, the son of a landowner, the villagers organise a revolution. Chellaiah goes to to seek help from his friend Sekhar. A series of complications follow which include the heroine being kidnapped and tortured, and Sekhar murdered. How Chellaiah and the villagers solve these problems forms the rest of the story. Credits adapted from : was produced under the banner Kalyani Pictures. Writer S. R. Natarajan and cinematographer S. R. Veerabahu were the producers, and was director. , then a struggling actor, was noticed by Srinivasan during a play in . Srinivasan, impressed with Nagesh’s comic performance, hired him to act in another comic role in , for a salary of 2500, though Nagesh revealed that the production company did not pay him the intended salary. The film thus became Nagesh’s cinematic acting debut. S. M. Ramkumar and Kameswaran served as the dance choreographers. Shooting took place at the now non-existent Golden Studios. The music was composed by H. Padmanabha Sarma and T. A. Mothi. The playback singers were , Mothi, , , S. C. Krishnan, A. P. Komala and ‘Nellore’ Janaki. was released on 14 April 1959. The film, which was written with themes, was not well received by viewers because, according to historian , “Tamil cinema was then dominated by movies of with accent on high-flown, alliterative dialogue”. Nagesh’s performance was panned by the Tamil magazine . Kanthan of the magazine appreciated Srinivasan’s direction and said the film could be watched once only for Radha’s performance.</p>