Ramu (1966 film)

Cast

Production

Ramu was a remake of the Hindi film Door Gagan Ki Chhaon Mein which was enacted and directed by playback singer Kishore Kumar. Though the Hindi version was not commercially successful, it was critically acclaimed. A. V. Meiyappan bought the remake rights and Javar Seetharaman wrote the screenplay and dialogues.

Meiyappan and his team initially planned to cast Jaishankar and K. R. Vijaya but Gemini Ganesan expressed interest to do the film. Though the sons of Meiyappan were keen on casting Jaishankar, they were agreed with the choice of Ganesan. Contrary to the love based characters which he was known for at that point of career, Gemini enacted a depressed character in this film. When the climax scene was shot at around the fire, child artist Rajkumar could not come from the fire as he was tied severely. Thirulokachander jumped and saved the boy. The final length of the film was 4,272 metres (14,016 ft).

Soundtrack

The music composed by M. S. Viswanathan. The lyrics of all songs were penned by Kannadasan.

Release

Ramu was released on 10 June 1966. There was a demand to remove the song "Nilave Ennidam" from the film as it was thought to be reducing the pace of the film. Meiyappan's son Kumaran refused to remove the song and explained its importance of the song to his father. The song "Kannan Vandhaan" was well received and that became reason for huge success even in Kerala. The film was a commercial success, running for over 100 days in theatres. It also won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Tamil.

G. Dhananjayan in his book Pride of Tamil cinema - 1931 to 2013 wrote: "Though the film has several usual commercial twists and action scenes, underlying theme of love between a boy and adopted mother [..] impressed the audience".