Iru Kodugal

Plot

Gopinath (Gemini Ganesan) falls in love with Janaki (Sowcar Janaki) and they get married in Kasi. The marriage is not accepted by Gopinath's mother and the couple gets separated. Janaki is pregnant and her father (V. S. Raghavan), realizing that no man will marry Janaki a second time, decides to make her a collector. Gopinath meanwhile had moved to South India, where he later married Jaya (Jayanthi) by hiding his previous marriage. They live a happy life with their three children and Jaya's father. Gopinath works as a clerk in the collector's office. A new collector arrives at the office, and it turns out to be Janaki. They tend to work together, until one of the employees in Janaki's office, Babu (Nagesh), spreads a rumour stating that there is an affair between Janaki and Gopinath. This rumour reaches Jaya and she is completely disturbed. Jaya discovers the secret of Gopinath's affair with Janaki. Meanwhile, the sons of both Janaki and Jaya, Ramu and Prabhakar drowned in water and have been admitted to Hospital. Somehow Jaya manages the disturbance of the secret and accepts Janaki as her sister. But Ramu dies in hospital while Prabhakar survives. Jaya gives Janaki her son as a gift. Janaki and Prabhakar leave for abroad as Janaki got her duty abroad.

Cast

Production

The film was based on stage play of same name written by Joseph Anandan. Balachander did not see the play but developed the screenplay after hearing the concept. He was paid only Rs. 25000 for the film. According to producer and writer G. Dhananjayan in his book Pride of Tamil Cinema, the basic concept of two lines was said to be inspired from a comedy scene performed by Thangavelu from the film Chakravarthy Thirumagal (1967). In a scene in the film Sowcar Janaki's character meets the Chief Minister. Balachander wanted to bring in former Chief Minister C. N. Annadurai (he died 1969) for the scene but did not want to use a body double in his place. The Chief Minister is not seen in the scene, only a voice sounding like Annadurai's is heard and a pair of glasses on the table and a pen in the foreground are seen, implying that the Chief Minister was Annadurai.

Music

The music was scored by V. Kumar who composed four songs for the film. Vaali wrote the lyrics. The song"Punnagai mannan poovizhi mannan rukmanikaga", the famous number from the film, is still popular.

Awards

Release

The film was released on 2 October 1969 with the length of 4682 metres with runtime of 176 minutes and was certified "U" by Central Board of Film Certification. The film was a commercial success. It was remade later by Balachander in Kannada as Eradu Rekhegalu and by other directors in Telugu (Collector Janaki), in Hindi (Sanjog) and in Malayalam (Mohavum Mukthiyum).

Reception

Dhananjayan appreciated the film that the film stands out "for its excellent screenplay, dialogues and direction which were engaging and emotionally connecting with audience". Malathi Rangarajan appreciated Janaki's performance "stomped the screen and stole our hearts [..] came up with a stellar performance".

Legacy

Clips from Iru Kodugal were screened along with clips from other films such as Server Sundaram (1964), Arangetram (1973), Aval Oru Thodar Kathai (1974), Avargal (1977) and Azhagan (1991) at a function held in Balachander's honour at Tiruchirappalli in January 2015, a month after his death. Balachander later used the famous song "Punnagai Mannan" as the title for his 1986 movie of the same name.