When The Shooting Of Sivaji Ganesan-starrer Parasakthi Was Stopped Midway By This Producer

Veteran actor Sivaji Ganesan left a lasting impact on Tamil cinegoers. He was one of the Tamil actors who has played the lead role in over 250 films in his entire career. Do you know that despite being so successful, one of his films’ producers asked him to stop shooting his film halfway? Recently, this interesting information about him is doing the rounds on the internet. It has been said in recent times that most of the producers are handing over the entire project responsibility to the directors. Apart from the cost of shooting and supervision, most of the other tasks are taken care of by the directors themselves. But during the era of Sivaji Ganesan and MG Ramachandran, as per sources, there was more intervention by producers in every film.

In that regard, the owner of AVM film production company, AV Meiyappa Chettiar, has always expected elegance in his films. If he doesn’t like the output of any of the projects, he used to discard the film, no matter how long it has been shot.

Such an incident happened in Sivaji Ganesan’s Parasakthi. This Tamil-language drama film was directed by Krishnan-Panju and written by M Karunanidhi. The film stars Sivaji Ganesan in the main lead, along with SV Sahasranamam, SS Rajendran, Sriranjani Jr and Pandari Bai in the pivotal roles.

It is reported that AV Meiyappa Chettiar, when the shoot of the movie was half done, suddenly stopped the project in between. Meiyappa Chettiar was initially not convinced to cast Sivaji as the lead, as he was thin and boyish at the time. It was PA Perumal Mudaliar, the film’s co-producer and Sivaji’s theatre guru, who convinced Meiyappa Chettiar to make the rest of the film.

Meiyappa Chettiar was also not satisfied when he saw the green light film halfway through. He asked to change everything else, leaving only a few scenes of Sivaji in the film. After this, the film crew changed the story and scenes with great difficulty and shot the movie. Later, the film turned out to be a super hit, fulfilling Chettiar’s expectations.

Parasakthi was released on October 17, 1952, during the festive occasion of Diwali, and became a commercial success with a theatrical run of over 175 days. Parasakthi acquired cult status in Tamil cinema and became a trendsetter for dialogue and acting in later Tamil films.