The film was an emotion-drenched family drama, or what is known as ‘four hankie movie’, and was highlighted by the excellent performances of Nageswara Rao, Kannamba, Savithri and Ranga Rao. Savithri sadly underrated was one of the finest actresses of Indian Cinema who could be compared with Meena Kumari of Hindi Cinema. Indeed after her departure Tamil Cinema is yet to produce an actress who could be equated with her even in a small way. The film also had pleasing music (M. Venu, lyrics Udumalai Narayana Kavi, Marudakasi, K. S. Gopalakrishnan, the later day successful filmmaker). Both versions fared well at the box office.

A. S. A. Sami one of the successful writer-directors of Tamil Cinema with many hits to his credit made another hit film this year
“Karpukarasi”, which had Gemini Ganesh and Savithri in the lead supported by M. K. Radha, G. Varalakshmi, and E. V. Saroja, Nambiar, Thangavelu and others. It was scripted by Sami and noted Tamil writer of his day, Aru. Ramanathan, who for sometime worked on screen stories. The original story was contributed by Sivasundaram and the film was produced by Jupiter Pictures at Madras by M. Somasundaram. The film celebrated 100 days in many places and added one more feather to Sami’s already crowded cap!

Gemini Ganesh had a successful year with quite a few films in his bag. Besides “Karpukarasi” he played the hero in “Sowbagyavathi”… “Manalaney Mangaiyin Bhagyam” a folklore produced by Anjali Devi who also played the lead role… “Mallika”, (a Joseph Thaliath-Citadel offering) he costarred with Padmini… “Yaar Payyan” (a remake of a
Bengali story directed by T. R. Raghunath, it was produced by N. S. Krishnan-T. A. Mathuram family and had Savithri in the lead role along with NSK, T. R. Ramachandran and others).

The biggest hit was of course the Vijaya Productions two language box office bonanza “Maya Bazaar” produced by Nagi Reddi-Chakrapani and directed by south Indian movie maestro K.V. Reddi. Even though the “Maya Bazaar” story has been filmed many times in Indian Cinema there is no such episode in the epic ‘Mahabharatha’. It was a creation of the Parsee drama companies who staged it with success in Bombay which expectedly found many avatars including Tamil and Telugu.

It had all the elements and characteristics of a Vijaya Production like tuneful music, dances, comedy, impressive performances and of course the scintillating onscreen narration of the master Reddi.

N. T. Rama Rao playing Lord Krishna came to be hailed as the 20th century avatar of the original. He became so popular in godly roles that later in a Lord Krishna temple in a small town in Andhra Pradesh, the presiding deity had NTR’s face! Ironically he played Krishna in an earlier film but made no impression and many felt that he should not have been cast as Krishna. Well, that’s movies as they say.

S. V. Ranga Rao as Gatojgaja, son of Bhima excelled himself in that role and one song ‘kalyana samaiyal saadham…’ (voice Tiruchi Loganathan, music Ghantasala, lyrics Thanjai Ramaiahdas) became a super hit and is still popular after half century and more.

Indeed Ghantasala’s music came in for much praise. The Telugu version of the movie was also a money spinning bonanza. A. Nageswara Rao played Abhimanyu (Gemini Ganesh’s role)

V. Srinivasan, later Muktha Srinivasan one of the most successful personalities of Tamil Cinema took his bow in “Mudhalali” produced by M. A. Venu and shot at Ratna Studios, Salem. Written by the forgotten writer A. K. Venkataramanujam it had the fast rising S. S. Rajendran as hero with Devika in one of her early major roles in the lead. Others in the cast included T. K. Ramachandran, M. N. Rajam, C. T. Rajakantham and others. It was produced on a small budget and turned out to be a surprise package of the year. For its thematic content of social relevance it won the National award for the Best Tamil Film. Music (K. V. Mahadevan, lyrics Ka. Mu. Sheriff) contributed in its own way with some songs becoming popular. After the success of this film
Devika and Srinivasan began to rise fast to have successful careers in their own spheres.

Venkatachari Srinivasan began his life in a humble manner and after toying for a while in student politics he joined thanks to his brother V. Ramaswami then working for T. R. Sundaram of Modern Theatres. After working at many levels he became an assistant director in Modern Theatres under Sundaram. He also worked as an assistant director in AVM studios and the off beat Tamil movie classic “Andha Naal” saw him as an assistant under S. Balachandar. He also worked in Central Studios when it was under the lease of Jupiter Pictures honing his talents and skills under movie makers like S. Balachandar and L. V. Prasad. Then came his debut in “Mudhalali”.

(To be continued)