''Urimaikural'' () is a 1974 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 action drama film, written and directed by C. V. Sridhar. The film stars

M. G. Ramachandran Maruthur Gopalan Ramachandran (17 January 1917 24 December 1987), also popularly known as M.G.R., was an Indian politician, actor, philanthropist, and filmmaker who served as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu from 1977 until his death in 1987 ...

, Latha, Anjali Devi and

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 ...

. It was released on 7 November 1974, and became a silver jubilee hit.

Plot

Gopinath and his elder brother Sundaram Pillai are very close, live under the same roof, and are very respected farmers. Gopi shares his time also to tease the young women of his village and particularly, the very beautiful Radha, his betrothed, endowed with a temperament, brave and very roguish. But above everything, 2 young people love each other profoundly and do not dare to declare it overtly. Of teasings in mutual harmless quarrels, 2 lovers who only yesterday, bickered, do not joke any more at the moment. They are not any more for the party, because a good-for-nothing son of the only big landed family of neighbourhood, Duraisamy wishes Radha ardently for his wife. Grasping this, the father of the young woman sees the opportunity there to grow rich and forget the promise made to Gopi' s family. Another drama comes to darken more profoundly the picture of this family so welded: a strong sum of money collected in the village and under the responsibility of Sundaram Pillai is stolen from him by unknowns. Duraisamy is behind this theft because he was always jealous of Gopi and so wishes to damage the brothers, to soil their honour especially. He quenches so his vengeance to have been corrected by Gopi, some time previously. To fight this terrible test, Gopi and Sundaram mortgage their most precious good: their land. They are given one year to resolve the situation. But other painful events are going to precipitate things, very negatively.

Cast

as Gopi (alias Gopinath) * Latha as Radha * Anjali Devi as Parvathi, Sundaram Pillai's wife * M. N. Nambiar as Duraisamy *

S. V. Sahasranamam Singanallur Venkataramana Iyer Sahasranamam (29 November 1913 – 19 February 1988), also known as S. V. S., was an Indian actor and director. Primarily a theatre actor, he also worked in over 200 films, mainly in Tamil cinema. Early lif ...

as Sundaram Pillai * V. K. Ramasamy as Kozhaidhar Pulai * C. K. Saraswathi *

as Sabapathy *

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 fil ...

as Sadhasivam * Thengai Srinivasan as Paramasivam * Pushpalatha as Muthamma *

Sachu Saraswathi Sundaresan Iyer, professionally known as Kumari Sachu (born 7 January 1948) is an Indian actress who has acted in more than 500 films in five different languages and a few television serials. She is a character actress/comedienne who ...

as Sachu/Sarasa *

Typist Gopu Gopalarathnam, known by his stage name Typist Gopu, was an Indian actor known for comedy and supporting roles. He acted in over 600 stage plays and 400 films. Career A native of Manakkal, Lalgudi in Trichy district, Gopalarathnam was active ...

as Bai * Samikannu as Villager *

Karikol Raju Karikol Raju was a Tamil film veteran actor who appeared in Tamil-language films. He acted in more than 500 films in a career spanning over five decades. He had started his career as a dramatist and stage actor and went on to act as a charac ...

Usilai Mani Usilai Mani (உசிலை மணி) was an Indian film actor. He worked predominantly in Tamil movie industry. He has acted over 1000 films and stage plays. His popular movies include ''Enga ooru Kavalkaran'' and '' Ayul Kaithi''. His dial ...

*Gemini Mali as Iyer

Production

and Sridhar earlier were supposed to work in a film called ''Andru Sindhiya Ratham'' which got shelved. Sridhar, who was reeling under financial problems due to failure of his previous film '' Alaigal'' and also his other film ''

Vaira Nenjam ''Vaira Nenjam'' () is a 1975 Indian Tamil-language action thriller film written, directed and produced by C. V. Sridhar. The film stars Sivaji Ganesan, Padmapriya, R. Muthuraman and K. Balaji. It is a remake of Sridhar's own 1973 Hindi film ''G ...

'' was getting delayed due to call sheet issues of

Sivaji Ganesan Villupuram Chinnaiya Manrayar Ganesamoorthy, better known by his stage name Sivaji Ganesan, (1 October 1928 – 21 July 2001) was an Indian actor and producer. He was active in Tamil cinema during the latter half of the 20th century. Sivaji Ga ...

, as per the advice of his friend, the Hindi actor

Rajendra Kumar Rajendra Kumar Tuli (20 July 1927 – 12 July 1999) was an Indian actor who starred in Bollywood films. Starting his career in 1949, he appeared in more than 80 films in a career spanning over four decades. He was popularly known as the 'Jubil ...

, decided to collaborate with Ramachandran who agreed to act under his direction. Sridhar revealed that ''Urimai Kural'' was inspired from Telugu film '' Dasara Bullodu'', he only took basic plot from that film and made changes for Tamil version. The cinematography for the film was handled by N. Balakrishnan; however the climax portions were shot by Thambu as Balakrishnan had to shoot the climax for another film. The film was predominantly shot at a village near the garden belonging to Ramachandran while the climax portions were shot at land belonging to actor-producer K. Balaji and the songs were shot at Mysore.

Soundtrack

The music was composed by M. S. Viswanathan. The song "Vizhiye Kadhai Ezhudhu" is set to

Kambhoji Kambhoji or Kambodhi is a popular Raga in Carnatic Music. It is classified as a derived raga from 28th Melakartha, Harikambhoji. Scale The scale of Kambhoji is Ascending: S R2 G3 M1 P D2 S Descending: S N2 D2 P M1 G3 R2 S (N3 P D2 S) ...

raga. This song and "Aambalaingala" were penned 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 ...

, it was added by Sridhar when political issues led to a widening rift between Ramachandran and Kannadasan. But Sridhar could not get a satisfactory response to the situation. So Sridhar and Viswanathan decided to convince Ramachandran to have Kannadasan's song and Ramachandran accepted the proposal as he bore no personal grudge against the lyricist.

Release and reception

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 ...

'' favourably reviewed the film, particularly the climax for its pace. The film became a blockbuster at box-office.

References

External links

* {{C. V. Sridhar 1970s action drama films 1970s Tamil-language films 1974 films Films directed by C. V. Sridhar Films scored by M. S. Viswanathan Films with screenplays by C. V. Sridhar Indian action drama films