Ratha Kanneer — 50 Tamil Movies to watch before you die — 3

(The original article was published in 2009 but I am replenishing the articles with new content and making it native to Medium to popularise it)

The third movie in the list is a masterpiece of a controversial man.

Ratha Kanneer (1954)

There is always an argument that goes on in the Tamil movie world on the best actor. And every time, they end up with one name called Sivaji Ganesan. But according to me, there is one more person who can be spoken of at the same calibre as Sivaji. His name was M.R.Radha, and versatility was his middle name. Although there are beautiful movies behind his name, the one classic masterpiece which will feature in any Tamil Movie list would be Ratha Kanneer.

Ratha Kanneer was a play written by Thiruvarur Thangarasu and already a famous play among the masses before it made into the tinsel world. The most surprising aspect of the play and the movie was the radical thoughts purported by the writer at a more conservative period.

It’s about the story of the rich foreign returned westernised man who makes merry with women defies his family, good friends and ends up as a leprosy patient. Leprosy was considered to be a deadly disease at that time, and the movie also depicts the social stigma associated with such patients. Most of the yesteryear actors came from theatre and with strong influences of political ideologies. MR Radha was no exception, and he had a strong background of Dravidian political ideology. He was already a superstar in theatre before he started acting in movies.

The movie was produced by Perumal Mudaliar for National Pictures and directed by Krishnan-Panju (who were riding on the success of Parasakthi). The music was Chidambaram S Jayaraman with RR Chandran wielding the camera.

Why is Ratha Kanneer special?

1. The first half has all the sharp Dravidian political ideologies of MR Radha and the writer criticising religion, casteism, false beliefs, rituals etc. The dialogues and the way MR Radha enacts the role with élan is a treat to watch.
2. The different second half shows the plight of the leprosy patient and the social apprehensions surrounding it. Who can forget “Kuttram Purinthavan”? The movie had an apt cast with M.N.Rajam as Gantha, a memorable wily mistress character and she never recovered from that image after that movie. She had many stereotypical roles after that movie. SS Rajendran as the friend and Sri Ranjani as the wife.
3. The music for the songs was composed by Chidambaram Jayaraman and the background score by Viswanathan-Ramamoorthy (lesser known that point of time). And the movie was directed by the most successful director duo of Krishnan- Panju.
4. Although the movie had some beautiful performances from SS Rajendran, Sri Ranjani and MN Rajam, the movie’s success hinged on one-man, MR Radha. The movie is epitome for his versatile acting.
5. The movie did purport Dravidian ideologies but the main story of the movie stuck to the stereotypical good woman-bad woman trope. According to CS Lakshmi (2008), Ratha Kanneer is a movie disguises as a story that talks about women issue but still sticks to the normative movie trope of men deciding what women should do and also, a ‘good’ woman (based on societal norms) who sticks with her husband (even when he is a philander and sick) is rewarded at the end while the ‘bad’ woman is killed in a plane crash [4].
6. But to be fair to the makers, the movie was made in 1950s and for that time period, even the second marriage of the wife at the end of the movie was considered to be bold. I think the dravidian ideology was making baby steps with their mass media invasion and this was one of the starting points.

The best scenes from Ratha Kanneer, a compilation

Why is Ratha Kanneer on the list?

1. The movie was pathbreaking with respect to its theme for its time and this was the second movie to have such powerful dravidian ideological dialogues after Parasakthi (1952). Incidentally, the movie was produced by National Pictures (who also co-produced and distributed Parasakthi)
2. There are lot of movies that shows the brilliance of MR Radha but Ratha Kanneer is his crown jewel.
3. One of the most important films in Tamil cinema with respect to its theme, dialogues, making and acting.

Trivia

1. The legacy of Ratha Kaneer is continued till now with MR Radha’s offsprings continuing it with occasional theatre performances along with small modifications. The role was portrayed by Radha Ravi and MRR Vasu. MRR Vasu’s son MRR Vasu Sathish wanted to remake the movie but he died in a freak accident in 2015 [3].
2. Madras Rajagopalan Radhakrishnan (MR Radha) was born in Chennai in 1908. MR Radha’s father Rajagopal Naidu was an Army man and died in Russia during the war. MR Radha was fond of acting, and he acted in various drama companies like ‘Dappi” Rangasamy Naidu Company, Samanna Company and Jaggantha Iyer Company etc. He later started his own drama company and staged plays like Ratha Kanneer, Thooku Medai, Lakshmi Kanthan, Vimala, Porvaal etc. Ratha Kanneer was staged 3500 times and it seems there was a scene in which MR Radha comments about the politics while reading a newspaper. Every day, he used to do the commentary based on that day’s news and people watched the play just for that[1].
3. He was politicians nightmare. Six of his plays were banned and he got arrested for staging banned plays. The sobriquet “Nadigavel” was given by Pattukottai Azhagiri during the staging of Porvaal in Trichy. MR Radha’s first stint in movies was in Rajasekaran (1937) but he suffered an accident during the filming. He left the movie world but Ratha Kanneer brought him back. It was AP Nagarajan’s Nalla Idathu Sambantham (1958) and Paaga Pirivinai (1959) that made other directors rope in MR Radha. He was unstoppable until he shot MGR in 1967. He acted in few movies after he was released in 1974, but he wasn’t successful. He died on 17th November 1979, the birthday of his beloved leader Periyar. A self-proclaimed atheist and a follower of Periyar, he propagated Periyar’s teaching in his movies and plays. He married thrice — Saraswathi, Dhanalakshmi (Saraswathi’s Sister) and Geetha. MR Radha’s first son MRR Vasu acted in few movies but died early due to illness. Radharavi, Radhika and Nirosha continue to act in movies and TV Series[1].
4. Madras Rajagopalan Radhakrishnan was rechristened as MR Radha by TR Sundaram of Modern Theatres in Santhana Devan (1938) and Sathyavani. But both the movies didn't do well and MR Radha went back to making stage plays until he got back for Ratha Kanneer [2].
5. National Pictures’ Perumal Mudaliar wanted to adapt Ratha Kanneer into a movie. MR Radha had three conditions in order to act in the movie. The first condition was that he would only do the movie during his time off from his stage plays, the second condition is that he will not look at the camera and act, the camera has to follow him and the third condition was the most interesting even though he wasn’t in the movies for quite sometime. The condition was that his salary would be Rs.1 Lakh and 25,000, in order to surpass KB Sundarambal’s Rs.1 Lakh salary for Nandanar. It could have been a scaring tactic but Perumal Mudaliar wasn’t deterred by these conditions. He accepted for all conditions and the rest was history [2].
6. The darkest part of MR Radha’s life came when he shot MG Ramachandran on January 12, 1967 and tried to kill himself. There are multiple accounts of what conspired in that incident. I would rather ask you to read articles like the one below in order to understand the issue — https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/the-day-mr-radha-shot-mgr/article12059018.ece
7. Upendra, the maverick Kannada Director-Actor tried to recreate the magic with Ramya Krishnan as Gantha but could not live up to the expectations although it made a good financial success.
8. Incidentally, MR Radha went back to theatre after this movie because of his love towards it but came back to do some memorable roles later.
9. Fantastic Trivia update from Raji Muthukrishnan

After a hiatus from the screen after Ratha Kanneer (I read somewhere he was disgusted with the film world for some reason), M. R. Radha came back with a bang in Baga Pirivinai, which had Sivaji in it. After that he was on a roll with his original unique dialogue delivery

Trivia: it was M. R. Radha who gave Karunanidhi the title of Kalaignar when he acted in one of his plays.

References

1. Tamil Cinema Varalaru — Dinathanthi Publications
2. Touring Talkies —ரத்தக் கண்ணீர் படத்திலே நடிக்க எம்.ஆர்.ராதா விதித்த நிபந்தனை
3. https://www.thehindu.com/features/cinema/refrains-old-and-new/article2973933.ece
4. A good woman, a very good man. Tamil cinema’s women by CS Lakshmi in: Tamil Cinema: The Cultural Politics of India’s Other Film Industry (2008)

Read the entire list from this link
https://medium.com/sylvianism/50tamilmovies/home