Thirudathe

<p>Balu is a small-time thief. Once he happens to steal money from a woman. After his death the family becomes Balu’s responsibility, and his attitude toward stealing changes when his mother discovers her son was a thief and sacrifices her life. How the family is saved forms the rest of the story. The film, a remake of the film (1956), was directed by P. Neelakandan and V. Arunachalam under A. L. S. Productions, with story written by and dialogues written by and Ma. Lakshmanan. Lakshmanan came up with two titles for the film: ( ) and ( ), recommending the latter. objected, believing that audiences would think the title would represent his own opinion, and that the film actually exhorts people not to do wrong. Hence, the former title was finalised. was cast as the lead actress at Ramachandran’s insistence. The music was composed by . The song “Ennaruge Nee Irundhal” was composed by . It was recorded for an earlier film produced by A. L. S. Productions, but was not used due to that film’s length. With the permission of S. M. Subbaiah Naidu, producer A. L. Srinivasan used that song in this film. However, credit was not given to Viswanathan–Ramamoorthy in the title. was released on 23 March 1961. Kanthan of gave the film a favourable review for many aspects, including Neelakanta’s direction, the cast performances and the music. The film was a commercial success, running for 100 days in theatre. According to and in the book , for Ramachandran this marked a beginning of transition to roles that had “a contemporary setting”, as opposed to period settings. Historian M. S. S. Pandian considers the film “inaugurated the MGR persona of a subaltern in the service of society”, a trend that continued through the 1970s. In (1981), Gopi ( ) sells stolen goods on the street; when police seize the goods, the poster on which the items were kept is revealed to be that of .</p>