part0010

1897. Arthur Havelock was the Governor of the Madras presidency. One evening at the Victoria Public Hall near Ripon building, a small group had gathered in great anticipation. In the centre of the hall, an Englishman named M Edwards was setting up a novel instrument and pushing strips of celluloid into its spools. This assembly of people had read about similar shows held the previous year at the Watson Hotel in Bombay (now Mumbai). Edwards’ show had been advertised as kinemascope. The short films he screened were those which became familiar to film historians later: Arrival of the Train and Leaving the Factory. In less than two years after its birth on 28 December 1895 in Paris, cinema had appeared in Madras (now Chennai).

In many ways, it was a time of momentous change in Madras. Daily newspapers in Tamil, beginning with Swadesamithran in 1899, had been launched. In Madras city, a motor car could be occasionally sighted: a status symbol for the very rich. Just two years earlier, trams had been introduced in the city. Some affluent households and companies had telephones. People were getting used to the marvel of listening to recorded music from a rotating black disc on a spring-wound machine, the gramophone. The mechanical reproduction of works of art had begun. It was at this stage that the motion picture arrived on the scene.

That evening at the Victoria Public Hall, little did the audience realize that a new dimension to mass culture was being created or that they were witnessing the birth of a cultural colossus, which was to dominate all aspects of people’s lives. Soon thereafter, similar shows of short films were held in various parts of Madras, bearing other names such as bioscope and kinema. Often the shows were held by the roadside or in a public park and the entrance fee was a quarter anna (the equivalent of 1.5 paise). There was no need for a licence or for electricity, since the film was projected with the aid of magnesium lamps. Gradually, these shows began to attract a regular clientele. One Warwick Major observed this growth and sensed its commercial possibilities. He had no doubt that it would be a worthwhile proposition to put up a permanent hall for such shows. He built the first cinema house in South India, Electric Theatre in 1900 on Mount Road in Madras. Regular shows of silent films were held here. A new mode of entertainment was born, signifying a landmark in the social history of Tamil Nadu.1

For the first eight years, these shows were confined to Madras city. It was Swamikannu Vincent, a draughtsman who worked for the Railways in Tiruchi, who introduced this newfangled entertainment medium to the interior of the Madras presidency. In 1905, quite by accident, he met Dupont, a Frenchman who was returning from Sri Lanka after holding film shows there. For a sum of Rs 2000, Dupont’s equipment along with a copy of the forty-five-minute short film, Life of Jesus Christ, changed hands. Vincent screened the first show in St Joseph’s School in Tiruchi. He called his unit Edison’s Cinematograph and toured Madurai, Tirunelveli and Rameswaram holding shows of the film, using carbide jet-burners for projection. He came to Madras and screened the film for seventy-five days. Soon he tied up with Pathe of the United States, a well-known pioneering film producing company, and began screening short films all over the presidency. He also travelled to Bombay, Lucknow, Lahore and Peshawar, with his equipment. By 1909, he started using electric carbon for projection.2

Meanwhile in Madras, a photographer, R Venkiah, who owned a photographic studio on Mount Road, was attracted to this new venture. In 1909, he imported a chronomegaphone, which was a film projector attached to a gramophone machine. A gramophone record would be played as the film was screened. This gave the illusion of synchronized sound, and, in a way, anticipated the talkies. With this equipment, he screened the short films, Pearl Fish and Raja’s Casket, in the Victoria Public Hall and in a tent set up in Esplanade. These films were each only 500 feet long, to match the duration of the gramophone. Venkiah later travelled with this unit to Myanmar and Sri Lanka and when he had gathered enough money, he put up a permanent cinema house in Madras—Gaiety in 1914, the first cinema house in Madras to be built by an Indian. He soon added two more cinema houses, Crown Theatre in Mint and Globe (later called Roxy) in Purasawalkam.

Most of the films screened then were short films made in the United States and Britain. In 1909, an Englishman called T H Huffton, founded Peninsular Film Services in Madras and produced some short films for local audiences. But soon, hour-long films which narrated a dramatic story, then known as “drama films”, were imported, again mostly from the United States. From 1912 onwards, feature films made in Bombay were also screened in Madras. The era of short films ended. More cinema houses came up. The arrival of these “drama films” was a cornerstone in the history of cinema, because thereafter cinema was firmly and irrevocably established as a popular entertainment form.

Fascinated by this new entertainment form, an automobile dealer in the Thousand Lights area of Madras, R Nataraja Mudaliar, also decided to venture into film production. After a few days’ training in Pune with cinematographer Stewart Smith, the official cinematographer of Lord Curzon’s 1903 Durbar, he tied up with a business associate, S M Dharmalingam Mudaliar, and started India Film Company in 1916. A studio, the first in South India, was set up in Madras. Rangavadivelu, a stage actor from Suguna Vilasa Sabha, was hired to train the actors. Thirty-five days later the first feature film made in South India, The Extermination of Keechakan/Keechakavatham based on an episode from the Mahabharata was released in which the lead roles were played by Raja Mudaliar and Jeevarathnam. This was followed in 1917 by Disrobing of Draupadi/Draupathi Vasthirabaranam, also drawn from the same epic. At this point, Nataraja Mudaliar broke away from the company, went to Vellore and singlehandedly produced two films, Mahiravanan and Markandeya, both in 1919. All these films were each about 6,000 feet long.3

Although Nataraja Mudaliar was the first South Indian to have found a studio and produce films, it was Venkiah’s son Raghupathy Prakasa, and A Narayanan, who put Tamil cinema on a firm footing. After a stint of training in England in filmmaking, Prakasa came to Madras and set up the Star of the East Film Company. The studio, which was located behind what is now Roxy Theatre, was modern by the prevailing standards. Beginning with Bhishma’s Vow/Bhishma Pratignai (1921), Prakasa made a number of movies which were screened all over the country, with title cards in Tamil, Telugu, Hindi and Gujarati. Though the company lasted for no more than four years, it played a crucial role in the growth of cinema in this part of the country. Many pioneers of South Indian cinema such as Y V Rao (father of actor Lakshmi) and C Pullaiya were trained in this company.

In the first ten years of film production in Madras, Nataraja Mudaliar and Prakasa were the only two to make films. There was a lone exception—an Englishman named Whitaker who produced The Wedding of Valli/Valli Thirumanam in 1921 in Madurai. A reviewer in the English daily The Mail opined that this film was of a much higher quality than even Dadasaheb Phalke’s works. This film, which had been made with the support of Madan Company of Bombay, was screened widely in South India.

The third Indian to step into film production in Madras was A Narayanan. After working for a few years in a film distribution company, A Narayanan founded his own outfit, the Exhibitor Film Services, in 1927, and supplied American films to Indian cinema houses. While on a trip to Hollywood, he developed an urge to make films and as a result, set up a production company in Madras, the General Pictures Corporation, popularly known as GPC. Beginning with The Faithful Wife/Dharmapathini (1929) GPC made about twenty-four feature films, the best remembered among them being the two-part film The Star of Mangrelia (1931) which was based on a story by G W Reynolds. Finally, GPC stabilized the film industry in South India and its alumni included names such as Sundararao Nadkarni and Jiten Banerji. Meanwhile, a colleague of Narayanan, R Padmanabhan, started his own film unit, Associate Films, and made a few films. The studio of this company was in the site now occupied by Paragon Talkies in Madras. It was here that K Subrahmanyam imbibed the basics of filmmaking.

When one considers the many obstacles faced by film-makers during this period, it is a wonder that the industry survived at all. Most of the films screened were from the United States, where they were produced in large numbers with several prints for each film. So, the rental for these films was, typically, much less than that for Indian films, of which only a few prints were in circulation. Moreover, the stunts and special effects in imported films were far superior to indigenous productions, and therefore were more popular and enjoyed better patronage. Often, it was difficult to lease a theatre to screen films made in Madras. In the face of this unequal competition, Indian filmmakers decided that one sure way to attract local audiences was to offer films depicting episodes from the Puranas.

Nor was the attitude of the British government in any way helpful. Not only did they discourage local film productions but tried to stifle them in order to promote “Empire films”—movies made in Great Britain—giving the latter special protection even as many filmmakers in India pleaded that indigenous productions should also be given privileges, as was being done in Germany. But the government’s aim was to promote the commercial interests of British film companies. An interesting parallel can be drawn with another colony of Britain. It was during the same period that the fledgling film industry of Australia was killed by this policy and the local film industry could come into its own only in the early 1950s. In India, mythological films, and later, the advent of sound, saved the film industry from a similar fate.

There were also other impediments to the growth of cinema during this formative period. It was very difficult to get people to act in films. As film production during the initial decades was not stable and the income meagre and irregular, actors from commercial drama companies were not attracted by cinema. The theatre provided them more security as it ensured a regular income. In fact, there was no group of professional film actors in the early years. All employees of the companies, including on occasion the electrician, were called upon to act. Serukalathur Sama, who was an accountant in GPC and who also doubled as a make-up man, acted in many of its productions and his career as an actor lasted long into the talkie era. Similarly T S Mani, who was a painter in the same company, acted in GPC’s films and later in many talkies. So, whoever the director could persuade among his friends and relatives, acted in his films. Once a doctor from the Adyar Theosophical Society, Dr Ernest Wood, acted in Anadhaipenn/Orphan Girl (1931). In fact, the actors’ names were not even mentioned in the advertisements. Only in the last two years of the silent era did the artistes’ names appear in the publicity material. As the most popular genre was stunt films, gymnasts and stunt men were most sought after. Therefore, one had “Battling” Mani and “Stunt” Raju as leading actors.

It was even more difficult to get women to act in films. However, Nataraja Mudaliar solved this problem by persuading an Englishwoman—Violet Berry—and later, some Anglo-Indian women, to act. Another way out of the situation was to get men to play the role of women. This practice continued in the era of sound also. In the talkie Menaka (1935), actor T K Muthuswamy had to play the role of Perundhevi, a widow, since no woman was willing to accept the “inauspicious” role of a widow. In another talkie, Baktha Ramdas (1935) all female roles, including that of Sita, were played by men.4

Some of the conventions that were set during the silent era continued to be followed long after the advent of sound and over the years, shaped the character of Tamil cinema. During the screening of silent films, extraneous programmes like group dances and even boxing matches were added to the show to make it more attractive. These group dancers travelled from place to place, performing wherever there was a cinema house. Sometimes, short plays were also staged. Even now filmmakers resort to the practice of adding extraneous features to pack more entertainment value into the film. Dances, fight sequences, plays and independent comic episodes in present day Tamil films, all belong to this category.5 Since the literacy rate was very low at the time, some cinema houses engaged “explainers”, men who stood by the side of the screen and read the title cards aloud. In addition to reading, they also provided a running commentary; and very often this became the chief attraction. Some of these explainers later blossomed into actors in the talkies.

Dependence on mythological subjects for film stories had a crippling effect on the development of indigenous cinematic vocabulary. Episodes from local mythologies were already familiar to the audience and saved a filmmaker the burden of narrating the story visually. Consequently, the scope for developing a cinematic language was severely curtailed. It has often been said that cinema was fortunate in having been silent in its formative years for the development of a film grammar of visuals. This opportunity was however lost to Tamil cinema because of its preoccupation with mythologicals. And when sound came, the Tamil filmmakers relied conveniently on verbal narration to tell the story. During the silent era, a few films were made on contemporary themes. A Narayanan made Dharmapathini (1929) and Raja Sandow, Anadhaipenn (1931). But we do not have access to any of these films; and hence a study of how these directors made use of visuals for the narrative is not possible.

Before the outbreak of the First World War, silent films from France, Holland and Germany were screened in Madras. Had this trend continued, the development of indigenous cinema would probably have been more wholesome. Local filmmakers might have been influenced by these films. Unfortunately, after the war, only American and British films were distributed here. This meant that the best of European cinema, like Fritz Lang’s expressionistic classic The Testament of Dr.Mabuse (1933), was denied to the Madras audience and filmmakers. Russian films were subjected to severe censorship and a film that enriched the grammar of cinema, Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin (1925) was banned. So, Tamil cinema had to perforce grow in cultural isolation.

In a society that was rigidly stratified, with each stratum patronizing its own entertainment forms, cinema appeared as mass entertainment, cutting across all strata. Anyone could buy a ticket and watch the show. Cinema’s very accessibility to the lower classes alienated the elite from it. Added to this, the stigma that was attached to the popular stage and those working in it was extended to the world of cinema also. This apathy of the intelligentsia to cinema still persists, in many ramified forms. Attempts at introducing cinema studies at the university level in Tamil Nadu have failed continuously. Even today, there is no campus movement, and film society activity is restricted to a mere four or five centres.