Kalathur Kannamma

<p>Rajalingam is the only son of Ramalingam, the of Kalathur. Kannamma is the daughter of Murugan, a farmer of the same place. On the zamindar advice, Murugan sends his daughter to for higher education. While returning from Madras, Kannamma meets Raja in the train. Noticing her respect and awe for the zamindar, Raja calls himself an electrician visiting the palace. They fall in love. A few days later, Kannamma learns the truth and to reassure her, Raja marries her secretly in a temple. Two days later, Raja has to go abroad for higher studies. During his absence, Ramalingam learns of the marriage and orders Kannamma to forget his son. Moved by the zamindar feelings, Kannamma promises never to mention their marriage to anyone. Ramalingam arranges Murugan and the now pregnant Kannamma to stay in a nearby town, Sevalpatti. Murugan, who is ashamed of Kannamma’s secret marriage, leaves Kannamma’s newborn son in an orphanage and lies that the child was stillborn. They both decide to leave the place and settle in . When Raja returns, he learns that Kannamma had left Kalathur. His inquiries in Sevalpatti lead him to believe that Kannamma had led an immoral life. Grief-stricken, he travels from place to place to forget Kannamma and takes to drinking as a last resort. In Bangalore, he encounters Kannamma in a dancer’s house where she had come to teach the dancer’s daughter. Her presence in the house and reticence to Raja’s questions strengthens his belief that Kannamma is a woman of ill repute and in disgust, he returns home. Kannamma’s son Selvam grows up into an intelligent boy and is living in the orphanage in Sevalpatti. Murugan visits the orphanage and on meeting Selvam, decides to shift to Sevalpatti to be near him. Kannamma becomes a teacher in Selvam’s school and feels attracted to him. She invites him to stay with her but he refuses as he has to look after Mani, a lame orphan living with him. Raja is invited to Sevalpatti by Singaram, a rich merchant who wants to marry his daughter Maduram to him, to preside over a school function. Raja takes a fascination for Selvam who acts in the school play. After the play ends, he encounters Kannamma again and orders the headmistress to dismiss her. Mani is critically ill and Selvam turns to Raja for help. Raja brings a doctor who is unable to save Mani. Raja takes Selvam with him to the palace. At Selvam’s insistence, he stops drinking and to give him a mother, decides to marry Maduram. A seriously ill Murugan confesses to Kannamma that her child is not dead and reveals the identity of Selvam. Kannamma tries to contact Selvam but does not find him in the orphanage. The news shocks Murugan and to soothe his nerves, they move back to Kalathur. In the local temple, Kannamma meets Selvam and tells him that she is his mother. On learning from him that Raja is bringing him up and is marrying shortly to find him a mother, she asks him not to mention anything about her to Raja. Maduram learns from Selvam that he is the son of Raja, after which Singaram insists on a written undertaking that the properties of Raja would go to the children of Maduram only. The news of this conflict spreads in the village. On learning this, Murugan rushes to the palace to tell everyone the true identity of Selvam but collapses near the palace gate. Kannamma, who has followed, takes Selvam and tries to move away when she is intercepted by Raja who demands the boy back. Raja refuses to believe that Selvam is Kannamma’s son and abuses Kannamma for her shameless life. Ramalingam observes that even in such a humiliating situation, Kannamma is silent and does not breathe a word about her promise to him. He is moved and acknowledges her as his daughter-in-law. Selvam is united with his parents, and Raja’s marriage with Maduram is cancelled. After assisting in producing films for , his sons , Murugan, Kumaran discussed producing one on their own with his son-in-law Arun Veerappan. Their mother Rajeswari told Meiyappan about this, and he gave his consent. The first story the brothers discussed was , but it did not shape up well. Unwilling to make a half-baked story as their inaugural production, Saravanan continued searching. Vellaichaami, an ex-employee of AVM, told Saravanan that had been discussing a story with Meiyappan. Saravanan inquired further and learned that the story was . However, Meiyappan told Seetharaman that while the story was good, AVM could not film it. When Saravanan and his brothers learned that Seetharaman was in discussions with another production company, they ran to Meiyappan and told him that they were interested in Seetharaman’s story; to their relief, Meiyappan revealed that Seetharaman would be visiting him that afternoon. After Seetharaman realised that Saravanan and his brothers were interested, he willingly gave them his story, which evolved into . Impressed with ‘s work in (1956) and (1958), Saravanan and his brothers considered he would be best to direct . This decision was questioned, given that AVM had its own “director unit” of which Prakash Rao was not a part. Though AVM paid its directors salaries ranging from (equivalent to 1.3 million or US$16,000 in 2023) to (equivalent to 1.8 million or US$21,000 in 2023), Prakash Rao charged (equivalent to 3.6 million or US$43,000 in 2023)—twice as much. Meiyappan, not wanting to be an obstacle to his sons’ enthusiasm, approved Prakash Rao’s salary. Despite Saravanan’s desire, the credit of producing the film was given to Meiyappan, Kumaran, and Arun Veerappan. The story by Seetharaman was loosely adapted from two sources: the play by the , and the 1960 Chinese film . Cinematography was handled by T. Muthuswamy, editing by S. Surya, and art direction by H. Shantaram. worked as an assistant director, this being his first stint with film. , his last name credited as Ganesh, was cast as Rajalingam and as the title character Kannamma. The former was paid a salary of (equivalent to 6.7 million or US$80,000 in 2023) after initially negotiating for (equivalent to 8.1 million or US$96,000 in 2023). was originally chosen to play Rajalingam and Kannamma’s son Selvam, after AVM were impressed with her performance in (1957). Sara Ramachandran, the family doctor of AVM, came to the AVM household with four-year old . Sara told Rajeswari that Haasan had come to meet Meiyappan as he aspired to become an actor; Haasan was eventually taken by Saravanan to Meiyappan, who asked him to act like Irani. Impressed with Haasan’s performance in the audition, Meiyappan decided to replace Irani with him. Though Saravanan protested as Irani had already been already booked for the role and paid an advance of (equivalent to 900,000 or US$11,000 in 2023), Meiyappan remained adamant as he felt Haasan was fresher and brighter than Irani. , who portrayed Maduram, received a salary of (equivalent to 310,000 or US$3,700 in 2023). The song “Kangalil Vaarthaigal Puriyatho” was shot with many mango trees in the background. When it was decided to reshoot parts of the song, the mangoes were no longer in the trees since the season had ended. Hence, it was decided to reshoot the necessary scenes with fake mangoes hanging from the trees. The first shot filmed on Haasan was a scene featuring Kannamma feeding him . The song “Ammavum Neeye Appavum Neeye”, picturised on Selvam, was recorded with three minutes duration, but Prakash Rao filmed its video to be only one-and-a-half minutes long. Meiyappan insisted to shoot the entire song so that Selvam could be established, and reshoot other scenes he was not satisfied with. Prakash Rao felt Meiyappan was interfering creatively and expressed his desire to quit the film, although up to nearly 8,000 feet (2,400 m) had been canned. Though Meiyappan was hesitant, Prakash Rao convinced him and left. AVM later hired , under whose direction the film was completed. Although Bhimsingh offered to retain Prakash Rao’s name in the credits, he declined. When Saravanan found another company made a film on the same plot as , he decided to release as soon as possible. However Meiyappan wanted to reshoot certain scenes which Saravanan was not interested in. Meiyappan felt the presentation was more important than the plot so as per his suggestion, the scenes were reshot. The final length of the film was 17,570 feet (5,360 m). The music was composed by , while the lyrics were penned by , , , and T. K. Sundara Vathiyar. For the song “Arugil Vanthaal”, Kannadasan came up with 56 or 58 , of which eight were finalised. The song “Aadatha Manamum” is set in the known as . For the song “Ammavum Neeye”, the makers were not satisfied with any of the tunes composed by Sudarsanam. When violinist Chengalvarayan composed the tune of “Ammavum Neeye” on his violin, Sudarsanam created a complete tune out of it. The soundtrack received positive response, with “Ammavum Neeye” being singled out for praise. was released on 12 August 1960, and received mostly positive reviews. On 11 September 1960, praised Kamal Haasan’s performance and described as one of the best films in Tamil to that point. The Madras-based film magazine said, “A new star rises on the movie horizon”. The article by film journalist, K. Vasudevan, praised the performance of Haasan. Kanthan of lauded the performances of the various cast members, including Subbaiah and Balaiah, and said the film could be watched once. The film was a major commercial success, running for over 100 days in theatres. It won the – Certificate of Merit for the Third Best Feature Film in 1961, and Haasan’s performance earned him the . was dubbed in as , which was released on 20 October 1960. The film was also remade in the same language as (1969). Bhimsingh later remade the film in as (1962), where “Ammavum Neeye” was re-used as “Tumhi Ho Mata”. The film was also remade in as (1963), while the Hindi version was remade as the same year. In (1993), Vellasamy ( ) as a beggar sings “Mummy-um Neeye” to the tune of “Ammavum Neeye”. In (1998), footage of “Ammavum Neeye” is used in the title credits and Selvam morphs into Ramalingam (Haasan); he and Sundaralingam ( ) along with children are seen singing this song to a garbage bin.</p>