''Rajambal'' is a 1951 Indian,

Tamil language Tamil (; ' , ) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia. Tamil is an official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the sovereign nations of Sri Lanka and Singapore, and the Indian territory of Pudu ...

film directed by R. M. Krishnaswamy. The film featured

R. S. Manohar Rasipuram Subramaniyan Iyer Manohar was an Indian actor who performed roles ranging from hero to villain to comedic characters. He was born at Namakkal in 1925. He acted in over 200 films. He is known for his versatility and dominating personal ...

and P. K. Saraswathi in the lead roles.

Plot

The story is of a judicial officer who misuses his office to achieve his personal needs.

Cast

List adapted from the film's song book ;Male cast *

Manohar Manohar is a surname and given name. Notable people with the name include: ;given name * Manohar Ajgaonkar, Indian politician * Manohar Das, 17th century Indian Hindu painter * Manohar Joshi, politician * Manohar Lal Chibber, soldier * Manohar L ...

as Gopalan *

S. Balachander Sundaram Balachander (18 January 1927 – 13 April 1990) was an Indian veena player and filmmaker. He directed, produced, and also composed music for a few of his films. Balachander was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1982. He died of a hear ...

as Natesan *

K. Sarangapani Kumbakonam Sarangapani (1904-1984) was an Indian actor who worked mainly in Tamil cinema Tamil cinema, also known as Kollywood is a part of Indian Cinema; primarily engaged in production of motion pictures in the Tamil language. Based ou ...

as Detective Govindan *

B. R. Panthulu Budaguru Ramakrishnaiah Panthulu (26 July 1910 – 8 October 1974) was an Indian film director, producer and actor. He is best known for directing films in Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Hindi. His most popular films are '' Karnan'', ''Veerapandiya ...

as Saminatha Sastri * M. V. Mani as Lawyer Duraisami Iyengar * (Friend) Ramasami as Ramanna * T. N. Sivathanu as Neelamega Sastri * Stunt Somu as Narasimhalu Naidu * P. Sundar Rao as Manavala Naidu * Kulathu Mani as Judge * V. K. Karthikeyan as Murugan * T. V. Sethuraman as Muniyan ;Female cast * P. K. Saraswathi as Rajambal *

Madhuri Devi Madhuri Devi (19 September 1927 – June 1990) was a lead actress in Tamil films from the late 1940s until the 1950s. She has paired opposite leading heroes like M. K. Thyagaraja Bhagavathar and M. G. R and known for acting in the films ''Ma ...

as Lokasundari * C. R. Rajakumari as Balambal *

T. P. Muthulakshmi T. P. Muthulakshmi (Native name: தமிழ்: டி. பி. முத்துலட்சுமி) was an Indian actress who was active from the 1950 to 1969. She was a prominent lead comedy actress during the early 1950s in Tamil langu ...

as Kanakavalli * C. K. Saraswathi as Mangalam * K. S. Angamuthu as Pankajam * P. S. Gnanam as Pavadai * K. S. Adilakshmi as Rukmani

Production

The film was produced by V. C. Subbaraman and M. Radhakrishnan together with R. M. Krishnaswamy who also directed the film and handled the cinematography. C. V. Raju and Paul G. Yadav did the editing. The screenplay was based on a stage play with the same name written by J. R. Rangaraju. Dialogues were penned by

A. T. Krishnaswamy A. T. Krishnaswamy (1905–1987) was an Indian director best known for the film ''Sabapathy''. Career Krishnaswamy joined the A. V. Meiyappan unit as an assistant during the mid-1930s and worked on all AVM projects. He made his directorial d ...

. T. V. Sarma was in charge of art direction while the choreography was done by Kumar. Still photography was done by R. N. Nagaraja Rao. The film was processed at

Vijaya Vijaya may refer to: Places * Vijaya (Champa), a city-state and former capital of the historic Champa in what is now Vietnam * Vijayawada, a city in Andhra Pradesh, India People * Prince Vijaya of Sri Lanka (fl. 543–505 BC), earliest recorde ...

laboratory. This film is the debut for

whose real-life name was R. S. Lakshminarasimhan. He was working in the Postal Department and was acting in stage dramas as an amateur artiste. This is the second version of the stage play. It was filmed earlier in 1935 with the same title, Rajambal directed by A. Narayanan.

Trivia

Film historian

Randor Guy Madabhushi Rangadorai (born 8 November 1937), better known by his pen name Randor Guy, is an Indian lawyer, columnist and film and legal historian associated with the English language newspaper ''The Hindu''. He is also the official editor of the ...

says when the producer went to renew the certificate, the then Regional Censor Officer G. T. Sastri, who was the toughest ever censor officer, not only refused to renew the certificate but also asked to surrender the negatives of the film as the subject of the story "was illegal, immoral and anti-social!"

Soundtrack

Music for songs was composed by M. S. Gnanamani while background score was by

. The lyrics were penned by

A. Maruthakasi A. Maruthakasi (13 February 1920 – 29 November 1989) was an Indian poet and film lyricist who wrote mainly in the Tamil language. He penned more than 4000 lyrics in more than 250 Tamil films. Early life Born in Melakudikadu in Tiruchirappal ...

and Ku. Sa. Krishnamoorthy. Singers are

and

while the

playback singer A playback singer, also known as a ghost singer, is a singer whose singing is pre-recorded for use in films. Playback singers record songs for soundtracks, and actors or actresses lip-sync the songs for cameras; the actual singer does not app ...

s are

A. M. Rajah Aemala Manmadharaju Rajah, popularly known as A. M. Rajah, was an Indian playback singer and music director. Early life A. M. Rajah was born on 1 July 1929 in Cchamanchipuram, Chittoor District, Andhra Pradesh. His father died when he was thr ...

V. N. Sundaram V. N. Sundaram (1918-2009) was an Indian Stage and Film actor, Carnatic singer and Playback singer who sang mostly in Tamil-language films. Early life Born in 1918 in Visalur - a village in Kumbakonam Taluk of Thanjavur district, he was named ...

Thiruchi Loganathan Thiruchi Loganathan (24 July 1924 – 17 November 1989) was a playback singer of the Tamil film industry. He is known for his work in movies such as ''Manthiri Kumari'' (1950) and '' Parasakthi'' (1952). He was married to Rajalakshmi, daughter ...

M. L. Vasanthakumari Madras Lalitangi Vasanthakumari (popularly referred to as MLV) (3 July 1928 – 31 October 1990) was a Carnatic musician and playback singer for film songs in many Indian languages. MLV and her contemporaries D. K. Pattammal and M. S. Subbulak ...

P. Leela Porayathu Leela (19 May 1934 – 31 October 2005) was an Indian playback singer, Carnatic vocalist and a music director. She has recorded more than 5,000 songs in various Indian languages including Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Hindi, ...

and A. G. Rathnamala.

Reception

The film fared moderately at the box office and is "Remembered for R. S. Manohar’s film debut, ‘Veena’ Balachandar’s performance and background score and for being the first production of RMK."

References

{{reflist Indian films based on plays Films scored by M. S. Gnanamani 1950s Tamil-language films