By Vamanan
To be blind to the massive contribution of Bengali studios, technicians and films on Tamil cinema in the past, would be like Vadivelu enquiring about the whereabouts of Howrah Bridge while being right under it in the film ‘Aadavan’! But well, the Howrah bridge soars into the skies in front of one’s eyes while the decades of Bengal’s hold on Tamil cinema are hidden in Tamil cinema’s annals!
In the fifties, Kannadasan, then only a struggling lyricist and dialogue writer, would yearn to be groomed as a director by Debaki Bose; it might have become a reality if only the poet had not fallen homesick in Kolkata while trying his hand at the dialogues of Ratnadeep’s Tamil version! But Kannadasan’s heart was always in artistic and intellectual Bengal, and when he produced his first film ‘Maalai Itta Mangai’ (1958), it was Saratchandra’s ‘Chandranath’ to which he turned!
As a medium driven by technology, cinema grew first in Calcutta and Bombay (as the metropolises were called then), while Chennai lagged behind a bit for a decade. ‘Cinema Rani’ T.P.Rajalakshmi, who reigned in the first decade of the Tamil talkie, camped in Kolkata’s premier film-making studios in the 1930s making a steady stream of films.
T.P.Rajalakshmi camped in Calcutta and acted in the city’s studios
Being produced in Kolkata made Tamil films open to the artistic impulses of the region. The American director Ellis R. Dungan, after attending one of the musical soirees of the blind singer K.C.Dey decided to have Dey score the background music for the Tyagaraja Bhagavathar starrer ‘Ambikapathi’ (1937), while it was being made in Kolkatta’s East India Film Company studios. Earlier in the year, Bhagavathar’s first soaring hit ‘Chintamani’ too had background music by the eponymous orchestra of the Dev-Dutta studios.
Hit tunes from films made in Bengal where also copied in Tamil films. It was based on Raichand Boral’s mellifluous ditty, ‘Premuki Naiyya’ in ‘Dhoop Chaaon’, that Bhagavathar and Aswathamma sang ‘Maaya Prapanchathil’ in ‘Chinthamani’. The hit songs of K.L.Saigal, K.C.Dey and others honed in Kolkatha’s New Theatres echoed in various voices in Tamil cinema. There was even a Southern Saigal in P.G.Venkatesan!
Even as Tamil artistes queued up in Kolkata’s studios, the reverse trend of the city’s technicians migrating to Chennai had begun. One of the first to come over to Madras was Jiten Banerji who arrived even at the Silent Cinema stage. He was later director of photography for such iconic films as MKT’s Tiruneelakantar, MS’s Meera and the ‘first Telugu historical’, Palanati Yuddham. He was also partner in Newtone Studios. Sailen Bose (Thyaga Bhoomi, Nandanar) and Kamal Ghosh (Kacha Devayani, Chandralekha) made waves with their work and also trained local talent.
Director K.Subramanyam who had attracted such talent from Kolkata, also drew the ace makeup man Haripada Chandra aka Haribabu to Chennai. Haribabu settled for good in Chennai and set the highest standards in the art. Peethambaram by whose work N.T.Rama Rao and MGR swore was an understudy of Haribabu. The pioneering sound engineer Mukul Bose who came to Chennai when he was 65 brought new techniques to recording in the city. ‘’He was a gentle genius who came over from Bombay to AVM and presided over the music production of Paava Mannippu whose songs made waves,’’ says veteran sound engineer Sampath who was Bose’s assistant then.
Devadas (1935), Matrubhoomi (1938, based on Dwijedralal Roy’s play Chandragupta) and Gumasthavin Penn (1941, based on Nirupama Devi’s Annapurnaar Mandir) were a few Tamil films based on Bengali originals. But from the early fifties both Tamil and Telugu cinema began to look to Bengal for interesting middle class themes as the Puranic era had ended and the stage, shrinking day by day because of the dominance of films was in a stage of atrophy and could not yield interesting story ideas.
Sowcar Janaki in Kaaviya Thalaivi (based on Mamata, Hindi, and Uttar Phalguni, Bengali
This is the milieu in which Arun Chowdhury’s ‘Pasher Badi’ (1952) becomes ‘Pakkinti Ammai’ (1953) in Telugu, is copied in bits in ‘Kalynanam Panniyum Brahmachari’ (1954), before having its full Tamil remake in ‘Adutha Veettu Penn’ (1960). Playwright and novelist Manilal Banerjee’s novel ‘Swayam Siddha’ was made in Hindi in 1949, in Telugu in 1955 (Ardhaangi) and in Tamil the next year (Pennin Perumai).
Arun Chowdhury whose Pasher Badi made waves
Premier studios like AVM had their eyes turned eastward, picking up ‘Kuladeivam’ (1956) from ‘Banga Kora’ and ‘Naanum Oru Penn’ (1963) from ‘Kala Bou’. Sivaji Ganesan stood tall in ‘Uyarndha’ Manidhan’ (1968) based on ‘Uttar Purush’ while Sowcar Janaki, seeking to add zip to her career did a double role apart from being producer in ‘Kaaviya Thalaivi’ based on ‘Mamata’/ ‘Uttar Phalguni’. The Tamil celluloid calendars of the fifties and sixties are filled with such cross fertilizations from Bengal…but the phenomenon tapered off, and today Bengali commercial cinema is rehashing potboilers from Telugu and Tamil cinema! How the wheel turns!
(The writer is a historian of Tamil cinema and author of books on the subject)
Vamanan's Sight 