cinefun4all - history of malayalam cinema

At the dawn of the silent movies in world cinema, the first silent movie in Malayalam ‘Vikathakumaran’ was made with the made in 1928 by Mr. J C Daniel . But unfortunately the film ruined him in financially .

Mr. Daniel , another of his family members Mr. Sunderraj took initiative to produce another film ‘MarthandaVarma’ based on Sri C.V. Ramanpilla's famous novel,this film got involved in legal problems with the copy right panel and turned out to be another financial disaster .

'Balan' the first Malayalam "talkies" with sound track, was made in 1938 . Mr.T.R Sundaram produced this film for modern theatres, Salem, with S. Nottani was the director.

The Main actors and actresses were Mr.K. K. Aroor, Mr. Alleppy Vincent, Smt. M. K. Kamalam etc. Mr. Muthukulam Raghavan Pillai wrote the screen play. The theme of this film which was based on a step-mother, has influenced Malayalam cinema stories for a long time. The picture was, of course a Superhit .

Inspired from this success , it’s distributors 'Shymala Pictures' produced the fourth Malayalam movie ‘Jnanambika’ . In other Indian languages all the early films were mythologicals, whereas in Malayalam only the fifth one 'Prahalda' (1941) was a mythological.

After 'Prahalada' the Malayalam film industry remains inactive for a long while .

Then, in 1948, another film 'Nirmala' produced by P.J.Charian and directed by P.V.Krishna Iyer. was released This film was a revolution in the field of film technology . the ‘play -back’ system was introduced for the first time in the film . Until then, artists had to act and sing simultaneously . The famous ‘Udaya Studio’ was built in 1949 at Alleppy, and in 1952 ‘Merryland studio’ was set-up in Trivandrum. Both played important roles in the history of Malayalam cinema.

'Jeevitha Nowka' which was made in 1951 broke all the previous box -office records . It was screened continuously for 284 days in Trivandrum city. K. Vembu was the director of this film which was produced by Koshi and Kunchcko under the banner of K & K Productions. Eminent actor 'Thikkurissy' become famous through this film .