Deiva Magan

Plot

Sivaji Ganesan, a lawyer with a scarred face, gets married to Pandari Bai. The couple lead a happy life and Pandari Bai gives birth to twin brothers, a son with a scarred face (Also Ganesan) like his father and a brother (Also Ganesan). Their father unable to tolerate his eldest son's face leaves him under the custody of another person and tells his wife that the first child is dead. As years pass by, the father becomes a justice and his younger son, a happy-go-lucky college-going timid son, falls in love with Jayalalithaa. In the meanwhile, the elder son comes to know about his family and tries to meet his mother and brother but he is asked by his father not to reveal his identity to them. M. N. Nambiar, a man once punished by the father, kidnaps the younger son in order to take revenge on him. In the end, the elder son rescues his brother, killing M. N. Nambiar. He succumbs to his injuries and dies on the lap of his mother.

Cast

Production

Deiva Magan was adapted from Bengali play Ulka by Nihar Ranjan Gupta. G. V. Iyer earlier adapted the play into a film called Thayin Karunai (1965) with Muthuraman which failed at the box office, "Deivamagan" was the second adaptation of the play. Sivaji who was impressed with the plot decided to make the film and made his friend Periyanna to produce the film. The film was initially titled as "Uyiroviyam" before finalising "Deivamagan".

The film involved the characters of father and his two sons which would be tough to be acted by the same person so the director wanted two young actors to play the characters of two sons. However Sivaji accepted the challenge and acted in the role of both sons, bringing a difference in body language and mannerisms to each role. Sivaji Ganesan portrayed three roles: an insecure father, a timid son and an angst-ridden twin brother for the second time in his career after Bale Pandiya. The makeup for one of the Sivaji's character with a scarred face was done by R. Rangasamy and his son Jayanth Kumar.

Music

The soundtrack was composed by M. S. Viswanathan and lyrics were written by Kannadasan. The film had a song "Deivamae Deivamae" sung by T. M. Soundararajan which became very popular.

All lyrics written by Kannadasan; all music composed by M. S. Viswanathan.

Reception

Tamil magazine Ananda Vikatan said in its review, "A film with multiple roles of same actor without any confusion which itself a milestone, Makers have tried to build a hall with just one pillar and that was Sivaji Ganesan!".

The film was the first ever Tamil film to be submitted by India in contest for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Remakes

The film was dubbed in Telugu as Koteeswaralu". It was also remade in Kannada as Thayi Mamathe (1985).

Deiva Thirumagal, a 2011 Tamil film starring Vikram which was earlier titled as Deiva Magan was thought to be the remake of this film, however the director denied it by saying the story of both these films are no way connected with each other and eventually the new film's title was changed as Deiva Thirumagal. Debutant Vetrivendhan initially named his debut directorial as Deivamagan though the title was changed as Aathi Narayana after pressure from the makers of an old film with the same name.