Thamarai Kulam

A greedy zamindar bars the villagers from using Thamaraikulam, the village tank. Under the leadership of Chellaiah, the son of a landowner, the villagers organise a revolution. Chellaiah goes to Madras to seek help from his friend Sekhar. A series of complications follow which include the heroine being kidnapped and tortured, and Sekhar murdered. How Chellaiah and the villagers solve these problems forms the rest of the story.

Credits adapted from The Hindu:[1]

• Sowcar Janaki
• V. Gopalakrishnan
• M. R. Radha
• N. N. Kannappa
• K. Sarangkapani
• V. S. Raghavan
• S. A. Ashokan
• Kaka Radhakrishnan
• S. N. Lakshmi
• Padmini Priyadarshini
• Nagesh

Thamarai Kulam was produced under the banner Kalyani Pictures. Writer S. R. Natarajan and cinematographer S. R. Veerabahu were the producers, and Muktha Srinivasan was director. Nagesh, then a struggling actor, was noticed by Srinivasan during a play in Mylapore. Srinivasan, impressed with Nagesh's comic performance, hired him to act in another comic role in Thamarai Kulam, for a salary of ₹2500. The film thus became Nagesh's cinematic acting debut. S. M. Ramkumar and Kameswaran served as the dance choreographers. Shooting took place at the now non-existent Golden Studios.[1]

The music was composed by H. Padmanabha Sarma and T. A. Mothi. The playback singers were P. Susheela, Mothi, P. Leela, Sirkazhi Govindarajan, S. C. Krishnan, A. P. Komala and ‘Nellore’ Janaki.[1]

Thamarai Kulam was released on 14 April 1959.[2] The film, which was written with Leftist themes, was not well-received by viewers because, according to film historian Randor Guy, during that period, "Tamil cinema was then dominated by movies of Sivaji Ganesan with accent on high-flown, alliterative dialogue." He did, however, state that it would be remembered for being "the debut film of ace comedian Nagesh and the early movie of the talented filmmaker Muktha Srinivasan."[1] Nagesh's performance was panned by the Tamil magazine Ananda Vikatan.[3]