hers evoking "classical art" associations. She excels in the two main dances in New Delhi — the solo Bharatnatayam Aliruppu number and the Bhangra folk dance in her Punjabi avatar and she is absolutely brilliant in the Bhangra folk dance...in her second avatar. Even Vyjayanthimala played a Punjabi girl and most successfully too". Subsequently, she did a Tamil film called Marma Veeran, along with Sriram, Rajasulochana, M. N. Rajam, J. P. Chandrababu and V. Nagayya. The film had some of the South Indian established actors such as N. T. Rama Rao, Sivaji Ganesan and Gemini Ganesan in a guest appearance. In 1957, director B. R. Chopra planned to make Naya Daur, with Ashok Kumar in the lead. However, the actor refused to accept this role and it later went to Dilip Kumar. For the female lead, the first choice of the director was the biggest star-actress of those days, Madhubala. But, as fate would have it, after 15 days of initial shooting at Mumbai, the director wanted the unit to travel to Bhopal for an extended outdoor shooting. However, Ataullah Khan, the father of Madhubala, objected to this and the role went to Vyjayanthimala. Chopra later sued Madhubala for the cash advance she received from him for the film, saying that she accepted the sum and now had no intention of completing it. Vyjyanthimala had previously acted with Dilip Kumar in Devdas and the duo shared an easy chemistry on-screen. The new film, Naya Daur, had a theme of "Man vs. machine", and Vyjanthi's portrayal of village belle Rajni received positive reviews from critics. A review from Rediff says that: "Vyjayanthimala too is not your average petulant "gaon ki gori". She ably projects a hands-on worker who comes up with ideas on how to ford a stream and risks her life to save the bridge... wonderful scene between two stars whose chemistry is undeniable" while reviewer Taran Adarsh from Bollywood Hungama mentions that: "Commendable performances come in from Vyjayantimala [natural]...The relationships [Dilip Kumar-Vyjayantimala] are so human and believable". At the end of its theatrical run, the film had collected around , thus becoming the second highest-grossing film of 1957, second only to the critically acclaimed Mother India, which became the highest grossing Hindi language film ever at the time. Following that, Vyjayanthimala almost signed for the lead role in Filmistan's Tumsa Nahin Dekha opposite Dev Anand in 1957, but due