Ponmudi (1949)

The story focusses on two Siva Mudaliar families in the business milieu of Kaveripoompattinam. They are landowners and pearl merchants whose families have intermarried. Mananayagan (Kuppusami) and Annam (Saraswathi) have one son, Ponmudi (Bharati), while Chokkalingam (Balasubramanyam) and Vanji (Dhanalakshmi) have a daughter, Poonkothai (Madhuri). The two children have always been promised to each other in marriage, but the arrangement falls through when the two families fall out over a land deal, forcing the young lovers to meet in secret. When they are discovered, Ponmudi is sent to North India on business and Poonkothai runs away from home. The distraught parents make up and send messages to tell their kids that all is well. However, Ponmudi has been captured by tribals and is being prepared as a human sacrifice. The messengers and Poonkothai arrive in time to rescue him. The film’s dialogues are in the distictly Tamil idiom, representing a specific subcultural world.