Tamil cinema's greatest ever rival superstars M.G. Ramachandran and Sivaji Ganesan came together for the only time in the 1954 film 'Koondukili' directed by T.R. Ramanna a sound recordist turned producer-director.  The film had MGR as a good hearted man Thangaraj who helps his friend Jeeva (Sivaji) in many occassions.  When Thangaraj takes Jeeva home the latter is shocked to see that the girl Mangala he was obsessively in love with is his friends wife.  Thangaraj goes to jail for a crime committed by Jeeva who uses his absence to woo Mangala and when she rejects him he turns into a sadistic animal.  

'Koondukili' had a revolutionary story for its time and had great songs tuned by K.V. Mahadevan and the powerful dialogues were written by a social activist Vindhan.  MGR played a very soft guy which unlike his screen persona and Sivaji boldly took on the negtive role of a predator and both their performances are alluring even to this day.  The film was a commercial failure when it released and T.R. Ramanna attributed his young age and inexperience hampered with his handling the two strong personalities MGR and Sivaji.  The film was taken off in many theaters all over Tamil Nadu as fans of both the stalwarts clashed (Yes!  seventy years back too there were hard core fans like the Thala-Thalapathy army).

We are proud to feature 'Koondukili' on our Throwback Thursday,which will always be cherished in the minds of Tamil's as the only film the Puratchi Thalaivar and Nadigar Thilagam co-starred.