''Nizhal Nijamagiradhu'' () is a 1978 Indian Tamil-language film, directed by K. Balachander, starring

Kamal Haasan Kamal Haasan (born 7 November 1954) is an Indian actor, filmmaker, screenwriter, playback singer, television presenter and politician who works mainly in Tamil cinema and has also appeared in some Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi, Kannada and Bengali l ...

, Sarath Babu,

Sumithra Sumitra ( sa, सुमित्रा, IAST: Sumitrā) is a princess of Kashi in Hindu mythology. The wise Sumitra is the third queen consort of Dasharatha, the king of Kosala, who ruled from Ayodhya. She is the mother of the twins Lakshman ...

and Hanumanthu, and introduced Sobha. It was a remake of the Malayalam film '' Adimakal''.

Plot

Venkatachalam (Sarath Babu) and Indumathi (Sumithra) are siblings. Indumathi hates men and she is adamant that she will never get married. Sanjeevi (Kamal) is a friend of Venkatachalam and often visits his house. Sanjeevi likes Indumathi's attitude and starts teasing her many times, they often quarrel as well. Though Indumathi too starts liking him, she is too egotistical to show her romantic side to Sanjeevi as she doesn't want to remove her stubborn attitude "mask". Thilagam (Sobha) is a young girl from the village who comes to work as a servant in Venkatachalam's house. Her innocence draws Venkatachalam towards her and they get intimate. She becomes pregnant, but Venkatachalam refuses her. Thilagam is driven out of Venkatachalam's house and gets support from Sanjeevi and Kasi (Hanumanthu), a person who is hard of hearing, who also worked at Venkatachalam's house and has affection towards Thilagam. Sanjeevi provides Thilagam with lodging and requests Kasi to stay with her and look after her. Thilagam delivers a child. Months later, after Sanjeevi and Kasi appealed to his conscience, Venkatachalam repents and is ready to accept Thilagam, but she decides to live her life with Kasi, who took care of her during her pregnancy. Indumathi, meanwhile, throws away her "stubborn" mask and asks Sanjeevi to accept her. Sanjeevi accepts her love.

Cast

as Sanjeevi *

as Indumathi * Sobha as Thilagam * Sarath Babu as Venkatachalam *Hanumanthu as Kasi *

T. S. B. K. Moulee T. S. B. K. Moulee (born: March 14, 1947 Thiruvidaimarudur Sambamoorthy Ganapathy Balakrishna Sastrigal Mouli) is an Indian film director, writer, playwright, thespian and actor known for his works in Tamil cinema and Telugu cinema. His celluloi ...

as Manmatha Naidu * Oru Viral Krishna Rao as Kalimuthu * M. S. Sundari Bai as Ponnamma * K. Natraj as Ayyavu

Production

Sarath Babu was given a role in the film, after Balachander saw him at a function. His first shot was at Hyderabad. Balachandar cast Malayalam actress Shoba in a pivotal role in the film, but the delayed release of the film meant that Karaikkudi Narayanan's ''

Achaani ''Achani'' (''Accāṇi'', ) is a 1973 Indian Malayalam-language film, directed by A. Vincent and produced by K. Ravindran Nair. The film stars Prem Nazir, Nanditha Bose, Adoor Bhasi and Kottarakkara Sreedharan Nair. It tells the story of a ta ...

'' (1978) marked Shobha's debut as a lead actress in Tamil. Balachander gave

, who had directed films under Balachander's banner, the role of a "women-obsessed local tattler". Balachander, who used to watch Moulee's plays, liked his style of writing and wanted him to write a comedy track for the film. Mouli said that he was given the liberty by Balachander to insert comedy sequences wherever he wanted and that he wrote 16 scenes for the film. Balachander stated that he had an egotistical girl (Sumitra) fall for the macho antics of the hero (Kamal Hassan) "to lend credence and strength to the plot. Also, she provided a perfect contrast to the innocent victim Shobha, the other character". The final length of the film was .

Soundtrack

The music for this film was composed by

M. S. Viswanathan Manayangath Subramanian Viswanathan (24 June 1928 – 14 July 2015), also known as M.S.V., was an Indian music director, singer and actor who predominantly worked in Tamil film industry. He was popularly known as ''Mellisai Mannar''. He compose ...

Reception

Actor Maadhu Balaji said, "I must have watched ''Nizhal Nijamagiradhu'' 40 to 50 times". In 2008, actor and TV host Bosskey named ''Nizhal Nijamagiradhu'' among his three most favourite films. In 2005,

stated that ''Nizhal Nijamagirathu'' was far superior to '' Maro Charitra'', another Balachander film he was also part of, which was highly acclaimed and very successful.

References

External links

* {{K. Balachander 1970s Tamil-language films 1978 films Films directed by K. Balachander Films scored by M. S. Viswanathan Films with screenplays by K. Balachander Indian black-and-white films Tamil remakes of Malayalam films