Punnagai

Sathya, Rajan, Rajbabu, Mandiramoorthi and Haniff are college-mates in Madras. To celebrate their graduation, they go on a drive around the city in Haniff's car, singing about the ideals of life. The car crashes and Haniff dies, leaving his friends shocked. Rajan, Rajbabu and Mandiramoorthi later succumb to corrupt lifestyles while Sathya vows to remain a righteous person. He meets Kanchana, a young woman who had been seduced and impregnated by a playboy who then abandoned her. She gives birth to a son Kumar; Sathya marries her, despite knowing her history and raises Kumar as his own son. Meanwhile, the playboy leaves his wealth to his illegitimate son, but Kanchana declines it. Sathya's kidneys are affected and his friends turn away when the doctor asks if any of them would donate their kidneys for him. Sathya ultimately dies, and his wife realises that she has successfully upheld the values taught by him to her. The story is narrated by Rajbabu, who wants to write a book and asks his wealthy friend to get it published. All these scenes are narrated by him and acted by the artistes as chapters of the book. Sathya's friends ultimately realise their folly and bring out the book with the title being Punnagai.

• Gemini Ganesan as Sathya
• R. Muthuraman as Rajan
• Nagesh as Rajbabu
• M. R. R. Vasu as Mandiramoorthi
• V. S. Raghavan as Mohan Ram
• Jayanthi as Kanchana
• S. V. Ramadas as the playboy
• A. Sakunthala as Sakunthala
• Baby Mythili as Kumar, Kanchana's son
• K.K. Soundar as the interviewer
• S. N. Parvathy
• A. Sakunthala
• Major Sundarrajan (cameo appearance)
• V. Gopalakrishnan as Haniff (cameo appearance)

Punnagai is a remake of the Hindi film Satyakam (1969), with some changes made in the screenplay. Although Gemini Ganesan was generally billed with the sobriquet "Kaadhal Mannan" (King of Romance) in film credits, this was the first film where he was billed as "Nadippu Selvam". The cinematography was handled by N. Balakrishnan.[2]

Music by M. S. Viswanathan and Lyrics written by Kannadasan.[3]

According to film historian Randor Guy, the film was not a commercial success, but was considered a classic by critics. He praised the performances of Ganesan, Jayanti, Muthuraman and Sakunthala.[2]

• Punnagai at IMDb
• Punnagai at Rotten Tomatoes