School Master/Badi Pantalu (1958)

Panthulu’s best-known Kannada film is a reform drama featuring an old but committed schoolteacher (Panthulu) who transforms the students of his native village though his own sons abandon him. He builds a new school, but succumbs to the villainy of the leader of the village panchayat (council) until the entire village comes to his support. Ganesan played a guest role as a police officer. Apparently inspired by the Raja Paranjpe melodrama Oon Paoos (1954), Panthulu dubbed the film in Hindi (1958) and remade it in Tamil (1973), while his disciple Puttanna Kanagal made it in Malayalam (1964).