Songs from this film, including "Pazham Neeyappa", "Oru Naal Podhuma", "Isai Thamizh", "Paarthal Pasumaram" and "Paattum Naane", became popular with the Tamil diaspora. Film historian Randor Guy, in his 1997 book "Starlight, Starbright: The Early Tamil Cinema", said "Pazham Neeyappa" (performed by K.B. Sundarambal) was the "favourite of millions".
Thiruvilaiyadal was the first Tamil film since Jagathalapratapan (1944) in which the lead actor plays five roles in one scene. Sivaji Ganesan does so during the song "Paattum Naane", where he sings and plays four instruments: the veena, mridangam, flute and jathi.
Dubbing of the scenes with Sivaji Ganesan and Nagesh was completed soon after the footage was shot. After watching the scenes twice, Sivaji Ganesan asked director A.P. Nagarajan not to remove even a single frame of Nagesh's portions from the final cut, because the director believed that those scenes along with the ones involving T.S. Balaiah would be the highlights of the film. The conversations between the characters Shiva and Dharumi were improvised by Sivaji Ganesan and Nagesh themselves, not scripted by Nagarajan.