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Balaji,
sure,we will continue to post in english and I agree with your point .That is why I am still making posts in english ,though my english is poor..But that particular post I just reproduced charan's writing in vikatan..Actually I didn't just copied since It was not unicode..I retyped for everybody here.
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Balaji, thanks...I do sincerely try to visit...but both work and laziness are extremely possessive mistresses.Joe,my friend your english is A OK.Communication is more than Language, it is the "unarvugal"...that is clearly evident in this thread more than anywhere else in the forum.....Here we praise NT, we do not trash the others, we share statistical info on his films, words of songs, details of what we appreciate in him, and the greats who acted with him,ever remembering that,he alone could not have scaled those dizzying heights...it was a Savithri,A Ranga Rao,An M R Radaha,a Balaiah,a chandrababu, a TMS,an MSV, a Kannadasan and a whole host of others
who helped NT.....SO THIS THREAD IS POSITIVE....WE ARE THEREFORE THE BEST...KEEP IT UP. :clap: :thumbsup:
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Dear Mohanram Sir,
Thanks for your compliments. I have sent a pm to you.
Dear Balaji,
Thanks. Ettrukonden. Yes you are right. In 1977, RV contested against Maran from South Madras and won by around 20000 votes. It was the only constituency in Chennai that retuned ADMK -Congress alliance candidate in 1977 P.elections. Asaithambi of DMK won against Nanjil Manoharan of ADMK from North Madras & P.Ramachandran (Paa Raa) of Janata won against Raja Mohamed of ADMK from Central Madras.
Joe.
Thanks for Clarification.
Regards
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I think only NT got the privlilege of acting MAYOR for a day. This was happened when he got the award in cairo for VEERAPANDIYA KATTABOMMAN. :thumbsup:
ramesh
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Before proceeding further with NT’s political career, let me answer the questions raised by Kalanayak. Of course it is true that some people left NT and switched over to opposite camp but NT did not force the reasons.
Let us take BRBandhulu first. He started making movies with NT from School Master (Guest role), Sabash Meena, VBK, KTamizhan, Bale Pandiya & finally went on to make Karnan. By any standards it was an excellent movie and NT was all flesh and blood as Karnan. Padmini Pictures (BRB’s production company name) had taken up the distribution also for Karnan that was released on 14.01.1964. It was a big budget movie and in those days there will be maximum of 50 prints that will be getting released, unlike today where 200 prints are the order of the day. The ticket rates were very low and you cannot charge a flat rate. So any investment on cinema will have to be recovered slowly. For Karnan also, the recovery was slow and coupled with the interest factor, BRB was feeling the pinch. Based on these factors, people say that Karnan was not successful. On the contrary, it ran well and in our Madurai, it ran for 100 days in Thangam Theatre, the biggest in Asia. One small digression here is NT was the only actor who had given three 100 days movies in Thangam. They are
1.Parasakthi 112 Days
2.Padikatha Medhai 112 Days
3.Karnan 108 Days.
No other actor has this credit. (Digression ends).
So BRB went to NT and explained to him the situation and NT immediately gave call sheet and started Muradan Muthu and he acted in that movie FREE OF COST. The movie was progressing. At this time BRB came up with another demand. Karnan was NT’s 94th movie and Pachai Vilakku, Andavan Kattalai & Kai Kodutha Deivam were on the floors and was scheduled to release in that order. APN at that point of time came up with an interesting project and NT immediately gave the nod after hearing the story. That was none other than Navarathiri. NT sensing the novelty had agreed that it would be his 100th movie. Now BRB wanted MM to be the 100th movie. Here again NT’s magnanimity comes to the fore. His own production house Sivaji Films had been launched and the first movie under that banner Puthiya Paravai was on the floors. If he had wanted he could have easily made PP as his 100th movie. But he went on to release it as his 98th movie in Sep, 1964. Now both MM & Navarathiri were nearing completion and BRB was bent upon in releasing that as 100th movie. Any amount of persuasion will not desist him and he announced the release date as Deepavali (i.e.) Nov 3rd. Navarathiri was also charted for Deepavali. NT the ever gentleman he is did not put any hurdles and he completed dubbing for MM, unlike modern day heroes who stop dubbing at the drop of a hat. BRB went ahead but NT & VCShanmugam decided to honour the commitment given to APN. To avoid confusion at a future date (which will you consider as 100th movie, if both got released on the same date), they advised APN and accordingly APN released it on the next day (i.e.) 4th Nov. This estranged BRB who switched over. But as pointed out here, except A.Oruvan, others failed to strike it rich. In fact BRB was in deep trouble when MMSP was dragging and he died as a heart broken person deep in debts and movie just half complete. A magazine had brought out a booklet in 1970, (during the conference that I had mentioned earlier) listing from Parasakthi to Raman Ethanai Ramandi. Each page will have a still from that movie and below NT’s comments will appear about the movies. There were 139 movies and some of the comments by NT are still fresh in my mind. For Nenjirikkum Varai, he would have said Ninaivirukkum, For Thanga Surangam, the comment was Naan James Bond-am, Ha! Ha! Ha! . For MM, he would have said “Nanbargal Pirinthanar”.
Sridhar started his career as a screenplay writer and for NT, he wrote Ethirparathathu, an anti sentiment film in 50s and Uthama Puthiran also had Sridhar’s screenplay. Sridhar & NT had another unforgettable movie and that was Amara Depam. NT-Sridhar combo went on to give Vidi Velli (the film was produced under Prabhu Ram pictures, does it sound a bell?) & Punar Jenmam in the early 60s. After a break (during which Sridhar did N.O.Aalayam, N.Marapathilai, Then Nilavu, K.Neramillai & Vennira Adai), NT & Sridhar came back with 3 films in succession. Nenjirikkum Varai, O.V.Uravu & Sivantha Mann all came in that order and if you include Dharthi (the Hindi version of S.Mann, where NT played the role done by Muthuraman in Tamil. It had Rajendra Kumar & Waheeda Rahman in the lead) it was 4 in a row. An interesting info about SM was Sridhar had announced this movie in 1965 with MGR in the lead and the name was Andru Sinthiya Ratham. A day’s shoot was done and Sridhar could not proceed as MGR’s tantrums started and eventually Sridhar shelved the project. SM was a big budget movie and since it was made in 2 languages simultaneously, the production cost was very high. It was also the first Tamil movie to be shot in foreign locales & the pre release hype was huge. Sridhar’s Chithralaya Pictures did the same mistake done by BRB and they released SM directly on Nov 9th, 1969. The same reasons that plagued Karnan affected SM also. But SM like Karnan did run for more than 100 days in many centres. But may be a mega hit eluded it. Still Sridhar announced Hero-72 in 1973 with NT and the production was delayed. Mean while Sridhar & MGR patched up and Urimai Kural was launched and Sridhar encountered problems during shooting but the movie made it to theatres in 1974. Hero-72 became Vaira Nenjam and got released in 1975, but it didn’t do well. Sridhar & MGR again launched Meenava Nanban & Anna Nee En Deivam. MN was completed and released in 1977 but ANED was not completed. MGR became CM and that was cited as the reason. But when MGR had 4 months at his disposal in 1980, when his Government was dismissed, the producers approached him but he was not game for the shooting. It is another sad irony that the producers JR movies after producing 3 successful movies with NT (Enga Mama, Gnana Oli & Mannavan Vanthanadi) switched camps along with Sridhar and suffered eventually. NT even after all these happenings gladly accepted the name of Sridhar as director when Stills Sarathy wanted to make a movie with NT in the lead and Mohana Punnagai was born.
APN’s case was the most pathetic of the three. He having given great hits with NT had no reason to switch over. His series of Bakthi films were all Super hits except say Thirumal Perumai but even this was made up with the Super Duper success of Thillana (1968), a film that was also critically acclaimed. After this he did Guru Dhakshinai (* ing NT, JJ & Padmini) in 1969. This movie promised much in the first half, but fell flat in the second half and eventually failed at the BO. After this there was a hiatus in the sense that NT- APN combo films were not there for a while. But when Anand Theatre Umapathy wanted to do Raja Raja Chozhan with NT, only one name was considered and that was APN. RRC as you know was the first Tamil movie in Cinemascope and again it was a big budget movie with huge expectations. APN who had written a beautiful screenplay for Thillana from Kothamangalam Subbu’s novel unfortunately failed to recreate that magic when he was asked to do it from TKShanmugam’s play. Though a mega hit eluded RRC, it still had a decent run (I don’t know whether it was a cruel coincidence, here also Anand movies released it directly throughout TN). That was to be the last NT-APN movie. But here APN did not loose anything, as he was only the Director. But as fate would have its way, he started Navarathinam with MGR and his worst days started. He could not cope with the whims and fancies of MGR and the shooting was just going on. Then once it was completed MGR put a break on rerecording and dubbing. When APN was almost pleading with MGR, the final condition came up and that was APN should launch his next movie with MGR. APN had no other go and announced Pilot Raju with MGR in the lead. A day’s shooting on the Pooja day with MGR in Pilot’s attire took place and finally Navarathinam saw the light of the day on Mar 5th, 1977. Alas, APN neck deep in debts breathed his last on April 5th, 1977 just a month later. NT was the first to arrive and paid his last respects and his condolence message gave a glimpse of NT’s love for him and APN’s misunderstanding.
So if you see, all the three who left NT suffered and it is another irony that PMadhavan & ACT who left MGR after a single movie (PM after Deiva Thai & ACT after Anbe Vaa) joined with NT to give superb movies and they never suffered.
Regards
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Murali ACT was AVM's aasthana dir for sometime and he directed Anbe vaa.
so it cant be treated as ACT-MGR combination
and above All AnbeVaa is the superb movie in all aspects and AVM is proud of producing it
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Murali Srinivas,
Your write up is great to answer the questions I raised. As Tacinema told, ego clash between great persons brings misunderstanding and stops the continuation of the good work done by them. There are many examples for this in the Tamil Cinema industry itself.
In these directors cases, not only we, the fans are unfortunate but themselves. I feel if BRB and APN had continued with NT, they would have brought some more great films.
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Murali,
Excellent write up. You have an amazing and sharp memory power, remembering event dates so accurately.
On behalf of Sivaji fans, I appreciate your great work. Please continue.
You are right about Madurai Thangam theater and NT's history of running 3 movies over 100 days here. My uncle used to say that this NT's record at Thangam theater was beaten not by MGR, but by Gemini. It looks like one of Gemini's movie ran over 125 days there. You can confirm this news.
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Dear kalnayak, tac
Thanks.
tac,
Your uncle is right.Gemini's (or rather KSG's) Panama? Paasama? ran for 140 days in Thangam and grossed Rs 4.40 Lakhs, which was the bench mark for highest collected movie in Madurai, till Pattikaada Pattanama broke the same when it went past this gross in 115 days, in Madurai-Central, a smaller one compared to Thangam.
Rajesh,
You have a point there. But what I meant was directors who came from that side to this, did not undergo the ordeals faced by the other three.
Regards
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Murali,
Your posts need to be preserved.Keep up the great work..I amazed with your knowledge and memory.Expecting your next post in politics.