Raktha Tilakam (1963)

Ganesan’s nationalist war movie against the background of the 1962 India-China conflict. The hero Kumar (Ganesan) and heroine Kamala (Savitri) are colleagues at university. She begins to appreciate him when he rescues a play she directs by understudying her brother in the role of Othello. Kamala then joins her father in Beijing while Kumar joins the Indian Army. In Beijing Kamala marries a Chinese Army doctor (Nambirajan) and accompanies him to the 1962 war as a nurse by day and an Indian spy by night. Kumar captures her and she is to be shot at dawn when her espionage activities come to light. She is killed by her Chinese husband. Kumar dies in battle holding on to the Indian flag. The film is an important turning-point in Ganesan’s and scenarist Kannadasan’s efforts to repudiate their DMK associations by valorising Congress nationalism. Kannadasan played a small role as a poet, singing two famous songs, the solo Oru koppaiyele and the nostalgic send-off group number Pasumai niraindha ninaivigule (both sung by T.M. Soundararajan, the second a duet with P. Susheela).