Chandralekha (1948 film)

This article is about the 1948 film. For other uses, see Chandralekha (disambiguation).

Chandralekha
File:Chandralekha 1948.jpg Theatrical poster
Directed by	S. S. Vasan
Written by	Veppathur Kittoo
Produced by	S. S. Vasan
Starring	M. K. Radha Ranjan T. R. Rajakumari
Cinematography	Kamal Ghosh K. Ramnoth (circus scenes only)
Music by	S. Rajeswara Rao M. D. Parthasarathy
Distributed by	Gemini Studios
Release date	9 April 1948
Running time	210 mins
Languages	Tamil Hindi
Budget	₹30 lakh

Chandralekha is a 1948 Indian bilingual historical fiction film directed and produced by S. S. Vasan under the banner of Gemini Studios. The film stars T. R. Rajakumari in the title role and M. K. Radha and Ranjan as the male leads, while N. S. Krishnan and T. A. Madhuram appear in supporting roles. The music was composed by S. Rajeswara Rao and M. D. Parthasarathy, and the screenplay was written by Veppathur Kittoo. The film deals with the sibling rivalry between two princes, the good Veerasimhan (Radha) and the bad Sasankan (Ranjan). The object of desire and bone of contention between them is state power equated with the possession of the village maiden Chandralekha (Rajkumari).

Development for Chandralekha began in 1943, when Vasan wanted to produce a big budget film and asked his story department to come up with a screenplay. Wri­ters like Kotha­man­galam Subbu and Veppa­thur Kit­too told him the story of a tough woman who outwits a vicious bandit and ultimately slashes off his nose. Vasan rejected it for being gruesome, but one thing stuck in his mind: the name of the woman, Chandra­lekha. With elements from the novel Robert McCaire the Male Bandit being added, the script (after 3 months of searching) was finally complete. The original director of Chandralekha was T. G Raghavachari, who after directing a large portion of the film, left the project due to creative differences between him and Vasan, who took over the film, making his directorial debut.

Originally made in Tamil, Chandralekha (which was in the making for five years) was made, re-made, re-re-made, scrapped, re-shot, scrapped and re-re-shot, with the film ultimately costing over ₹3 million. It was the most expensive movie made in India till then; to the extent that filming a single sequence cost as much as the entire budget of any typical film of that time. Chandralekha, after massive publicity, released on 9 April 1948, created a sensation and smashed box-office records all over the country, making it the first "all-India hit". Its Hindi version opened the doors for South Indian producers to sell their Hindi-wares in the North.

Plot

Veerasimhan (M. K. Radha) and Sasankan (Ranjan) are the sons of a king. Veerasimhan meets a beautiful woman Chandralekha (T. R. Rajakumari) while returning to his palace on a horse. Both fall in love instantly. Sasankan, the younger brother, demands that his father should make him the next king as he considers himself more powerful than Veerasimhan, but the king refuses. To teach his father a lesson, Sasankan gets out of the palace, forms a gang of thieves and creates confusion in the country by robbing and killing people. In one such incident at a village, Chandralekha's father also gets killed. She is orphaned and leaves the village to live with her aunt in another village but is captured en route by Sasankan's men.

Sasankan falls in love with Chandralekha but she escapes capture and runs away. Veerasimhan learns that Sasankan is the man behind the mayhem in the country and comes with his army to capture him. However in a sudden attack, Sasankan captures Veerasimhan, dumps him in a cave and closes it with a huge rock. Chandralekha notices this act; with the help of a circus elephant and men passing through the village, she rescues Veerasimhan. Meanwhile, Sasankan reaches the kingdom, captures and arrests his father and declares himself king. He remembers Chandralekha and asks his men to find and bring her to him. Both Veerasimhan and Chandralekha join the circus troupe and live in hiding. Veerasimhan and his friends plan to rescue the kingdom.

Chandralekha becomes a circus and performs daredevil acts. One of Sasankan's men notice her during one such act, and later try to nab her, but she escapes from them and joins a gypsy group. Sasankan's men, however, capture her and take her to the palace. Sasankan demands that she marry him, which she refuses. She pretends to be unconscious whenever he tries to approach her. Veerasimhan sends a message to Chandralekha to organise a huge drum dance in order to rescue her.

Chandralekha agrees to marry Sasankan if he agrees for a drum dance to celebrate their engagement. Sasankan agrees, and a mammoth drum dance is organised at the palace, with many women dancing on the drums. As the drum dance comes to an end, Veerasimhan's men, who were hiding inside the huge drums, come out to attack Sasankan's forces and defeat them. Veerasimhan arrives and engages in a long sword fight with Sasankan, who is finally defeated and captured. Veerasimhan releases his parents, and marries Chandralekha.

Cast

• T. R. Rajakumari as Chandralekha
• M. K. Radha as Veerasimhan
• Ranjan as Sasankan
• Sundarabai
• N. S. Krishnan
• T. A. Mathuram
• V. N. Janaki
• L. Narayana Rao
• T. P. Muthulakshmi
• S. N. Lakshmi

Production

Development

In 1943, after his two previous films Manga­m­ma Sabatham (1943) and Balanagamma (1942) grossed over ₹4 million, S. S. Vasan wanted to produce a big budget film and asked his story department to come up with a screenplay. Gemini wri­ters, like Kotha­man­galam Subbu and Veppa­thur Kit­too saw Manga­m­ma Sabatham and Balanagam­ma as heroine-oriented stories and looked for another such tale to narrate to Vasan. When they told him the story of a tough woman who outwits a vicious bandit and ultimately slashes off his nose, he rejected it for being gruesome and vulgar. However, one thing stuck in his mind: the name of the woman, Chandra­lekha.

He immediately announced his next film as Chandralekha, publicising it with front-page advertisements in all the leading publications. Yet, at the time, Vasan had nothing other than only the title. The search for a story began, and for three months no story was found, making Vasan impatient. Eventually, he told the writers he was shelving the project and would concentrate on making Avvaiyyar, another dream project Kittoo, however, pleaded for one last chance and was given a week's time. Kittoo, who was director T. G. Raghavachari's (aka Acharya) assistant and disciple, used to call his guru at his home every morning. That lucky morning, he saw a book on Raghavachari's desk, the novel Robert McCaire the Male Bandit by G.W.M. Reynolds. Kittoo opened the book and read...

"...it's night in rural England and a mail coach convoy trots its way, when, suddenly, Robert McCaire, the bandit, and his henchmen on horses emerge from the surrounding darkness, hold up the convoy and rob it. Hiding under a seat is a young woman fleeing from a harsh home. She is a dancer and when she refuses to dance, the bandit whips her into submission..."

Vasan was impressed when he heard Kittoo narrate a story based on this episode and he decided to continue with the film. He named the heroine 'Chandralekha' and his enthusiasm was so great that he did not unduly bother about the absence of the rest of the story.

Casting

"During the making (of Chan­dra­lekha), our studio looked like a small kingdom...horses, elephants, lions, tigers in one corner, palaces here and there, over there a German lady training nearly a hundred dancers on one studio floor, a shapely Sinhalese lady teaching another group of dancers on real marble steps adjoining a palace, a ­studio worker making weapons, another making period furniture using expensive rosewood, set props, headgear, and costumes, Ranjan undergoing fencing practice with our fight composer 'Stunt Somu', our music directors composing and rehearsing songs in a building... there were so many activities going on simultaneously round the clock."

– Kothamanglam Subbu, on the making of Chandralekha

The script called for two major roles, the two sons of a king, the elder being the good prince and his brother a villainous person. M. K. Radha was considered to play the younger prince. But being popular for his heroic roles, he was dissatisfied with the offer. However, his wife M. S. Gnanambal, succeeded in convincing Vasan, who agreed to cast Radha as the soft prince.

England-educated K. J. Mahadevan was chosen by Vasan to portray the role of the younger brother Sashankan, while Raghavachari was the director. Some scenes were then shot with Mahadevan as the villainous prince but proved disappointing, and Mahadevan was ultimately replaced by actor Ranjan. Actresses T. P. Muthulakshmi and S. N. Lakshmi debuted in this film as dancers, with the latter appearing in the film's climatic drum dance sequence. In April 1947, comedian N. S. Krishnan (who was arrested in 1944) was released, and Vasan signed him and T. A. Mathuram to act in Chandralekha. Thus, the story was altered and new scenes were added to fit in the famed comedy pair. Actress, dancer and singer T. R. Rajakumari was cast as Chandralekha. An early promotional advertisement for the film in September 1942 carried the name of K. L. V. Vasan­tha as the titular character. Vasantha however opted out, and moved to Salem where she became a part of the T. R. Sundaram-Modern Theatres family.

Stage actor Villupuram Chinniah Pillai Ganesha­murthy (later known as Sivaji Ganesan) coveted to play a minor role as the hero's bodyguard, and even grew his hair long for the role. He called on Kittoo several times asking for a break, even an also-ran role. Eventually Kittoo took this struggling stage actor to Vasan who had seen him perform on stage. Vasan however rejected Ganesan, claiming that he was not fit for films. The rift between the two that began then never ended.

Filming

File:Chandralekha drum dance.jpg

The film's climatic drum dance sequence, considered by many critics as the highlight of the film

Raghavachari began shooting the film and for the next five years. Vasan thought of nothing else. According to Kit­too, Raghavachari directed more than half of Chandralekha. Then, due to differences between Vasan and Raghavachari over the shooting of some sequences at the Governor's Estate (now, Raj Bhavan, Guindy), Raghavachari walked out of the film. Vasan took over, making his debut as director. Over the course of five years (from 1943 to 1948), Chandralekha was made, re-made, scrapped, re-shot, scrapped and re-re-shot, with the film ultimately costing over ₹3 million, not adjusted for inflation. It was the most expensive movie made in India till then. The script is believed to have been inspired by the Hollywood film The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), from which some elements and scenes were freely used.

At one stage, Vasan decided to add a circus as part of the film and thus the screen story was altered. Kittoo travelled all over South India and Ceylon and he watched over fifty circus companies perform before he found the right unit. The shooting of the circus scenes was entrusted to K. Ramnoth. A brilliant technician and a camera-wizard, he captured flying trapeze acts high above the ground... wild animals fighting... and a shot that is breathtaking even by today's standards... To quote Kittoo, "In those days, we had no zoom lenses and yet Ramnoth did it. One night, while Chandralekha is performing on the flying trapeze, she notices the villain's henchman in the front row. She is on her perch high up and he is seated in a ringside chair. Shock hits her and to convey the shock the camera zooms fast from her to the man. Today, with a fast zoom shot it can be done very easily, but there was no such lens forty years ago. Ramnoth did it using the crane. He planned it well and rehearsed the shot for long. He took the shot 20 times and selected the best 'take'. It was amazing!"

Then there was artistic and brilliantly choreographed drum dance, the highlight of the film and the first of its kind in Indian cinema. Chandralekha arranges a spectacular dance in which many dancers, including herself, dance on a number of tall drums, inside which her lover's men are hiding, waiting to come out and fight the villain. Vasan had nearly 400 dancers on monthly salary and they had daily rehearsals for six months; that single sequence cost Vasan Rs. 5 lakh (half a million) in the 1940s, it was said. The man who designed all this was Chief Art Director A.K. Sekhar, whose contribution was palatial splen­dour. The cost of the drum dance sequence was an amount almost equal to the full budget of any typical film at that time.

Soundtrack

The film's music was composed by M. D. Partha­sarathy and S. Rajeshwara Rao. Film critic V. A. K. Ranga Rao notes that the film’s music shows influences from Carnatic, Hindustani, Bharatnatyam, Latin American and Portuguese folk music as well as a Strauss waltz. The songs Indrae Enathu Kuthukalam and Manamohana kaaranae were sung by Rajakumari herself. Not included in the soundtrack was the drum dance song, which was a musical sans vocals. Also not included is the chorus by the film's circus members, which was adapted from The Donkey Serenade from R. Z. Leonard's The Firefly (1937). Chandralekha is believed to have "created an atmosphere" of music directors inspired by Western music in Tamil cinema.

Tamil tracklisting

Song
Namasthey Sutho
Aayilo Paariyama
Indrae Enathu Kuthukalam
Manamohana kaaranae
Balan Karunai Punivaan
Padathey... Un pattai kettu pulikuttithan payapadum

Hindi tracklisting

No.	Title	Singer(s)	Length
1.	"Sajana Re Aaja Re"	Uma Devi	3:04
2.	"Man Bhavan Sawan Aaya"	Uma Devi	3:09
3.	"O Chand Mere"	Uma Devi	3:21
4.	"Maai Re Main To Madhuban Mein"	Uma Devi	2:33
5.	"Sanjh Ki Bela"	Uma Devi, Moti Bai	3:07
6.	"Mera Husn Lootne Aaya Albela"	Zohra Ambala, Moti Bai	2:41

Marketing

Japanese release poster

Through Chandralekha, Gemini became the first Tamil studio to attempt an "all-India distribution". The film's publicity was the highest ever for a Tamil film till then. Vasan brought out full page advertisements in all leading publications in colour, huge multi coloured wall posters, king size hoardings, glossy handbooks and many other items, creating huge excitement among the public. He spent close to ₹5,00,000 on publicity alone, a huge sum that time. As an innovation in film exhibition, Vasan released the film all over South India in over 40 theatres (which was increased to 50 screens within weeks), another first for a Tamil film. An English dubbed version of Chandralekha (albeit a shorter version of the film) titled Miss Chandra, was screened in the United States and Europe during the 1950's.

Chandralekha was released in Japan in April 1954, where it was distributed by Nippon Cinema Corporation (NCC), becoming the first Tamil film to be released there, and second Indian film overall after the Hindi film Aan. After NCC had collapsed and disappeared, no information has since been made available on how this film was brought to Japan. It is however believed that it was a barter item. In the 1950s it was quite common to send commodities made in India to overseas business partners in the form of barter, after receiving imported goods from abroad. Because this exchange method was prevalent when India was dreadfully short of foreign currency, it might have been the case with Chandralekha. The pamphlet prepared by NCC for Chandralekha, whose Japanese title was Shakunetsu-no ketto (Fight under the red heat), introduces S. S. Vasan as the “Cecil B. DeMille of the Indian film industry.” This shows that the distributor had obtained correct information about the film.

Release

Reception

The film was a trend setter for the making, production cost incurred, publicity and the hype it created before and during the making and after its release. Most producers delayed the release of their films fearing competition and released after Chandralekha's release. Such was the expectation for the film among the audience! The film had the sole motto entertain the audience, which it achieved immensely. Though it was not a great film in terms of script, it met the audience's expectations on entertainment elements and thus became a huge success. Chandralekha grossed ₹10,000,00 in India alone, thus becoming the first Madras Production to become an "All-India hit".

Despite its huge success in Tamil, the returns were not commensurate with the expenditure. Hence, he decided to remake the film in Hindi. He re-shot many scenes, added some songs and replaced the comedy scenes with Hindi artistes. The Hindi version, released with 609 prints, took the country by storm, created box office records and opened the market for South Indian producers. Vasan termed the film "a pageant for our peasants."

Critical response

Chandralekha received generally positive reviews from critics. Among contemporary reviews, The Hindu (9.4.1948) said, "India has not witnessed a film of this magnitude in terms of making and settings so far". The Indian Express (10.4.1948) said, "Chandralekha is an entertaining film for everyone with elements like animals, rope dance, circus and comedy". Leading Tamil newspaper Dinamani (10.4.1948) said, "Chandralekha is not only a first rate Tamil film but also an international film." Reviewing the English version, The New York Times described Rajakumari as a "buxom beauty".

Film historian Randor Guy, in a 2010 review of Chandralekha, praised Rajakumari's performance, calling it "her career-best" and Radha as his "usual impressive self" and concluded that the film would be "Remembered for: the excellent onscreen narration, the magnificent sets and the immortal drum dance sequence." In December 2008, film historian S. Muthiah said, "Given how spectacular it was — and the appreciation lavished on it from 1948 till well into the 1950s, which is when I caught up with it — I’m sure that if re-released, it would do better at the box office then most Tamil films today." Film critic V. A. K. Ranga Rao described the film as "the most complete entertainer ever made." Behindwoods.com praised the film for its "mind boggling art work and production values". In May 2012, South Indian entertainment magazine Galatta Cinema, although critical of the script, called the film "a delight to watch even after 50 years".

In a 2013 interview with K. Jeshi of The Hindu, director Dhanapal Padmanabhan said, "Chandralekha had grandeur that was at par with Hollywood standards." Entertainment portal IndiaGlitz praised the film for its "opulent songs and sinister plots." Writers Sangita Gopal and Sujata Moorti, in their book Global Bollywood: Travels of Hindi Song and Dance, said: "Chandralekha is a film that translates the aesthetic of Hollywood Orientalism for an indigenous mass audience" and called its drum dance sequence as "perhaps one of the most spectacular sequences in Indian cinema". In June 2009, K S Sivakumaran of Daily News Sri Lanka called it "The first colossal Thamil [sic] film I saw". In a 2007 interview with S. R. Ashok Kumar of The Hindu, director J. Mahendran said "I choose 'Chandralekha,' a remarkable film, because of its grandeur in all departments of filmmaking. There are no graphics or special effects."

Further reading

• Banerjee, Shampa (1988). One Hundred Indian Feature Films: An Annotated Filmography. Taylor & Francis. p. 58. ISBN 0-8240-9483-2. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Bhaskaran, Theodore, Sundararaj (1996). Eye of The Serpent: An Introduction to Tamil Cinema. East West Books.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Gokulsing, K. (2004). Indian Popular Cinema: A Narrative of Cultural Change. Trentham Books. p. 132. ISBN 1-85856-329-1. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Shohini Chaudhuri (2005). Contemporary World Cinema: Europe, the Middle East, East Asia and South Asia. Edinburgh University Press. p. 149. ISBN 0-7486-1799-X.
• Kisselgoff, Anna. "New York Times Review". New York Times. Retrieved 2010-04-28.
• Randor Guy (October 2, 2010). "Blast from the Past: Chandralekha (1948)". The Hindu.
• Randor Guy (2008). "... And thus he made Chandralekha sixty years ago". Madras Musings. XVIII. Archived from the original on 2 July 2013. Retrieved 2 July 2013. {{cite journal}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; 24 May 2013 suggested (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• S. Muthiah (8 December 2008). "A 'Cecil B. DeMillean' Chandralekha". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 2 July 2013. Retrieved 2 July 2013. {{cite web}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; 11 December 2008 suggested (help)

External links

• Chandralekha at IMDb
• Chandralekha at Upperstall.com