In Raman Ethanai Ramanadi, Sudhir who plays his young friend Gopi must have a very tough time doing his scenes with confidence with the great Sivaji Ganesan, one of the biggest stars in the Tamil movie industry calling him vaada, pooda and dei so casually. Image source: Alchetron
Read these first:-
- Nostalgic Tamil Song 101: Sivaji’s Tearful & Moving Engey Nimmathi by MS Viswanathan 1964
- Indian Cinema 101: Seeing Double Roles On Screen
- Indian Cinema 101: Those Tamil Movies That I Really Hate!
- Nostalgic Tamil Song 101: Mesmerising Nallavarkkellam by Ilaiyaraaja 1978
Raman Ethanai Ramanadi is a 1970 Tamil movie starring Nadigar Thilagam, Sivaji Ganesan, K. R. Vijaya and Muthuraman. Unsurprisingly it went on to win the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Tamil and is another splendid showcase of Sivaji Ganesan’s acting prowess.
In this movie, Sivaji Ganesan plays the role of an innocent village bumpkin who often spends his time mostly with the kids from his village and seems to be not so smart. He then finds the love of his life but since he is poor and uneducated, he is forced to work his way to richness and fame.
You must see how a very famous actor can transform himself from the manner of his body language and speech to portray a real village bumpkin. And then as the movie progresses, you will see how this village bumpkin changes into a sophisticated gentleman. He then goes back to his village and confronts the rich landlord, brother with a vengeance.
It is indeed a very good movie to watch.
The music is composed by M. S. Viswanathan with the lyrics written by Kannadasan and one song that stands out is this song, Ammadi Ponnukku which Sivaji sings with his young friends in the role of the village bumpkin. It’s funny and yet entertaining
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The song sung by the great TMS and composed by MSV speaks about a great lady that he loves and is indeed a classic song. The pace is slow but it has a fast pace before the choruses. The violin before the first chorus is mesmerising. MSV utilised vocals as another musical instrument which is brilliant and does not disrupt the pace of the song. The picturisation of the song is well done as well.
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Interesting MSV already composed the same tune for another movie, the 1969 Telugu movie Sipai Chinnayya which was incidentally acted by K.R.Vijaya as well but only Raman Ethanai Ramanadi, MSV managed to get a better mix of tunes from the vocals, tablas and strings and had 2 versions – the first happy one and the second, sad version with totally different orchestration.
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One cannot help watching Sivaji Ganesan in his village bumpkin role and in short pants visits the real AVM Studio and meets a famous actress, Padmini who plays herself and gets into auditioning for a minor role that leads to him being a famous actor in the movie.
No one had come close to his level of acting except for maybe Kamal Haasan in the near distance.