Not to be confused with Laila Majnu dubbed into Tamil from Telugu and released in 1949. Laila Majnu is a 1950 Indian Tamil-language film directed by F. Nagoor. The film featured T. R. Mahalingam and M. V. Rajamma in the lead roles.
Plot
The story is the famous Persian tale of Layla and Majnun. It has parallels in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and in Tamil stories, Ambikapathy and Amaravathi.
Cast
The list was compiled from the film's song book. ;Male Cast
The film was produced and directed by F. Nagoor under the banner Balaji Pictures and was funded by M. K. Thyagaraja Bhagavathar. The famous writer Vallikkannan wrote the dialogues. Cinematography was by Jitten Bannerji and the operative cameraman was P. S. Selvaraj. V. B. Nataraja Mudaliar did the editing. Art direction was also done by F. Nagoor. Choreography was by Hiralal, Ganesh and Joshi. The film was shot at Newtone studios and the stills were taken by R. N. Nagaraja Rao and Gnanam.
Trivia
Laila Majnu's story was first made as a silent film in 1922 by J. J. Madan and again in 1927 by Manilal Joshi. In 1931, after the films became talkies, noted filmmakerKanjibhai Rathod made it in Hindi. J. J. Madan remade it in Hindi in 1931 as a talkie. In 1936, it was produced by East India Pictures in Persian. In 1940, Dharmaveer Singh made the same story in Punjabi, and in 1941, Sarnad Pictures made a version in Pushtu language. In 1945 it was made in Hindi again featuring Swaran Lata as Leila and Nazir Ahmed as Majnu. It was a box office hit. In 1949, P. Bhanumathi and her husband P. S. Ramakrishna Rao produced this story in Telugu and it was dubbed into Tamil and released simultaneously with the Telugu version in 1949. The story was again made in 1953, 1976, and later in 1982.
Soundtrack
Music was composed by S. V. Venkatraman, while the lyrics were penned by Lakshmanadas and Kambadasan. Singers are T. R. Mahalingam, N. S. Krishnan and T. A. Mathuram. Playback singer is T. S. Bhagavathi. The following list of songs is compiled from the song book.
Reception
The film did not do well at the box office. However, the film is "remembered for the interesting on-screen narration and performances by Rajamma and Mahalingam."
