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Friday, February 1, 2019

Tamil tinsel love for dadaism ~ rowdy falls into well !


White Heat is a 1949 film  ~  directed by Raoul Walsh, starring  James Cagney, Virginia Mayo& others.  Written by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, White Heat is based on a story by Virginia Kellogg.  In 2003, it was added to the National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress.  Do you know or imagine – what this movie was about ??

The trailer of Ajith’s upcoming film, Viswasam,  has raised rave  reviews.  Starring Ajith and Nayanthara the film is set to release on Pongal 2019.The trailer shows Ajith playing the role of Thookudurai, a local don from Theni. Clad in a white veshti and shirt, he is seen being greeted by the folks in town, suggesting he may also be a respected local leader. With the Madurai-accented Tamil and the moustache twirling, the makers seem to have made it clear that the film is directed towards what the industry calls ‘B and C centres’. ~ whatever it be, another addition to the long list of Tamil tinseldom’s love for violence and ‘dadaism’ – that gangsters are basically good people and there is lot about them that deserves appreciation !!

An orphaned kid (Karthik) helps Govindan (Vijayakumar) escape from a bunch of gangsters. The kid is named Amaran ('The immortal') by the grateful Govindan and is brought up by him. After Govindan's demise, his wife (Manjula Vijayakumar) raises Amaran who grows up to become a kind-hearted slum lord.  That was the storyline of ‘Amaran’ released in 1992 glorifying life of gangster that had Karthik and Bhanupriya in lead roles.   Adityan scored the music for the movie which is touted to be one of the first in Tamil cinema with many violent sequences and brutal scenes, some of which were censored. The movie had scenes inspired from The Godfather ~ similar reviews were written for Maniratnam’s Nayakan too and at that time it was hailed as a great movie.

Godfather is a 1972 American crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola  based on Mario Puzo's best-selling novel of the same name. It stars Marlon Brando and Al Pacino as the leaders of a fictional New York crime family. The story, spanning 1945 to 1955, chronicles the family under the patriarch Vito Corleone (Brando), focusing on the transformation of Michael Corleone (Pacino) from reluctant family outsider to ruthless mafia boss.The film was the highest-grossing film of 1972and was for a time the highest-grossing film ever made. It won the Oscars for Best Picture, Best Actor (Brando) and Best Adapted Screenplay (for Puzo and Coppola). Godfather is widely regarded as one of the greatest films in world cinema and one of the most influential, especially in the gangster genre.

Read today in Times of India that  a 44-year-old thief,  being chased by Police,  jumped into a well,  was trapped inside it for two nights before he was rescued by fire service personnel at Ambattur.   The report states that  John Jaisingh, a resident of Washermenpet, was treated at the government hospital exposure as he had been sitting in water for a long time, before he was sent to the Puzhal prison. With more than 22 cases, including three for murder, against him Jaisingh had come out of prison recently and was back to his old ways.

With two associates — Suresh of Chetpet and Kamal of Tiruvannamalai — he targeted the house of Vijayakumar of Indian Bank Colony in Ambattur and made away with Rs. 10,000 late on Saturday.While escaping when they jumped off the compound wall of the house some residents saw them and raised the alarm. Hearing the cries, a team from the Ambattur police station patrolling nearby rushed to the place.Seeing police, the trio panicked and ran in different directions. Two policemen went after Jaisingh. To avoid being caught, Jaisingh jumped into a well at Chandrasekarapuram Third Street in Ambattur. The two cops could not locate him and gave up the chase.Jaisingh, meanwhile, found he could not climb out of the well. He remained in it the whole of Sunday but the next morning he got nervous as he was hungry and sleepy. When he heard some noise close to the well he shouted for help.

He told a group of curious residents that he slipped into the well and requested them not to inform police as he came from a “decent family”. Their suspicions aroused by this statement, the residents informed the police who, along with fire and rescue services personnel, pulled out Jaisingh.Police said Jaisingh had made friends with those specialising in burgling locked houses during his latest stint in jail and decided to try his luck. Police have launched a hunt for his two accomplices.

Interestingly, the film Amaran was reported to have been based on the lifestory of a gangster of late 1970s in Triplicane.  He was involved in some petty crimes including taking mamool from shops – used to wear colourful lungies.  One night residents of Tank Square and Singarachari street were alarmed to see him roam around on the terraces of houses, jumping from one to another in a panicked state. He threatened a couple of residents – and later early morning, when police had made a cordon, he jumped from the terrace of a tall building near SMSO – even after jumping from such a height, he tried running but perhaps had sustained fractures in his legs and could not move much.  He survived that jump but was later killed by a woman affected by his earlier acts.. .. ..

White Heat  released in 1949 directed by Raoul Walsh had  James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, and others in the cast. Written by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, White Heat was based on a story by Virginia Kellogg,  and was a gangster movie.  The theme revolved around Cody and his gang robbing  a mail train in the Sierra Nevada, resulting in the deaths of four members of the train crew. With the help of informants, the authorities close in on a motor court in Los Angeles where Cody, Verna and Ma are holed up,  Cody shoots and wounds US Treasury investigator Philip Evans and makes his escape. He then comes up with a scheme: to confess to a lesser crime committed in Springfield, Illinois, which an associate committed at the same time as the train robbery, thus providing him with a false alibi.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar
2nd Jan 2019.

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