TR Rajkumari in “Chandralekha” (1948) produced by Gemini Studios. , Photo Credit: The Hindu Archives
The iconic film celebrated its platinum jubilee on April 8. chandralekha, which was released on the same date in 1948. Gemini, the studio that produced it, closed in the 1970s. SS Vasan (of Gemini Studios), who also directed the film, died in 1969. The star cast and technicians are all but forgotten except in the serious study of Indian cinema. and yet chandralekha is remembered. Even people born decades later would associate the film with its famous drum dance sequence. The Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema by Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Paul Willeman classifies chandralekha as “one of the most famous films of India”. More significantly, it was the first film produced in South India to become a nationwide hit.
Drum dance sequence from the 1948 Tamil film Chandralekha. , photo credit: special arrangement
Over five years in the making of the mega-budget (it cost Rs 30 lakh at the time), Chandralekha was a do-or-die endeavor for Mithun and its owner. And yet, Vasan didn’t think twice before spending lavishly on a promotional campaign ahead of the film’s release. Full-length advertisements in all of the country’s major dailies and trade magazines, and a word-of-mouth campaign by Gemini’s publicity department, created a buzz that could rival current social media campaigns. And yet, the Tamil version of the film did not open well. Had it not been for Vasan’s next idea – to release a dubbed Hindi version, it would have only been successful, but not a cult film.
Director SS Vasan.
right time
Released nationally in December 1948, the Hindi version was a huge success. It was slightly different from the Tamil original – NS Krishnan and TA Mathuram did not feature, and heroine TR Rajkumari’s songs were not in her voice, but were sung by Uma Devi, who was known in later years as comedian Tun Tun. I was known But it was the timing that really mattered. Unlike the South, the rest of India was badly affected by the partition. A riot-weary audience was quite happy to lose themselves in nearly three hours of Ruritanian fantasy. The story was nothing new – two brothers from a royal family, one good and the other evil, both interested in the same girl, lots of twists and turns, and finally a triumph of good over evil after a spectacular climax, all what Can be called world music. There have been many remakes of the same – even bahubali If you look closely at it, it’s just the story.
drum dance in film chandralekha, , Photo Credit: The Hindu Archives
Rajadhyaksha and Vilemen specialty chandralekhaThe success of its “aggressive redivision of entertainment spurred Hollywood-style orientalism” and that it set the trend “in the post-independence codification of an Indian mass entertainment ideology”. Cult films will come again and again in Indian cinema and yet the mandate of Hollywood-style orientalism and ideology of mass entertainment will never change. Buoyed by the success of his Hindi version and by then a national figure in filmmaking, Vasan released a shorter version as well. chandralekha In English, titled Chandra. Apparently, this did not go over well and as Ashokamitran wrote tongue-in-cheek years later, the English version was probably Vasan’s bigger joke on the Indian audience.
a scene from the movie chandralekha, , Photo Credit: The Hindu Archives
business success
Over the decades, estimates of the film’s earnings have varied widely. But Vasan himself gave details in a speech that the Ashokamitran document. This gives us an idea of the commercial side of films at that time. chandralekha It ran for four years and earned Rs 4 crore. Of this, Rs 1.5 crore as entertainment tax and Rs. 1.25 crore went to theaters and distributors. Rs 25 lakh was spent on advertisement and the same amount went towards other taxes. Of this, Rs 75 lakh was left, of which finance costs in the form of interest on borrowed money took a major chunk. The producer said, Vasan, meaning himself, had a few lakhs left. Was it worth all the alarm and excursion, they asked.
A scene from the 1948 film chandralekha, , Photo Credit: The Hindu Archives
There may be an element of exaggeration in the claim but it cannot be denied that it was not a bonanza as people claimed. But its abstractions were many – an entire ecosystem, which survived cinema, was a bad year for 1947/48 in which many stars, technicians and others migrated to Pakistan. As A.V. Meiyappan wrote, the South later came to be recognized as the center of film production R Chandralekha And he and other studio owners in Madras started making films in Hindi. This in turn promoted a pan-Indian culture. Today’s PS, RRR and Baahubali all stand on the shoulders of a kind Chandralekha. Vasan was undoubtedly the pioneer, and his film will be remembered for just that.