Playing everywhere

It is not just in the multiplexes, even the stand-alone screens are showing only one movie these days!

Done that

There it is, finally. The one movie we've been waiting for. Unlike for part-1, we didn't do a big-crowd early morning show or anything for this. Picked the 7:30 show last evening, and it went on till 10:40 or so. 

This one was at the parking lot of Sathyam Cinemas. Always wondered why they place it in a way that I can only see it on my rear view mirror when I park!

 

Sudden turn

In the 1930s and early 1940s, CN Lakshmikanthan was the man who made the who's who of Madras society nervous. Movie stars, prominent socialites, industrialists, even politicians and lawyers were not spared his attention. As a journalist running a film weekly Cinema Thoothu (and later when Cinema Thoothu was banned, Hindu Nesan), Lakshmikanthan had almost perfected the art of extorting money with the thread of publishing scandalous stories about his targets. Most of them paid up, but there were some who were repeated frustrated by him. 

Things came to a head on the morning of November 8, 1944. Lakshmikanthan was returning home after a visit to his lawyer. He had the hand-rickshaw go through the General Collins Road route back home. This road had a blind turn around which his assailants lay in wait. Two of them stabbed Lakshmikanthan while two other kept watch. It appeared that Lakshmikanthan knew the assailants, event though he did not specify who they were to his lawyer, who arranged for him to be taken to the General Hospital right away. Being made of sterner stuff, Lakshmikanthan decided to file a complaint with the Vepery Police Station before going to the General Hospital.

The wounds were more serious than he realised, or maybe more wounds were inflicted on him. He died early the following morning; a trial for his murder put two famous actors and several others behind bars for a few years before they were determined to be innocent, or at least the beneficiaries of reasonable doubt. If only the walls and the trees on General Collins Road, which would well have been there even 79 years, ago could talk! The mystery of who killed Lakshmikanthan wouldn't have become the sensation it has grown to be through all these decades!

 

Making music

A live orchestra at work, recording the background music for a feature film. This happened at a studio in Vadapalani. From the outside, it looks like any other building on the street, but the inside is very different - multiple spaces for recording music, voice, etc. Had a good time watching the music director and the sound engineer working together on getting the whole thing going. 

Can't say anything more about it for now!

King of mythology

Were he alive today, Kuppuswamy would have been celebrating his 95th birthday. But no one would have referred to him by that name, for he achieved fame in Madras as Nagarajan. That was the name given to him when he was working with Avvai Shanmugam's drama company in the late 1930s. He did well on stage, including in sthreepart (playing a woman). He also started writing plays and in 1953, he shifted to the world of movies, adapting his play Nalvar for the screen. It was during an interview with a magazine that he revealed his 'original' name, and that he was the son of Paramasivam of Akkammapettai (near Salem). From then on, he was A.P. Nagarajan. 

Tamizh cinema of the 50s and 60s was crowded with 'social' movies, a reflection of the shift from ancient themes to challenges of the modern day human. It was A.P. Nagarajan who brought the spotlight back on to 'mythologicals'. His first film as an independent producer, 'Navarathri' (also Sivaji Ganesan's 100th film) in 1964, was a big hit. Yet, that year's blockbuster was 'Karnan', BR Pantulu's magnum opus, with an ensemble cast that included Sivaji, NTR, Savithri, Muthuraman, Ashokan and Devika. That reminded APN of his initial success with mythology - Sampoorna Ramayanam in 1958, for which he had written the screenplay. He now decided to focus on that genre as a producer, too. The movies that he brought out after 1965 were all hits, and many continue to be household names today. Saraswathi Sabatham, Kandhan Karunai, Thiruvarutchelvar, Thirumal Perumai, Agasthiyar, Thirumalai Deivam, Karaikaal Ammayaar and Sri Krishna Leela. During these years he also made Thillana Mohanambal and Raja Raja Chozhan, both of which were hugely successful, even if they were not mythologicals. 

AP Nagarajan's house on Chittaranjan Road has now been converted into a jumble of multi-purpose spaces. It has offices, a restaurant, a training centre, and Medai, a performance space. It is in the foyer of Medai that one can see this 'shrine' to APN; some of the awards he won, and a few pictures with national leaders of the day. While there is a memento of the runaway success of his 1965 film, I believe it should have been displayed more prominently, for in my mind, it was Thiruvilayadal that has had the most impact on the pop-culture of the state, with its dialogues being riffed on even to this day! (check out here and here for a couple of those. And this one with corporate overtones!)

 

Empty seats

That's what the inside of a cinema hall looks like after the movie when everyone - well, almost everyone - has left. 

This was in the early days of the PVR Heritage RSL, the PVR Playhouse, on the ECR. It opened sometime in 2021, possibly after the first wave of Covid was past. It looked like the PVR Playhouse is the only business in the whole building. There were indications that other outlets would be opening there soon, but then, it did not seem like a multiplex in a mall; it was more like the screens are the only reason why anyone would come in, and all other outlets would depend on these crowds.

But then, none of those other outlets were open. The 10 screens are on the first floor, and one had to walk past a whole host of "Coming Soon" boards - and no, those were not for the movies, but for the food court and the play areas. The movie we went for did not have much of a crowd, so it was easy to take this picture after the show ended. I hope we won't have this luxury the next time around there! 

The man behind the sun

Chennai got back to having a mayor in 2022, after almost 6 years of it being suspended; many believe the current mayor, Priya Rajan is the first woman mayor of Chennai. That honour however, goes to Tara Cherian, who served a term from December 1957 to November 1958. And then there was Kamakshi Jayaraman, who was the mayor of the city during 1971-72. With the post now being reserved for women, it will be a long while before Chennai gets to see a male mayor again, if at all. So here is something about one man who was the city's mayor.

Thamarapakkam Sundara Rao Naidu was born in 1891. A lawyer by training, he involved himself in social causes, joining the Justice Party in the 1920s. He was captivated by the movies, but he seems to have been more interested in their potential for communicating social messages than merely as a business. In the 1940s, he acquired a cinema hall, which continued to function until the '90s, well after Sundara Rao passed away in 1949. 

The Corporation of Chennai, having been established in 1688, is the second such in the world. Sundara Rao's tenure as mayor came a good 30 years after that post was first held by an Indian. However, he was the city's mayor when India became independent in 1947; there is a park named in his honour in Egmore. I am not sure if his statue is in that park, but this one can be seen at Sun Plaza, where he once had his cinema hall!

 

A different world

Even a rudimentary knowledge of Indian iconography will be enough to know this is representation of Mahavishnu in his form as Padmanabhaswamy - the one with a lotus growing out of his navel - resting on Anantasesha, the divine serpent. Also in the picture are Hanuman, Lakshmi, Siva, Brahma and Narada. This entire tableau is placed above an entrance on Wall Tax Road. 

With so many deities, you might believe that the entrance is to a place of religious significance. In some senses, that might be true, given our penchant for elevating our heroes to god-like levels; but the reality is that once you go past this, you would be entering the fantasy world of the movies. At least, that is how it was until a few years ago. Last year, the posters announced the advent of a multi-storey residential complex, confirming that the Padmanabha has indeed played out its last show, about 5 years ago.

Padmanabha Theatre began life as the Regal; does this tableau go back to those days, when it was placed to bring good luck, or did it come up after (possibly) a change of ownership and name, with the new owner trying to ensure that the re-branding sticks, with this visual representation? If the latter, it couldn't have been too successful - even today, the MTC bus routes indicate this stage as 'Regal'!

Underground

Tucked away behind a larger building on Mount Road is this squat little building which really seems to have no reason to continue to remain in the business it is in. Anna Theatre has remained much the same since the time it started screening movies, which was, in my best guess, sometime in the 1960s. By that time, both Shanti and the Devi complex were functioning, and there was no reason why a single-screen theatre so close to them would be any threat; especially when it had no signage on the main road itself and seemed to be a place where you would go to watch re-runs after a few years.

But no. Anna Theatre seems to have not only held its own but actually flourished in the years since it began. No threat to the biggies next door, but it has been doing quite well. Possibly, it initially was the place you went to if you could not get tickets for the blockbusters running at Devi or Shanti; over time, it has become one of the screens for releasing new movies as well.

Remaining largely unchanged, with some technology upgrades, Anna Theatre today screens three shows. All of them are the latest releases. And all of them with big name stars. Not bad at all for a theatre that should have gone down anytime in the last couple of decades. But wait - there is a unique feature that this theatre has, supposedly. I haven't been to it and I haven't met anyone with firsthand knowledge of this, but the screen here is in the basement - and that's probably a bigger attraction than the movie itself!

Treachery of images

I learnt a new word during this week. Magritte. Derived from the name of the Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte, it refers to something that is not what it seems. The story is that Magritte painted a pipe, and titled it "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" (This is not a pipe). He was right of course, for it was only a painting of the pipe and not the pipe itself. 

So, the picture up here today is of a police station. Or is it? Okay, I'm not getting all meta here. The J4 Police Station in Chennai is indeed the one at Kotturpuram, as it says on this board here. But this is not it. This building is somewhere off Cart Track Road in Velachery. The board has been placed there because it is acting - acting as a police station. 

Yes. Part of a movie. More about the movie for another post, but then, isn't every movie a treachery of images? If you've watched the Malayalam Drishyam, or its Tamizh version Papanasam, you will agree with that! 

Droning away

When we were planning on making a corporate film, the director told us that he would have a surprise for us. Turned out that the surprise was a drone-cam. The radio controlled drone was designed and fabricated by the director himself, with his brother helping out on the electronics bits. It needed two sets of controls; one to fly the drone itself and the other to manipulate the Go-Pro camera that was its payload. 

As in many other parts of the world, Chennai is grappling with issues around regulating drones. There are some basic controls in place; anyone planning to fly a drone must get the equipment cleared by the DGCA. In addition to that, each time one plans to send the drone into the air, the plans have to be cleared by the city police. The uncertainty around getting the permission from the police was the reason for our director saying that he might surprise us - there was no way he could commit to having a drone-cam for the shoot.

It was quite a curiosity and the crew took turns at trying to pilot the drone. After going up a bit - around 15m or so - they found that the signals from a nearby cellphone tower were interfering with the drone's radio controls. There was a danger that it would crash; but as it came down, the controls were re-established and the drone-cam landed safely. And then, the roles were reversed. Rather than the drone-cam focussing on us, we all pulled out our cellphones and cameras and tried to get a good shot of the drone!

Music and move-ie store

In the middle of the music season in Chennai, it is time to think about a store that brought 'another kind of music' to Madras. It was in 1975 that Harish Samtani decided to set up his shop near the Wallajah Road intersection on Mount Road. The choice of location was possibly influenced by the fact that it was right in the Ritchie Street area; an area that was already known for being the go-to place for the latest in electronic goods. It made sense for a store selling exotic music to open up there.

In the beginning, there were the vinyls, of course. Over the years, Stereovision has kept in sync with changing tastes and technologies. It has ranged beyond music and has become pretty much the leading brand in Chennai for hi-tech audio and video equipment. Along the way, Harish has married his first love of auto-racing into the business of Stereovision - and that you can see in the ads for GoPro dominating the storefront - and its website!

No more shows

There was a news report about Pilot theatre in Royapettah planning to shut down. It certainly had a lot of people groan about how standalone, single screen cinemas have become scarce and unviable, and about the romance of going for a movie in the old days. 

Pilot was certainly one of those old-world theatres. It was opened sometime in the 1950s and was going strong through the next few decades, screening English films for most of its life. Sometime in the early 2000s, though, the theatre lost its charm as a go-to place for watching movies and it was reduced to screening dubbed versions of slash-and-gore Hollywood movies which even Hollywood had forgotten about. 

Despite its recent setbacks, Pilot claims a couple of firsts to its credit. It was apparently the first widescreen in the city, and a novelty when it was inaugurated. The other was something called a 'thread-screen'; what that is, I have no idea. But those innovations were a long time ago and while there was some nostalgia, there was really little surprise about Pilot having had to shut down. But surprisingly, it seems to have got itself a new coat of paint on its facade - is there some kind of a revival in the works?

Hidden hotel

A guidebook published in 1987 contains a "Where to Stay" list for Madras, in which 'Hotel Admiralty' is listed in the 3rd place. One could assume that Hotel Admiralty was therefore functioning in 1987, but somehow the previous entry ("Hotel Holiday Inn Aya Gate") does not inspire much confidence in the veracity of this listing. It is however true that Madras had an "Admiralty Hotel" at one point in time. It was not always a hotel, though. In 1892, a naval officer acquired a garden house along Santhome High Road and named it Admiralty House, presumably after his line of work. Most likely his family did not want to stay on in Madras after his time, and the property was sold in 1914 to the Maharaja of Vizianagaram. During the Maharaja's time, it was known as the Vizianagaram Palace. It was in this palace that the Maharaja fell off a balcony and was fatally injured. After his death, the Palace acquired a reputation of being haunted and a place of ill-fortune.

With nobody from the family interested in living in the buildings, they were let out to AV Meiyappa Chettiar who took it on an interminably long lease at a rent of Rs.250/- per month. AVM - yes, it was he of the studio fame - had no intention of living there, either. The palace became the setting for a few of AVM's big hits: Sabapathy, Bhoo Kailas and Sri Valli. But somehow, AVM did not use the palace for any other movies. His successor as tenant to the property was a gentleman named Palliagraharam Kandaswami Pillai who announced that he would make a movie at the palace. Titled "A1" (not to be confused with "Ai", it was to be directed by Ellis R. Dungan, but it never saw the light of day. 

With that, film shoots at the Vizianagaram Palace came to a stop. It was then that the owners decided to convert it into a hotel. Recalling the property's earlier name, the Admiraly Hotel was opened here, The sign on its wall along Norton Road was originally unhindered by all those electrical equipment; and, it has remained unaltered over the years and looking quite new, even if it is hidden these days. But don't go looking for the hotel - it has long ceased to function and the buildings on the property are now used as office space!

Screen festival

In 2003, a bunch of cinema lovers in Chennai formed the Indo Cine Appreciation Forum (ICAF) and staged the first Chennai International Film Festival (CIFF). After the first few years, the state government also lent its support to this festival and since 2008, the CIFF has been hosted with 'official' approval. The 12th CIFF started off on December 18 and will close on Christmas Day. 

This year, the CIFF is being played across four screens in the city: at Casino, at the two screens at Woodlands and at one of the INOX's screens and also at the Russian Cultural Centre. A quick look at the screening schedule tells us there are about 30 countries from where films are being screened - they include familiar names like the USA, UK, Russia and also a couple of surprising ones like Ethiopia, Finland and Kazakhstan. All told, over 80 films are packed into the week. 

The photo shows the Woodlands / Symphony cinema. Decked up with flags and buntings, it is evident that it is hosting a festival. Unlike the typical blockbuster release festivals, there are no 80-ft cutouts of stars or big banners announcing a film. The posters are small and you will need to look closely to identify the movies themselves. Woodlands is also hosting an exhibition - a series of photographs of stand-alone cinema halls by a couple of German photographers. Those photos were lovely, reminding us of a time when not only the movies, but the venues screening them were also works of art!

Lingaa

Contrived, yes. 

But I don't have any other picture to mark the birthday of Chennai's Superstar. His latest movie releases in India today and my Facebook timeline is flooded with pictures of the man, and several friends, young and old, either gushing about how they managed to get "FDFS" (First Day First Show) tickets or growling about those who did.

Happy birthday, Rajinikanth! Or maybe the other way around? 

First shot

Movie makers are by and large very superstitious and do not take many chances in the way of their movies being successful. Almost every film starts with a puja, which has become an event in itself these days. It is the done thing to can a shot at the puja. Sometimes that shot may not even make it to the final version of the movie, but it has to be done. 

The AVM Studios had a pillaiyar under a tree, which over the years became the default location for puja shot. Much later, another pillaiyar was also added on. That was in 2005, when AVM Productions split (for the third time in their 55-year history). And so this temple came up; apart from the pillaiyar as 'Selva Vinayagar', there is also a Durga and Murugan with his consorts.

When you enter the studio, this new shrine is the one that you get to see first. The split meant that it would be more convenient for each part of the studio to have a puja spot of its own!

Grand spectacle

In his career spanning over 40 years, Vittalacharya made movies that brought every kind of fantasy to the cinema screen. Whether it was a story from some by-lane of mythology, or a tale of queens and kingdoms, Vittalacharya's films would bring in all those delectable horrors of poltergeists, talking animals, supernatural beings - every kind of 'special effect' that you could not think of - to the hall and all one had to do was to sit entranced.

Though he was born in Udupi and his films were mainly in Kannada and Telugu, Vittalacharya was based in Madras for most of his life. He did make a few Tamizh films as well, but I don't remember any of them performing better than Jaganmohini. It was originally made in 1951 in Kannada by one of Vittalacharya's partners in their venture 'Mahatma Pictures'. The Telugu version, also dubbed in Tamizh was made by Vittalacharya in 1978 and was a huge hit, running for nearly a year in the theatres. 

This block of flats stand where Jaganmohini's release would have been plotted. Vittalacharya lived and worked out of his house on Saravana Perumal Street in Purasaiwalkam. After his death in 1999, the house was sold and made way for these modern residences to come up. The curved balconies and decorated sunshades have surely been influenced by the touch of the master, who was once known as Mayajaala Mannan!

Landmark

The building is called Cine City Hotels, firmly establishing the connection that this area has to the film world. If that is not enough, it has named its restaurant 'Kollywood Kitchen'. Kollywood, of course, is the moniker for the Tamizh movie industry, because it is centered around Kodambakkam. This hotel is right there in the middle of Kodambakkam; it has come up in the place where there used to be a landmark for movie makers, mostly from Kerala - Uma Lodge.

At the edge of United India Colony, Uma Lodge was close enough to the studios at Vadapazhani, without being so close as to the studios' presence overwhelming it. It was therefore a favourite spot for several young men - almost never women - aspiring to make their mark in the movie world. And many did make it big, even though there are likely several who continue to be on the fringes. It is not often that those who made it big talk about their time in Uma Lodge - but if I remember right, the movie Udhayananu Tharam makes a passing reference to it.

The list of Malayalam film makers who spent time at Uma Lodge, if it can be reliably compiled, will be long and distinguished. From what I have heard, it will include Srinivasan, Raveendran, Cochin Haneefa, Adam Ayub (and maybe Priyadarshan and Mohanlal as well?) and several other technicians. In the early 1970s, one of the residents of Uma Lodge - who had bagged a role in Thikkurissi Sukumaran Nair's 'Urvashi Bharathi' - would regale the others with his anecdotes from the sets; he was one of the earliest 'graduates' from Uma Lodge, who moved to a different orbit, going on to become not only a well-known actor, but, in the elections of 2014, a member of the country's Parliament - Vareed Thekkethala Innocent!

This month's theme is "Landmark": and Uma Lodge was certainly a landmark in its heyday. For landmarks from other cities around the world, head over to the CDP Theme Day Page!

Golden hero

The month of October is special for fans of 'Sivaji' Ganesan, the Nadigar Thilagam (the crown jewel of actors?) of Tamizh cinema. The first of the month is the birth anniversary of Villuppuram Chinnaiahpillai Ganesan, who went on to rule the Tamizh screen for over four decades between the 1950s and 1990s. He had many awards to his credit, including that of Best Actor at Afro-Asian Film Festival in Cairo in 1960 - the first Indian actor to win that award in an international festival.

That career started with the film "Parasakthi", made by AVM Studios in 1952. The script was by Mu Karunanidhi. Questioning the social mores of the day, the film's dialogues were quite fiery; quite a bit into its making, A.V. Meyyappan, the studio owner (and co-producer), as well as Krishnan-Panju, the co-directors, had doubts about the young man who was making his debut in the role of Gunasekaran, the lead character of the film. It was Mrs. Meyyappan and P.A. Perumal of National Pictures, the other co-producer, who backed Ganesan - and the rest, of course is history; not just for Ganesan, but also for the scriptwriter who would go on to become the state's Chief Minister. Parasakthi set the tone for a new kind of film-making.

It was on October 17, 1952 that this landmark of Tamizh cinema was released. 50 years later, this memorial to the movie was inaugurated inside the AVM studios. Apparently, it was initially placed a little way away from its current location, but was later shifted to the spot where Sivaji Ganesan delivered his first shot of the movie. At the bottom of this stand-up plaque, there is another shaped liked a book, listing the names of the people who had worked on the film: writers, lyricists, music director and technicians. The entire monument is topped off with the image of Sivaji delivering the first word of his first shot. Prophetic it was, for what he said was - "Success!"!