Thillu Mullu (1981 film)

Thillu Mullu
Directed by	K. Balachandar
Produced by	P. R. Govindarajan J. Duraisamy
Written by	Visu (dialogues)
Story by	Sachin Bhowmick
Starring	Rajinikanth Madhavi Thengai Srinivasan Nagesh Sowkar Janaki Poornam Viswanathan
Music by	M. S. Viswanathan
Cinematography	B. S. Lokanath
Edited by	N. R. Kittu
Production company	Kalakendra Movies
Distributed by	Kalakendra Movies
Release dates	1 May 1981 (1981-05-01)
Running time	136 minutes
Country	India
Language	Tamil

Thillu Mullu (English: Hodgepodge) is a 1981 Tamil comedy film directed by K. Balachander. The film features Rajinikanth, Madhavi in lead roles while 'Thengai' Srinivasan, Nagesh, and Sowkar Janaki play supporting roles. The film was a remake of 1979 Hindi comedy film Gol Maal directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee.^[1] Thillu Mullu was produced by Kalakendra Movies. The soundtrack and score were composed by M. S. Viswanathan while the lyrics for the tracks were written by Kannadasan.

The film is about Chandran (Rajinikanth) who is advised by his family friend (Poornam Viswanathan) to attend the job at a company of his friend Sriramachandramoorthy (Thengai Srinivasan). Chandran pretends to be a cultured, well-mannered and patriotic person which impresses Sriramachandramoorthy. When Sriramachandramoorthy spots Chandran at a football match. Chandran fakes a story that he has a twin brother Indran without a moustache. What happens then forms the story.

Thillu Mullu was released on 1 May 1981. It received positive reviews from critics, who particularly praised Rajinikanth's performance, as he was known for doing mainly action films up until that point in his career. The film became successful at box-office.

Plot

Aiyampettai Arivudainambi Kaliyaperumal Chandran (A.A.K. Chandran for short) (Rajinikanth) is a playful young man. Upon completion of his degree, his father's friend and business partner (Poornam Viswanathan) advises him to attend an interview for a job at his friend Sri Ramachandramurthy's (Thengai Srinivasan) company. The doctor advises Chandran to act in a manner most appreciated by Sri Ramachandramurthy: namely, wearing a Nehru kurta, always telling his full name, giving importance to his moustache, showing a lack of interest in sports and drama, showing respect for his father's words (i.e., by repeating the phrase "My father always told me" often) and detesting the concept of recommendations.

During the job interview, Chandran follows his uncle's advice perfectly and gets the job along with a beaming smile from his new boss. However, Chandran eventually gets caught when Sri Ramachandramurthy watches him at a football match, which he attends with his friends. He took leave on that day by telling his boss that his mother (who died many years ago) was in a serious medical condition. To escape from the ire of his boss and being fired, he makes his boss believe that it was his (fake) twin brother Indran (without a moustache) who was at the match and not himself. This idea is inspired by a dual role played by his actor friend Nagesh in a fictional film where he is in two roles: one with a moustache and one without. Sri Ramachandramurthy (although not convinced but feeling guilty due to suspecting his top employee) wants to see Chandran's brother Indran as well as his mother and wants Indran to teach music to his daughter Sarojini (Madhavi).

Chandran is startled at the request but agrees to it. He seeks his friend Nagesh for help. Nagesh advises Chandran to remove his moustache and go ahead acting as Indran. Chandran is reluctant to remove his moustache but goes ahead with it as there is no other way to continue the drama. The now moustache-less Indran is the anti-thesis of the Chandran as seen by Sri Ramachandramurthy. Indran takes music classes for Sri Ramachandramurthy's daughter Sarojini and the two fall in love.

For most of the rest of the film Chandran leads a dual life: a sincere hardworking employee to his boss and a typical cool young guy (Indran) while teaching music to his boss' daughter. The story takes an unexpected turn when Sri Ramachandramurthy meets socialite Meenakshi Doriasamy (Sowkar Janaki) who is pretending to be Chandran's widowed mother. A series of humorous scenarios follow, all involving Sri Ramachandramurthy being fooled by Chandran. One scene leads to another and eventually Sri Ramachandramurthy wants to marry off his daughter to Chandran (she knows the truth about the fake Indran by then).

But in the pre-climax Sri Ramachandramurthy finds out that he was fooled (although the extent of his knowledge is in no way near to what actually happened before that scene) and, in a fit of rage, chases Chandran across Madras to kill him. Due to his rash driving, it appears as if he might have crippled Chandran's sister during the chase scene.

In the climax, actor Kamal Hassan makes a cameo appearance as a fake lawyer who wants to sue Sri Ramachandramurthy on Chandran's behalf. Sri Ramachandramurthy is, for the most part, scared during the lawyer's monologue but, in the end, realizes that he is being fooled again — this time by the lawyer. At this point all the main characters approach Sri Ramachandramurthy and begin to narrate to him the truth (for example Chandran's sister was not actually crippled). Disillusioned, a visibly confused and shaken Sri Ramachandramurthy locks himself in a room, only to come out clean shaven after a few minutes, feeling that he doesn't need something which was only a couple of inches long but which caused so much trouble.

When lamenting to his God Murugan about his foolishness, the picture of Lord Murugan changes into that of the elephant God Vinayagar; a voice (K. Balachander) from heaven (Lord Vinayaga's) apologizes to Sri Ramachandramurthy as he was also one of the people involved in fooling him for so long.

Cast

• Rajinikanth as Ayyampettai Arivudainambi Kaliyapperumal Chandran / Indran
• Madhavi as Sarojini
• Thengai Srinivasan as Sri Ramachandramurthy
• Poornam Viswanathan as a family friend and doctor
• Viji Chandrasekhar as Uma
• Sowkar Janaki as Meenakshi Duraiswamy
• Nagesh as himself
• Kamal Hassan in a special appearance as Charu Hassan
• Lakshmi as herself (cameo appearance)
• Prathap K. Pothan as himself (cameo appearance)

Production

Thillu Mullu was the Tamil remake of the 1979 Bollywood film Gol Maal directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee.^[2] It was also Rajinikanth's first full-length comedy film. He agreed to it solely due to the strong suggestion by his mentor K. Balachandar that he should do non-commercial roles, to break the stereotyped action-hero mould for which he was known at the time.^[3][4][5]

Rajinikanth had to shave his moustache for Thillu Mullu, making it the first film which featured him without a moustache.^[6] Thengai Srinivasan was recruited to play a prominent character. Balachander said: "Normally I try to get all actors to modulate the dialogue in a particular manner but for this character I wanted Thengai to do it in his style, so instead of teaching him, I asked him how he would like to do the scene and then developed on it. I wanted him to play it as a character and not as a comedian for I felt that the humour would come out on its own through his unique body language and dialogue delivery".^[7] Nagesh appeared in a small role as himself.^[8] Sowkar Janaki was selected to appear in a role of socialite who is pretended to act as Rajini's mother.^[9] Viji, sister of actress Saritha made her acting debut with this film.^[10] Kamal Haasan did a small role as lawyer in the climax thus it was the final film which featured Kamal and Rajini together. During the film's shooting, Rajini met his future wife Latha Rajinikanth, then a student of Ethiraj College for Women, who went to interview him for her college magazine.^[11][12]

M. S. Viswanathan was selected to compose music while Kannadasan wrote the lyrics. The dialogues for the film were written by Visu. B. S. Lokanath and N. R. Kittu were recruited as cinematographer and editor respectively.^[13][14]

Soundtrack

The film's music was composed by M. S. Viswanathan, with lyrics by Kannadasan.^[15] The songs "Thillu Mullu" and "Ragangal Pathinaru" were reused in its 2013 remake.^[16]

Remake

Thillu Mullu was remade in 2013 with the same name. The remake version was directed by Badri and starred Shiva playing Rajini's character and Prakash Raj playing Thengai Srinivasan's character. Badri said that he ventured into Thillu Mullu with an open mind. "I wanted to make the storyline contemporary. Retaining the characters from the original, I wrote the script to suit today’s generation".^[17]

The remake version was released on 14 June 2013 to mixed reviews with Zee News noting: "One of the glaring differences between the two versions is the treatment of comedy. While in the original it was sensible and funny, it is loud and commercial in the remake".^[18]

Reception

Reviews of Thillu Mullu were generally positive. Director duo Pushkar-Gayathri said, "The way it is written and the performances are all super breezy. How many ever times you watch it, you can’t get bored. I think it’s a unique film. You don’t get to see that kind of films too often. Even now, you hardly come across such a cool, casual fun film."^[4] Behindwoods noted that "the movie was a big hit and portrayed comedy as the strength of Rajinikanth. The screenplay and dialogue writer Visu, utilized the given opportunity and proved his witty intelligence timely."^[5] The Times of India ranked Thillu Mullu #7 in its list of "Top 12 Rajinikanth movies", saying "he pulls of clean jokes effortlessly making this movie a classic laugh-a-thon."^[6] On 1 July 2013, coinciding with International Joke Day, actors and writers of comedy were asked to name their favourite film. Bosskey named Thillu Mullu as his favourite comedy film, stating: "Thengaai Srinivasan is my all-time favourite. [..] and the interview scene in Thillu Mullu can enliven any boring day".^[19] Indiaglitz wrote that the film "stands tall for its ultimate dialogues and natural acting by Rajnikanth till now".^[20] Director C. S. Amudhan stated that: "I think Balachander’s Thillu Mullu was as much an achievement as Bala’s Pithamagan.^[21]

Legacy

Rajinikanth, who specialised in films based mainly on action and family subjects, handled a comedic part for the first time in his career in this film, proving his ability to handle that genre.^[22] On the centenary of Indian cinema in April 2013, Forbes included the performances of Rajinikanth and Thengai Sreenivasan in the film on its list, "25 Greatest Acting Performances of Indian Cinema".^[23] Behindwoods included Thillu Mullu in their list titled Superstar's Top 12 acting performances.^[24] Sowkar Janaki stated, "Even today people call me up whenever `Thillu Mullu' is telecast".^[25]

In a scene from Pizza (2012), when Michael (Vijay Sethupathi) goes to Smitha's (Pooja ramachandran) house, she is seen watching Thillu Mullu on television.^[26] In 2011, director R. Madhesh's film Mirattal was initially titled Thillu Mullu, but this was changed because the producers could not get the rights to use the same.^[27][28]

References

External links

• Thillu Mullu at the Internet Movie Database