''Sollathaan Ninaikkiren'' () is a 1973 Indian

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

-language film, written and directed by

K. Balachander Kailasam Balachander (9 July 1930 – 23 December 2014) was an Indian film maker and playwright who worked mainly in the Tamil cinema. He was well known for his distinct film-making style, and the Indian film industry knew him as a master of un ...

. Starring S. V. Subbaiah, Sivakumar,

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 ...

Jayachitra Jayachitra is an Indian actress films who works mostly in Tamil, Telugu and Kannada films. Early life Jayachitra was born in 1957. Her father Mahendra was a veterinary doctor, who had earlier worked as a lawyer. Her mother Ammaji (a.k.a. Ja ...

Srividya Srividya (24 July 1953 – 19 October 2006), also known as Sreevidya, was an Indian actress best known for her work predominantly in Malayalam and Tamil films, along with few Telugu, Kannada and Hindi films. In a career spanning for 40 years, ...

, Shubha and Jayasudha, it is based on the novel ''Ilavu Kaatha Kili'' () by Manian. The film was released on 7 December 1973. It was remade in

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

as ''Ammayilu Jagratha''. Balachander remade the film in

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

as ''

Sundara Swapnagalu ''Sundara Swapnagalu'' ( kn, ಸುಂದರ ಸ್ವಪ್ನಗಳು) is a 1986 Kannada melodrama film directed by K. Balachander and written by Maniyan. The film featured Sridhar in the main role, along with Ramesh Aravind, making his on-s ...

''.

Plot

Kamala, Manjula and Pushpa are sisters, each getting attracted to Raghavan, their tenant. Raghavan falls in love with Pushpa. However, things take a turn for the worse, when Pushpa sacrifices herself to the whims of Kamal, a playboy, to save her friend Sudha from his exploits. The three sisters ultimately marry other men, while Raghavan remains unmarried.

Cast

* S. V. Subbaiah as Sivaraman * Sivakumar as Raghavan *

as Kamal *

as Pushpa *

as Kamala * Shubha as Manjula * Jayasudha as Sudha *

Poornam Viswanathan Poornam Viswanathan (15 November 1921 – 1 October 2008) was an Indian actor who predominantly appeared in Tamil films. He started performing on stage at age 18. He worked as a reader for All India Radio and went on to act in films such as ''C ...

as Sudha's husband *

Master Sekhar J. V. Sekhar (7 January 1963 – 8 July 2003), better known as Master Sekhar, was an Indian child actor who predominantly appeared in Tamil and Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indi ...

as Kamal's brother

Production

''Sollathaan Ninaikkiren'' is based on the novel ''Ilavu Kaatha Kili'' by Manian. The novel had been performed over 100 times as a stage play. The novel was later made into a film by Manian and 'Vidhwan' Ve. Lakshmanan under the production banner Udhayam Productions. Thangappan Master was initially hired as the dance choreographer, but as K. Balachander objected to whom Kamal Haasan called "the traditional cinema dance master", and wanted a younger man, Haasan hired

Raghuram Raghuram (1 May 1949 – 30 November 2013) was an Indian dance choreographer, who choreographed more than a thousand songs in Indian films across various languages. He was born into a Tamil Brahmin Iyer family and is the grandson of actor Kri ...

. Haasan worked as an assistant director of this film. The final length of the film was .

Soundtrack

The music was composed by M. S. Viswanathan, with lyrics by Vaali.

Release and reception

''Sollathaan Ninaikkiren'' was released on 7 December 1973. ''

Ananda Vikatan ''Ananda Vikatan'' is a Tamil-language weekly magazine published from Chennai, India. History and profile ''Ananda Vikatan'' was started by Late Pudhoor Vaidyanadhaiyar in February 1926 as a monthly publication. The issue for December 1927 wa ...

'', in a review dated 30 December 1973, positively reviewed the film for Balachander's writing and the cast performances. Kanthan of ''

Kalki Kalki ( sa, कल्कि), also called Kalkin or Karki, is the prophesied tenth and final incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu. He is described to appear in order to end the Kali Yuga, one of the four periods in the endless cycle of exist ...

'' also liked the film. The film was remade in

as ''Ammayilu Jagratha''. Balachander remade the film in

as ''

''.

Legacy

The title of the film inspired a television series of same name, also produced by K. Balachander for Zee Tamil.

References

External links

* {{K. Balachander 1970s Tamil-language films 1973 drama films 1973 films Films based on Indian novels Films directed by K. Balachander Films scored by M. S. Viswanathan Films with screenplays by K. Balachander Indian black-and-white films Indian drama films Tamil films remade in other languages