Pudhiya Bhoomi (1968)

Bandits kidnap Dr Katheeravan (MGR) to treat their ailing leader in his secret lair and send him back, attaching a bomb to his car. Katheeravan survives the blast and is nursed to health by a girl in a remote village, Kannamma (Jayalalitha). He sets up a hospital in the village, causing problems for the bandit chief Kankeyan (Nambiar), who informs Katheeravan’s urban fiancee (Sheila) of her lover’s village affair. Eventually, Kannamma turns out to be the bandit’s daughter. Although not a mainstream DMK film, it included the mandatory political symbology: the hero’s name Katheeravan (the sun) refers to the DMK party symbol; the hero reveals his social consciousness as much through his medical commitment to the villagers as through rejecting his city-bred fiancee to marry a rural woman.