When MGR And Sivaji Never Saw Eye-To-Eye In Their Only Starrer Together

Recently at a private discussion of film enthusiasts, the topic of multi-starrers in Tamil cinema came up. It was mostly agreed that the films featuring big stars together have been relatively less in Tamil.

The superstars Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan, despite hailing from the same film school — K Balachander — after a joint run in their early days decided to not do movies together for their own reasons.

Vijay and Ajith were featured in the same movie only — Rajavin Parvaiyile (1995) — that too when they weren't quite the stars that they are now. Films with middle-level stars (like Ponniyin Selvan, Pithamagan) have been possible with a strong director at the helm who can tide over the differences, if any.

Tamil cinema has not been able to see many multi-starrer flicks may be because the first major attempt with the then budding stars MGR (M G Ramachandran) and Sivaji Ganesan did not throw up anything memorable, both on and off the screen.

As the two of the biggest names of Tamil cinema never ever worked in tandem again, it seems to have set the tone for the entire industry till now.

The first and the only film of MGR and Sivaji together Koondukkili was released 70 years back in the August of 1954. The incidents during the filming were potent enough to drive a strong wedge between MGR and Sivaji at least professionally.

The film, upon its release, also saw fiery exchanges between the two sets of fans that at places screening had to be allegedly stopped. The continuing tension between the fans ensured that the film returned to the cans early and declared as a 'flop'.

The bad blood between the two actors was so much that the film never made it to the second run in later years, and it is only with the emergence of YouTube that the old copy of the film was found and is now available for public viewing again.

MGR A Conservative Hero, Sivaji A Coveting Villain

As a film, Koondukkili was seen, in its time, as a bold one as it featured a man coveting for his friend and saviour's wife. The story, penned by firebrand writer and journo Vindhan, had MGR playing a conventional hero (named Thangaraj) while Sivaji played the lustful villain (Jeeva) or at least anti-hero.

He makes advances towards Thangaraj's wife, played by B S Saroja, when her husband is in jail on a trumped up case. Jeeva eventually loses his eyesight to a lightning bolt while Thangaraj and his wife forgive him.

The film put its director T R Ramanna under enormous stress. MGR's role was limited as his character in the story had to spend a lot of time in jail. Sivaji's, on the other hand, had a longer screen time.

Ramanna was in his early stages of his career — this was his second film as a director, and he couldn't keep a leash on his two distrusting stars, it is said.

Ramanna was in double jeopardy as his wife B S Saroja was the one playing heroine. (For the record, Ramanna had two other wives, and one of them was another actress E V Saroja who had debuted in another MGR starrer En Thangai in 1952).

Ramanna faced so many difficulties that he couldn't even get down to film a song that K V Mahadevan had famously tuned for the movie, the Bagyashree raga beauty Mayakkum Maalai Pozhuthe.

Ramanna used the same song in his next movie Gulebakavali (1955) albeit under the credit of the duo Viswanathan-Ramamoorthy. It will forever remain one of the unforgettable trivias of Tamil film industry.

Ramanna Learnt His Lessons Well

Ramanna, whose sister was Tamil cinema's first-ever sultry dream girl T R Rajakumari (and he was also the co-brother of Nagaswaram maestro Karukurichi Arunachalam) however, formed a strong bonding with both MGR and Sivaji during the shoot of Koondukkili that he went on to do seven and five other films with the two respectively, most of the them under the banner RR Pictures that he and his sister Rajakumari had floated together.

The Ramanna films with Sivaji include Kaathavarayan (1958), Sri Valli (1961), Thanga Surangam (1969), Sorgam (1970) and Ennai Pol Oruvan (1978). The MGR starrers were Gulebakavali (1955), Pudhumai Pithan (1957), Paasam (1962), Periya Idathu Penn (1963), Panakkara Kudumbam (1964), Panam Padaithavan (1965) and Parakkum Paavai (1966).

(As an aside, it has to be pointed out that Ramanna's sister T R Rajakumari paired with MGR as a heroine in Gulebakavali and Pudhumai Pithan. She played his elder sister in Periya Idathu Penn, and was cast as his mother in Paasam. He remained the young hero in all the films.)

Anyway, the problems that Koondukkili faced did not end with the shooting. It ran into censor issues, too. The song Konjum Kiliana Pennai, picturised on Sivaji, fell afoul of the Censors for the line ‘Pennai Paarthu Kannadithal Sariya Thappa?’ (Is it OK to wink at a woman?).

How delightfully conservative those times were? Anyway, the song had to be tweaked with new lines and had to be recorded again. As it happens, the two versions of the same song were made available in the film's audio recording. You can hear them here (the version in the film) and here (the chopped one).

Upon its release, Koondukkili returned to the cans quickly, but the lessons that the film threw up stood Ramanna in good stead for long. He remained an active director till into the late 1980s — His last film was Elangeswaran (1987).

Evidently, he did not allow the failure of Koondukkili to make himself a Koondukkili (caged parrot). But regrettably it set an unwanted trend that till date seems to run in Tamil cinema.