Kalidas was the first Tamil

Tamil language

Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...

 talkie film

Sound film

A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...

 made in 1931. It was produced on the sets of Alam Ara

Alam Ara

Alam Ara is a 1931 film directed by Ardeshir Irani. It was the first Indian sound film.Irani recognized the importance that sound would have on the cinema, and raced to complete Alam Ara before several contemporary sound films. Alam Ara debuted at the Majestic Cinema in Mumbai on March 14, 1931...

by Ardeshir Irani

Ardeshir Irani

Khan Bahadur Ardeshir Irani ; popularly known as Ardeshir Irani, was a writer, director, producer, actor, film distributor, film showman and cinematographer in the silent and sound eras of early Indian cinema. He was renowned for making films in Hindi, Telugu, English, German, Indonesian, Persian,...

. The director was Irani's former assistant H.M. Reddy. The film had dialogues and songs in Tamil and Telugu.

Production

After producing Alam Ara in 1931, Ardeshir Irani made many talkies in the same sets at Mumbai. In the same year Bhakta Prahlada

Bhakta Prahlada (1931 film)

Bhakta Prahlada is the first Telugu talkie film made in 1931 by H. M. Reddy, a pioneer of the Indian film industry. It is a movie about a devotee Prahlada in Hindu mythology.-History:...

, the first Telugu talking film and Kalidas were made in the sets of Alam Ara. Though it was a Tamil film, its characters spoke a variety of languages including Tamil (Princess Vidhyadhari), Telugu (Kalidas, Naradhar) and Hindi (Temple priest). The sound recording was done using the Vitaphone

Vitaphone

Vitaphone was a sound film process used on feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects produced by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1930. Vitaphone was the last, but most successful, of the sound-on-disc processes...

 process, by German technicians using German equipment. This film was produced under the banner of "Imperial Movie-Tone". Filming was completed in eight days. In an interview given to Tamil Cinema (Deepavali Issue) in 1956, the heroine of Kalidas, T. P. Rajalakshmi

T. P. Rajalakshmi

Thiruvaiyaru Panchapakesa Sastri Rajalakshmi was the first Tamil film Heroine, first Tamil female film director and film producer.- Early life :...

 said this about the film:

Plot

Kalidas tells the story of the Fourth Century CE Classical Sanskrit poet Kālidāsa

Kalidasa

Kālidāsa was a renowned Classical Sanskrit writer, widely regarded as the greatest poet and dramatist in the Sanskrit language...

. Kalidas (P.G. Venkatesan) is an illiterate goat herd. Princess Vidhyadhari(T.P. Rajalakshmi) is tricked into marrying him by her father's minister. She prays to Goddess Kali for help and Kalidas is granted with knowledge and literary talent.

Cast

• P.G. Venkatesan – Kalidas
• T.P. Rajalakshmi  – Princess Vidhyadhari
• L. V. Prasad
  L. V. Prasad
  Akkineni Lakshmi Vara Prasada Rao , more popularly known as L. V. Prasad was an Indian film producer and actor. He was a recipient of the prestigious Dadasaheb Phalke Award for lifetime contribution to cinema from the Government of India for the year 1982...
  
    – Temple Priest
• Thevaram Rajambal
• J. Sushila
• Sushila Devi
• M. R. Santhanalakshmi
  M. R. Santhanalakshmi
  M. R. Santhanalakshmi was a Tamil film actress who played lead roles in movies of the 1930s and 1940s.- Filmography :...
  
  

Songs

The film had around fifty songs. Amongst them were the patriotic rattinamam Gandhi kai banamam and indhiyargal nammavarkkul eno veen sandai. Some of the songs even featured the nationalist slogan Vande Mataram

Vande Mataram

Vande Mataram is a poem from the famed novel Anandamath which was written by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay in 1882. It was written in Bengali and Sanskrit....

 and one featured the hero singing songs on Gandhi while spinning the Charkha

Spinning wheel

A spinning wheel is a device for spinning thread or yarn from natural or synthetic fibers. Spinning wheels appeared in Asia, probably in the 11th century, and very gradually replaced hand spinning with spindle and distaff...

in prison. The lyrics for the songs were written by Madhura kavi Bhaskara Das.

Reception

The film was released in Madras Kinema Central (currently Murugan talkies) on 31 October 1931. It was a big hit as it was a novelty. Produced at the cost of Rs.8000, the film grossed over Rs.75000. When the film reels were brought to Madras, thousands gathered at Madras central railway station and followed the reel box to Kinema Central. Crowds showered rose petals, broke coconuts and burnt incense in the procession of the reels of the film, all along Walltax Road from the railway station The heroine T. P. Rajalakshmi

T. P. Rajalakshmi

Thiruvaiyaru Panchapakesa Sastri Rajalakshmi was the first Tamil film Heroine, first Tamil female film director and film producer.- Early life :...

was called as "Cinema Rani" and the Tamil magazine Sudesamitran wrote a favourable review for Kalidas on 29 October 1931 even before the film was released.

External links