Chitthi
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

''Chitthi'' () is a 1966 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
drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...
written and directed by
K. S. Gopalakrishnan K. S. Gopalakrishnan was an Indian screenwriter, director, producer, and lyricist, who worked in Tamil, Malayalam and Hindi films. Since the early 1960s, he directed 70 films. He spent most of his career directing and producing movies with soc ...
. The film stars Padmini and
Gemini Ganesan Ramasamy Ganesan (17 November 1920 – 22 March 2005), better known by his stage name Gemini Ganesan, was an Indian actor who worked mainly in Tamil cinema. He was referred to as the ''Kaadhal Mannan'' (King of Romance) for his romantic roles ...
. It is based on the play ''Dayanidhi'' written by Vai. Mu. Kothainayaki Ammal. The film was remade in
Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...
as '' Aurat'' (1967), 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 ''Pinni'' (1967), 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 ''
Chikkamma ''Chikkamma'' is a 1969 Indian Kannada-language film, directed by R. Sampath and produced by M. Chandra Kumar and B. V. Anand. The film stars Rajkumar, Jayanthi, Balakrishna and Narasimharaju. The film had musical score by T. V. Raju. The fil ...
'' (1969), and in
Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam was des ...
as '' Achante Bharya'' (1971).


Plot

Meenakshi, the eldest daughter of a family of six sisters and one brother Balu, has one dream in her life; that is to make sure Balu becomes a
MBBS Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery ( la, Medicinae Baccalaureus, Baccalaureus Chirurgiae; abbreviated most commonly MBBS), is the primary medical degree awarded by medical schools in countries that follow the tradition of the United King ...
doctor. She has taken up job of domestic help to make both ends meet. However, she often struggles to pay her brothers tuition fees and ask for help from her employers and even her love interest , Muthaiya. But, unfortunately , there comes a situation where she is in desperate need of to pay Balu's college fees, and no one is able to lend her that money, including Muthaiya. In this turbulent situation, a marriage broker brings home a marriage alliance for Meenakshi from a millionaire widower named Periyasamy. Though not completely evil, Periyasamy is full of greed, arrogance, lust and attracted towards Meenakshi's beauty , He takes advantage of Meenakshi's poverty and her need for money to his favor. Meenakshi family , especially Balu, initially rebels against this marriage with Periyasamy and begs her sister not to marry Periayasamy and guarantees that he would work hard to bring her a right match. But Meenakshi firmly says that marriage cannot be avoided as she needs to to take care of Balu's studies , which would help him become a doctor and earn money to take care of his sisters future . Balu gives in and Meenakshi and Periyasamy gets married in a simple function. Periyasamy has a big family ; he has old mother and 7-8 children. The eldest son Mani is against his greed and arrogant behaviour and stays outside his bungalow. Periyasamy has a grown up daughter name Saroja, who takes immediate interest in Meenakshi sister Balu. Both are attracted towards each other. Periyasamy has 6 other children and youngest being 1 year old baby. Initially Periysaamy mother and children are hesitant to accept Meenakshi as Step-mother "chitti". But with her genuine and unconditional love, Meenakshi wins all their hearts. They children and mother-in-law accepts Meenakshi whole-heartedly. Periyasamy is unhappy that Meenakshi is avoiding getting closer to him in the pretext of taking care of the children especially the one year old baby. He accuses her several times that she is using the kids as excuses to have relationship with him ; He forces her to go to hotel to spend a night with him in a taxi. Mani drives the taxi and over hears the conversation with Periyasamy and Meenakshi and learns how kind hearted genuine person she is. Mani changes his opinion about Meenakshi and bonds with her. One fine day , Periyasamy gets hold of Saroja and Balu red-handedly and throws Balu out of his residence. Despite Meenakshi request , Periyasamy refuses to help Balu with his studies any further and stops supporting her family . Balu is forced to look out for job to feed his sisters ; At this juncture , Balu meets Mani who gives him a job as car cleaner. Balu readily accepts this job and thanks Mani for saving his family from starving. Mani overhears Balus call with his sister Saroja and decides to unite them. Mani also understands that Meenakshi has not been eating as she was thinking that her family is starving after Periyasamy stopped supporting them. Mani calls up Meenakshi to comfort her saying that he would take care of the family as well Balus final year studies. Finally the time comes to pay final year college fees for Balu and Mani is unable to collect the funds required to support Balu. Saroja then finally says that she would go to hotel to make some money . This was initially misunderstood by the VK Ramasamy son , VR Rajgopal that she is doing unethical job in the hotel to make money. Using the money Saroja gets from the stranger in the hotel , Balu is able to finish his college. In the meantime, Periysamy arranges marriage proposal for Saroja with Marudhu pillai (VK Ramasamy) son Anand(VR Rajgopal). When VR Rajagopal meets Saroja , he refuses the marriage proposal citing that he has seen Saroja several times getting money in hotel from stranger by unethical means. He also states that the taxi driver has witnessed that Saroja has visited hotel many times. Marudhu pillai insults Periyasamy and questions Sarojas character. Mani and saroja confirms that indeed Saroja has been to hotel to get money to sponsor Balus education. Meenakshi listens to Manis Sarojas confession and gets terribly upset and angry ; she becomes violent listening to this accusation and beats up saroja. Then Mani interferes and clarifies the ambiguity behind saroja visiting hotel. Mani clarifies that Saroja was meeting Muthiah (Gemini ganesan, Meenakshi former lover) who has now become a millionaire and helped paying the college fees. He won the family case and gained 4 lak rupees in his favor ; Using that money he has built the hotel ; Saroja met Muthiah in his hotel to get help to pay Balus college fees . This clears the air and every one realises their mistake, including Periyasamy. Periyasamy repents. Marudhu pillai apologises. Pariyasamy apologises to Balu and unites Saroja with him; Muthiah walks in and Meenakshi thanks him for the timely help. Muthiah shares the news that he has married a girl and introduces her to every , who is none other than Meenakshi's dumb sister. Meenakshi is overwhelmed with joy to see her sister married to Muthiah and her brother Balu united with Saroja. Story ends.


Cast

* Padmini as Meenakshi *
Gemini Ganesan Ramasamy Ganesan (17 November 1920 – 22 March 2005), better known by his stage name Gemini Ganesan, was an Indian actor who worked mainly in Tamil cinema. He was referred to as the ''Kaadhal Mannan'' (King of Romance) for his romantic roles ...
as Muthaiyya * Muthuraman as Balu *
Nagesh Nagesh (born Cheyur Krishnarao Nageshwaran; (27 September 1933 – 31 January 2009) was an Indian actor, mostly remembered for his roles as a comedian in Tamil films during the 1960s. Nagesh was born in Dharapuram. He acted in over 1,000 film ...
as Mani *
M. R. Radha Madras Rajagopalan Radhakrishnan (14 April 1907 – 17 September 1979) was an Indian actor and politician active in Tamil plays and films. He was given the title "Nadigavel" (spearhead of acting) by Periyar E. V. Ramasamy. He mostly play ...
as Periyasamy * V. K. Ramasamy * V. R. Rajagopal *
V. S. Raghavan V S Raghavan (18 February 1925 – 24 January 2015) was an Indian actor, who has acted both in Tamil films as well as television. He started his career as a dramatist and stage actor and went on to act as a character actor in films, starting ...
*
Vijaya Nirmala Vijaya Nirmala (born Nidudavolu Nirmala; 20 February 1946 – 27 June 2019) was an Indian actress, director, and producer known for her works predominantly in Telugu cinema along with a few Malayalam and Tamil films. In a career spanning over si ...
as Saroja *
Vijayasree Vijayasri was an Indian actress who predominantly worked in Malayalam cinema in the 1970s. She acted in many movies opposite Prem Nazir and have also worked in Tamil, Hindi, Telugu and Kannada films. Biography Her first appearance onscreen w ...
* Sundari Bai as Periyasamy's mother *
S. D. Subbulakshmi Srivaikundam Duraisamy Subbulakshmi was an Indian actress and singer who was active in Tamil cinema during the 1930s and 1940s. She was the wife of film director K. Subramanyam. She is credited with having introduced the singer and family fri ...
*Radha Bai


Production

''Chitthi'' is an adaptation of the play ''Dayanidhi'' written by Vai. Mu. Kothainayaki Ammal. Cinematography was handled by R. Sampath, and editing by R. Devarajan.


Themes

According to the book ''Beyond Bollywood'', ''Chitthi'' subverts the
wicked stepmother A stepmother, stepmum or stepmom is a non-biological female parent married to one's preexisting parent. A stepmother-in-law is a stepmother of one's spouse. Children from her spouse's previous unions are known as her stepchildren. Culture Step ...
trope by making her a figure of suffering and sacrifice, protecting her stepchildren from her callous and irresponsible husband.


Soundtrack

Music 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 ...
and lyrics were written by
Kannadasan Kannadasan (; 24 June 1927 – 17 October 1981) was an Indian philosopher, poet, film song lyricist, producer, actor, script-writer, editor, philanthropist, and is heralded as one of the greatest and most important lyricists in India. Freq ...
and
Udumalai Narayana Kavi [https://idhatri.com/udumalai-narayana-kavi/ Udumalai Narayana KavUdumalai Narayana Kavi Udumalai Narayana Kavi (25 September 1899 – 23 May 1981) was an Indian poet and lyricist known for his work in Tamil films. Early life Udumalai Narayana wa ...
.


Reception

T. M. Ramachandran of ''Sport and Pastime'' positively reviewed the film praising Gopalakrishnan's direction and also praised the cast and crew members of the film. ''Kalki (magazine), Kalki'' criticised the film for lack of originality, felt Gemini Ganesan was underutilised and M. R. Radha's acting lacked newness.


Remakes

''Chitthi'' was remade in
Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...
as '' Aurat'' (1967), 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 ''Pinni'' (1967), 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 ''
Chikkamma ''Chikkamma'' is a 1969 Indian Kannada-language film, directed by R. Sampath and produced by M. Chandra Kumar and B. V. Anand. The film stars Rajkumar, Jayanthi, Balakrishna and Narasimharaju. The film had musical score by T. V. Raju. The fil ...
'' (1969), and in
Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam was des ...
as '' Achante Bharya'' (1971).


References


External links

* {{K. S. Gopalakrishnan 1960s Tamil-language films 1966 drama films 1966 films Films about poverty in India Films directed by K. S. Gopalakrishnan Films scored by M. S. Viswanathan Films with screenplays by K. S. Gopalakrishnan Indian drama films Indian films based on plays Tamil films remade in other languages