Mangamma Sapatham
Mangamma Sapatham Vasundhara Devi, Ranjan, N. S. Krishnan and T. A. Mathuram Mangamma Sapatham, was the first major Gemini Studios-S. S. Vasan production made on a mammoth scale, which became the hallmark of a Gemini-Vasan product. It was only after this film, critics and crowds used the Hollywood adjective ‘colossal’ for a Madras-made movie. Written and directed by lawyer-turned-filmmaker T.G. Raghavachari (Acharya), this film created a sensation all over South India. A popular folktale, it was about a sprightly tough village girl, Mangamma, who when insulted by a woman-chasing crown prince vows to take revenge (hence the title Mangamma’s vow) by having a child through him and make the child whip the father in court. The salacious prince too takes a vow to marry her and have her imprisoned in a lonely palace. How she builds an underground tunnel from her gilded cage to her village home, outwits her husband and has a son without his knowing her identity and the son then ...