Keechaka Vadham

Keechaka Vadham
Directed by R. Nataraja Mudaliar
Produced by R. Nataraja Mudaliar
Written by C. Rangavadivelu
Starring Raju Mudaliar
Jeevarathnam
Cinematography R. Nataraja Mudaliar
Edited by R. Nataraja Mudaliar
Distributed by India Film Company
Release dates
 January 1918
Country India
Language Silent film with intertitles
Budget ₹35,000[1]
Box office ₹50,000[2]

Keechaka Vadham (English: The Extermination of Keechaka)[3] alternatively spelt as Keechaka Vatham,[4] is a 1918 Indian silent film produced, directed, filmed and edited by R. Nataraja Mudaliar. The film is based on an episode from the Hindu epic Mahabharata focusing on the characters Kichaka and Draupadi; it stars Raju Mudaliar as Keechaka and Jeevarathnam as Draupadi, the female lead.

Keechaka Vadham was the first silent film made in South India. The film was shot in five weeks in 1917 at Nataraja Mudaliar's studio, India Film Company. Despite being a silent film, the cast members were from Tamil Nadu, hence it was also considered the first Tamil film. Keechaka Vadham was released in January 1918 and received critical acclaim and went on to become a commercially successful venture. The film's success prompted Nataraja Mudaliar to make a series of similar historical films. Because no print of the film is known to survive, this makes it a lost film.

Cast

Production

Nataraja Mudaliar, who produced, directed, edited and filmed Keechaka Vadham

Mooppanar, a wealthy landowner based in Thanjavur, had owned a Williamson 35mm camera and a printer purchased in England.[1] R. Nataraja Mudaliar, then an automobile dealer in Madras,[3] had taken the entire equipment from him at a price of less than ₹2,000,[lower-alpha 1] thereby making his debut in the film industry.[1] Nataraja Mudaliar developed a passion for moving pictures after watching the films of Dadasaheb Phalke. At the time cinematographers from Britain were filming a documentary on Lord Curzon, then the Governor-General and Viceroy of India.[1] Nataraja Mudaliar got introduced to Stewart Smith, one of the cinematographers who worked in the documentary, and learned about the basics of photography in film-making through him.[1] This eventually led to Nataraja Mudaliar establishing his production house, India Film Company, in 1917.[1][6][lower-alpha 2] He brought together some of his business associates, allowing them to invest in the production house, and established South India's first film studio on Miller's Road, Purasawalkam, Madras.[8][lower-alpha 3]

Nataraja Mudaliar sought the advice of his friend, Pammal Sambandha Mudaliar, one of the founding fathers of the Renaissance of Tamil Theatre, who suggested that he should picturise the story of the Mahabharata characters Draupadi and Kichaka.[1] Some of Nataraja Mudaliar's relatives objected to it as they felt that it was not a proper story for his debut venture.[1] But Nataraja Mudaliar decided to proceed and launched his maiden film titled Keechaka Vadham,[1] which was based on an episode from the Mahabharatha.[10] The episode follows the attempts made by Keechaka, one of the generals of King Virata, to woo and marry Draupadi before she reports about it to Bhima, who kills him.[2][11] Nataraja Mudaliar was not a writer, so he had to take assistance from his close friend C. Rangavadivelu, a lawyer by profession.[1] Besides writing the screenplay, Rangavadivelu agreed to coach artistes on sets.[1][12] Nataraja Mudaliar engaged stage actors Raja Mudaliar and Jeevarathnam to play the roles of Keechaka and Draupadi respectively. The total budget of the film was ₹35,000,[lower-alpha 1] which was then considered high.[1]

Filming began in 1917, and was shot in a span of five weeks.[2] The entire film was shot at the India Film Company. The film's intertitles were written in English, Tamil and Hindi. The Tamil intertitles were written by Pammal Sambandha Mudaliar while the Hindi intertitles were written by Mahatma Gandhi's son Devdas Gandhi.[13] Nataraja Mudaliar also handled the film's production, cinematography and editing.[14][15] Despite being a silent film, the cast was filled with Tamil people, hence it was considered the first Tamil film.[2] The final length of the film was 6,000 ft (1,800 m).[1][14]

Release and legacy

Keechaka Vadham was the first silent film made in South India.[1][16] According to film historian Randor Guy, Nataraja Mudaliar established a film laboratory of his own in Bangalore to process the film negatives as there was no film laboratory in Madras. Nataraja Mudaliar believed that Bangalore's colder climate "would be kind to his exposed film stock". He processed the film negatives there each weekend and return on Monday morning to resume the film's shooting.[12][17]

Keechaka Vadham was released in January 1918 at the Elphinstone Theatre.[2] Guy states that the film netted ₹50,000[lower-alpha 1] after being screened throughout India and in Burma, Ceylon, the Federated Malay States and Singapore. According to film historian S. Muthiah, ₹15,000[lower-alpha 1] was a "tidy profit in those days."[2] According to writer Firoze Rangoonwalla, a reviewer from The Mail rated the film's success highly by commenting "It has been prepared with great care and is drawing full houses".[18] With the film's critical and commercial success, Nataraja Mudaliar had "created history".[14] No print of it is known to survive, so it is considered a lost film.[16]

The success of the film incited Nataraja Mudaliar to make a series of historical films such as Draupadi Vastrapaharanam (1918), Lava Kusa (1919), Shiv Leela (1919), Rukmini Satyabhama (1922) and Mahi Ravana (1923).[14][17] In 1923, the death of his son that occurred in a fire accident which also burnt up his entire studio led Nataraja Mudaliar to retire from filmmaking and close up shop.[12][14] Nataraja Mudaliar is widely recognised as the father of Tamil cinema and his films helped in laying the foundation for the South Indian cinema industry.[2][19][20] Nataraja Mudaliar's work inspired Raghupathi Prakasa, son of Raghupathi Venkaiah Naidu, later revered as the father of Telugu cinema, and J. C. Daniel, who was later revered as the father of Malayalam cinema.[19][21][22]

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 The average exchange rate in 1917 was 0.077 Indian rupees (₹) per 1 US dollar (US$).[5]
  2. ↑ Both film critic and author S. Theodore Baskaran, and the Tamil feminist writer C. S. Lakshmi say that the name of the place where Mudaliar founded India Film Company was previously called Tower House.[7]
  3. ↑ The city was officially renamed to Chennai in 1996.[9]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Guy, Randor (9 May 2002). "Remembering a pioneer". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 18 September 2015. Retrieved 29 June 2011.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Muthiah, S. (7 September 2009). "The pioneer ‘Tamil’ film-maker". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 18 September 2015. Retrieved 29 June 2011.
  3. 1 2 Baskaran 2013, p. 14.
  4. ↑ Suganth, M. (2 March 2012). "Black and white films in Kollywood". The Times of India. Archived from the original on 18 September 2015. Retrieved 25 November 2012.
  5. ↑ Roy, Anjan (4 June 2013). "The mystery of India’s purchasing power parity". Shillong Times. Archived from the original on 29 October 2015. Retrieved 29 October 2015.
  6. ↑ Pinto & Srivastava 2008, pp. 42–43.
  7. ↑ Lakshmi 2004, p. 80; Baskaran 2013, p. 141.
  8. ↑ Pinto & Srivastava 2008, pp. 42–43; Rajadhyaksha & Willemen 2014, p. 152.
  9. ↑ Venkatesan, Deepa (22 August 2014). "Madras Day: Tracing a city’s transformation as Chennai turns 375". Daily News and Analysis. Archived from the original on 26 October 2015. Retrieved 28 October 2015.
  10. ↑ Pattanaik 2010, pp. 203–206; Baskaran 2013, p. 14.
  11. ↑ Buck 2000, pp. 215–222.
  12. 1 2 3 Baskaran 2013, p. 141.
  13. ↑ Guy, Randor (5 October 2013). "The forgotten heroes". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 18 September 2015. Retrieved 6 October 2013.
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 Guy, Randor (10 July 2000). "The stamp of honour". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 18 September 2015. Retrieved 30 June 2011.
  15. ↑ Film News Anandan. "Tamil Cinema History — The Early Days". Indolink. Archived from the original on 28 October 2015. Retrieved 28 October 2015.
  16. 1 2 Thakur, Atul (1 May 2010). "Gone Forever". The Times of India. Archived from the original on 18 September 2015. Retrieved 29 June 2011.
  17. 1 2 Guy, Randor (December 2007). A Miller's Road Film Pioneer (PDF). Madras Musings. p. 6. Archived (PDF) from the original on 28 October 2015. Retrieved 28 October 2015.
  18. ↑ Rangoonwalla 2003, p. 31.
  19. 1 2 "Classics must be preserved, says B. Mahendra". Deccan Chronicle. 29 May 2013. Archived from the original on 28 October 2015. Retrieved 5 June 2013.
  20. ↑ Baskaran, S. Theodore (September 2011). "How old is Tamil Cinema?". Madras Musings. Archived from the original on 28 October 2015. Retrieved 28 October 2015.
  21. ↑ Velayutham 2008, pp. 2–3.
  22. ↑ Vats, Rohit (1 March 2013). "100 Years of Indian Cinema: The founding fathers". CNN-News18. Archived from the original on 24 April 2016. Retrieved 24 April 2016.

Bibliography

External links

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