Source: Memories of Madras

History of Tamil Cinema

1897 -1956 MOVIE TIME
Silents to Sivaji.
• Film Historians agree that movies began to
film in 1895.
• Cinema started in Bombay in 1895 and
two years later on Madras in 1897.

• 1897 'Silent' movie short film at victoria public hall near

Madras Railway station led to the question in quiz
competitions 'Name the railway station with no name-
Board?‘
• When the 20th century was born, in 1900 - the city had it's
first auditorium. at The Electric Theater
Silent Movies were viewed and Public performances were made with
the help of petrromax lighted by gasoline

Another famous theater was The Lyric Theater. established by

Mr.Cohen situated in the Mount road area. English, Western music
played here and ball dance took place here. in 1905 In 1905, Vincent
started a concept of 'tent cinema' in trichy for the first time in
.
tamilnadu which was popular in India even after the mortar brick movie
houses started to surface the here and there.

In 1914, he built a permanent cinema house an oddly named "Variety

Hall" in his hometown , Coimbatore.

Sound in 1909? Incredible? a Fanciful Fiction?

video projection was separate and a parcel full of sound experiments

was made with a separate disc. The unit consisted of a video projector
to which a gramophone with a dis is containing pre recorded sound, the
of screen commentary was linked and both ran in union inturn
producing the picture and the sound .
He then bought several silent films and recorded sound using crone gramophone which he bought for 30,000 rupees. at the
time gold was about a mere thirteen rupees.
Three classes in tent cinema tickets.
1)Floor ticket " Tharai ticket" ,
2)bench tickets and
3) chair ticket.
He then started involving in production by introducing his son in the field of film tecchnology (Raghupathy Surya Prakash)

He is the first trained film director of South India

After undergoing training in walk-on -roles in some forgotten movies in germany and England, he then returned to Madras.
They launched a silent movie "Meenakshi Kalyanam" under Gajalakshmi productions with prakash as a cameraman. There was
no film shooting sets and no film processing labs in Madras which led them to setup their own film shooting set and processing
lab at his own residence, a hand operated unit. A process painful, monotonous, back breaking and highly risky. The raw film
stock is in use until mid 1950's was silver nitrate based and highly inflammable which added to the risk. The movie gave shock
to prakash! All the characters God, Goddess,saints, angels in the movie appeared headless! This turned out to be a "headless
show". The williamson camera he had, had a viewfinder on top, and there was some parallax error in the alignment.
Natarajan Mudaliyar and Raghupathy Surya Prakash had to seek to their performers of their films from the
Anglo Indian community

At that time, Purasawalkam was the strong hold of this community. Mudaliyar also created a film
Named ‘Keecha vadham’. It was said to be preserved to be a treasure in “Eastman Kodak Foundation”
Ronchester.

Inspired by the Keecha vadham, He also produced films like “ Draupathi Vashtrapaharanam”. Mudaliyar was
more active
And he produced more films like “Lava Kush (1919)”, “Mahe Ravan (1919)”, “Shiv Leela (1919)” and “Rukhmini
Sathyabama (1920)”.

In Silent Films, The title cards used to explain some points in the story and also the dialogue. Such title cards
were artistically designed which added to the artistic value of the film.

Eventhough the films had no sound, they had background music. It was provided by the exhibitor in the
cinema house.
Interestingly the background score varied from theater to
theater and tent to tent.There were also men standing in the
theater hallway speaking the dialogues of the films in their own
language.
Such men are called as “Barkers”. There were also live
performances like dancing in between the screening of the film.
Besides dancing, there were also wrestling bouts also
conducted in between the screening of the film. By 1923,
Natarajan Mudaliyar left movie business and went back to his
native Vellore.

Before his death he wanted to make a final movie for which he

asked the south indian movie makers for money, but he was
shocked to know that most of the members of the committee
had not even heard of him.A sad end even for a pioneer.

Meanwhile Prakash and his father was busy planning. They

started their own studio in Purasawalkam named “Star of the
east” behing the Globe (Roxy) Cinema. To avoid dust and dirt
and to allow Sunlight, Glass sheets formed the roof for which it
was called the “Glass studio”.
The first film produced here was “Bhishma Pratigna ”
Which was an episode form Mahabharaha.

With the exit of Nataraja Mudaliyar, Surya Prakash was the only
film maker active in Madras.

Until 1918 there was no rigid censoring of the film made in

India and censoring became a major part of the Indian cinema
after passing the Indian Cinematography Act of 1918.

Even after the censor Act, The british Indian Film Censors
bothered more about the content championing the Indian
Freedom movement, the disruption of communal amenity and
such issues which would affect the imperialistic hold on the
nation.

Unfortunately the “Glass Studio” was closed due to business

losses.
Another Pioneer who was regretfully forgotten was A.Narayanan who was associated in Prakash’s first film and also
associated
in his various works.

He also played the role Lord Krishna in the film “Bhishma Pratigna”.

After a long effort a non-silent movie came to theaters in 1931. It was produced by Raman and directed by Prakash.

A system of Men also playing female roles in the films were prevalent till 1935 due to many women not coming forward to
act in film.
 Part 02
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 MOVIE TIME
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