For Malayalam movie audiences who grew up watching and loving Mammootty’s films, director TS Suresh Babu’s Kottayam Kunjachan (1990) holds a special place in their hearts. Although comedy has never been his forte — as clearly evident in his early movies — Mammootty never stopped trying and kept refining his skills in the domain. While he began showing improvement over time and impressed audiences in films such as Manu Uncle and Carnivel, it was Kottayam Kunjachan where he truly knocked it out of the park with comedy.
His portrayal of the titular character — a local illiterate thug who wishes to turn over a new leaf — was extraordinary. Thanks to the script’s innate humour and the impressive weaving of the Kottayam dialect into it, which was uncommon in Malayalam cinema until then, the action-comedy impressed everyone and became a blockbuster. However, Kottayam Kunjachan was one of those movies in which even its makers had little hope. While the producer who initially took it up abandoned it during the discussion stage itself, the movie’s eventual producer was deeply disappointed after watching the preview and believed it would fail.
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In fact, even blockbuster screenwriter Dennis Joseph, who penned the film, began to feel jitters about the project as it was gearing up for release, wondering if they had made a mistake, particularly since Kottayam Kunjachan was supposed to revive the career of director Suresh Babu, who had been going through a rough patch with back-to-back failures. During an appearance on Safari TV’s Charithram Enniloode programme, Dennis shared the origin story of Kottayam Kunjachan and how it became one of the most iconic Malayalam action comedies of all time, despite its producer having little to no hope about it.
Why producer Prem Prakash abandoned Kottayam Kunjachan
When his uncle, producer Prem Prakash, approached Dennis Joseph to pen a script for him, the screenwriter suggested adapting one of noted author Muttathu Varkey’s novels titled Veli. Although not an acclaimed work, Dennis came across Veli in the columns of a Christian devotional weekly named Deepanalam. His idea wasn’t to adapt the novel as is, but to simply pick certain characters from it, such as Kottayam Kunjachan and Uppukandan Korah, and draw inspiration from its backdrop and certain aspects of Varkey’s aesthetics. Accordingly, Prakash bought the rights to adapt the novel into a film for about Rs 10,000. However, when he subsequently gave Veli a read, Prakash wasn’t impressed and felt it didn’t have the substance to be turned into a feature film. Thus, he backed out of the project.
Kottayam Kunjachan was one of those movies in which even its makers had little hope. (Credit: Instagram/@mammootty)
That was around the time director Suresh Babu approached Dennis Joseph again for a script. It was Mammootty who introduced them to each other after the success of Sangham (1988). Mammootty had then requested Dennis to write a script for Suresh, who had been facing back-to-back failures, to help him get a break in the industry. When Suresh approached him again, Dennis suggested that they procure the rights to Veli from Prem Prakash and did so with the help of producer M Mani of Aroma Movie International and Sunitha Productions. Meanwhile, Dennis also asked Suresh to obtain full permission from Muttathu Varkey to reconstruct his narrative and characters completely in line with their creative and artistic choices while keeping only a few aspects from his original work. Once this was also done, Kottayam Kunjachan slowly began to take shape.
Mammootty helped fellow actors perfect their dialects
Although most characters in the movie spoke in the Kottayam dialect, Dennis Joseph revealed that it wasn’t the exact one people in the region actually used in real life and that he diluted it a bit by blending it with the slang from areas adjacent to Kottayam town as well. Since he couldn’t be present during filming, it was Mammootty who helped other actors get the dialect right and deliver their lines with precision. Interestingly, the action comedy wasn’t even shot in Kottayam but in Amboori village in Thiruvananthapuram district.
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Kottayam Kunjachan emerged as a massive blockbuster. (Credit: IMDb)
After the editing and dubbing, the makers sat down to watch a cut of the film, which had yet to be given a background score or undergo final sound mixing. That version was about 3.15 hours long. While Dennis Joseph himself was unhappy with its length, producer M Mani expressed complete dissatisfaction with the movie. He lamented to Dennis about Suresh Babu, wondering what the director had created. Although Dennis tried to pacify him by asserting that there was nothing wrong with the movie except its length, Mani maintained that even trimming wouldn’t save it and asked Dennis to ensure it didn’t cause him financial loss.
Mani subsequently contacted theatre owners and downplayed the film, saying it wasn’t great and would survive only two weeks. He thus got theatres to give him a two-week window for the Mammootty-starrer. Then, Dennis and Suresh sat down for another round of editing and trimmed the film, bringing its running time down to 2.5 hours. However, with a superhit producer like Mani not being impressed by the movie, Dennis began to have doubts regarding it. He was especially concerned since this film was planned to help Suresh’s sinking career.
Hariharan’s prediction
Dennis Joseph thus decided to hold another preview of the Mammootty-starrer once the certification process was complete. But, unlike the norm, the screening was held for just two people: legendary filmmaker Hariharan and noted director Thambi Kannanthanam, who helmed Dennis’ Rajavinte Makan, Bhoomiyile Rajakkanmar, Vazhiyorakazchakal, and Indrajaalam. While Thambi expressed certainty that the movie would succeed, Hariharan went one step further and predicted that the Mammootty-starrer would become a trendsetter and a cultural phenomenon. Dennis, however, felt that Hariharan was simply saying it to pacify them, since he himself didn’t think much of Kottayam Kunjachan.
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But Hariharan’s prophecy proved right. The movie earned extremely positive reviews from all the theatres where it was screened. However, since M Mani had previously asked for only a two-week window, theatre owners had planned accordingly and entered into deals with the makers of other films to give their screens after this period. Desperately, Mani began running from pillar to post, requesting theatre owners not to remove Kottayam Kunjachan as the movie was performing well. Thanks to the audience’s overwhelming response, theatres did not abandon the Mammootty-starrer, and it ran for over 100 days in several cinema halls. The movie also featured Ranjini, Innocent, KPAC Lalitha, Sukumaran, Prathapachandran, and Babu Antony in key roles.
