C. Pullaiah was a pioneering filmmaker who made several hits in Telugu and Tamil. One of his biggest hits was Balanagamma (1943) in Telugu, produced by S.S. Vasan for Gemini Studios. Pullaiah promoted Bharghavi Films in partnership with a successful building contractor of Madras city, Ch. Subbarao, who has an avenue named after him in Chennai.
Naan Kanda Sorgam was a fantasy comedy adapted from a popular Bengali story by K.S. Gopalakrishnan who also wrote the dialogues. The lyrics were by Thanjai Ramaiah Das, K.S. Gopalakrishnan, Parthiban, and G. Sundara Bhagavathar. G. Aswathamma composed the music. The film had a dance-drama called Usha Parinayam for which P.B. Sreenivos and S. Janaki lent their voices, and an apsara dance sequence choreographed by Gemini Ramamurthi. Nanjappa, assisted by P.S. Loganathan (who later became famous), handled the camera. The film was shot at Vijaya-Vauhini Studios.
Naan Kanda Sorgam is about a young and cultured woman Meenakshi (Janaki), daughter of a miserly millionaire, who is drawn to public service but her father hates the idea. Meenakshi falls in love with an educated young man Sundar (Thangavelu), who stages plays and donates earnings to the poor. Understandably, the millionaire father hates him but, unknown to him, his daughter assists Sundar in his social welfare activities.
When he finds out, the father forbids Meenakshi to leave the house and even appoints two men to guard her. Sundar disguises himself as a woman and fools the millionaire into appointing him as Meenakshi’s tutor. When the father fixes Meenakshi’s marriage with a rich old man, Sundar saves his sweetheart by helping her escape. The father finds Meenakshi and locks her up, beating Sundar to within an inch of his life. How Yama, Vishnu and other gods help Meenakshi and Sundar get united and live happily is the rest of the film. Master comedian Thangavelu’s wisecracks and Sowcar Janaki’s glamour made the movie eminently watchable. The movie did fairly well mainly because of the unusual storyline and fantasy elements. In one scene, as the couple fly across the sky, they switch on a transistor radio and a Radio Ceylon jingle with popular announcer Mayilvahanan’s voice comes on, a sequence that met with thunderous applause in cinemas.
Remembered for: storyline, fantasy, Thangavelu and Sowcar Janaki.
K.A. Thangavelu, ‘Sowcar’ Janaki, M.S. Sundari Bai, ‘Azhwar’ Kuppusami, Mohana, Eswaran, Sayeeram, ‘Gemini’ Chandra, P.T. Sambandam, ‘Kottapuli’ Jayaraman, Jothi, Indira B.Sc, V.P.S. Mani, C.S. Pandyan, ‘Gundu’ Karuppaiah, Gundu Mani, C.K. Nagaratnam, Seethalakshmi, and S.V. Ranga Rao-Narasimha Bharathi (Guest Artistes)
