Mohan V Raman had written a warm tribute to writer “Sakthi” TK Krishnaswamy in The Hindu Metroplus yesterday, a piece that we at TCRC loved (click here to read the story).
The tribute resonated even more with us, given that our archives have an original LP of the “Veerapandiya Kattabomman” soundtrack (see image below).
In the late 1960s, the conductor of the Bangalore Transport Service (BTS) bus that plied on route No 10A from Srinagar to Majestic via City Market was a certain Shivaji Rao Gaikwad, a Kannada-speaking Maharashtrian. He was a stickler for rules. His dos and don’ts for commuters were simple: don’t board a running bus; always alight and board only at bus stops; don’t travel on the footboard; present exact change for tickets. One morning, he noticed a pig-tailed college girl jump into his moving bus, and snarled, “Ilee ree, ilee ree” (get off, get off). He had the driver stop the bus and made my aunt Vasanthi—the passenger—disembark.”
We at TCRC loved reading this lovely Open magazine story about superstar Rajnikanth (click on the image to read the full story).
Our archives have numerous rare images of Rajnikanth over the years and we are currently digitizing a number of those images. So, do watch this space for updates!
“Thirumazhisai Aazhvaar” | Tamil | 1948
The Hindu here in Chennai runs a column called ‘Blast From The Past’, where historian Randor Guy writes about one old Tamil film, every week.
This week, he wrote about “Thirumazhisai Aazhvaar”, a movie released in 1948 starring Carnatic musician Dhandapani Desikar (click on the picture to read the full story).
At TCRC, we have the song books of numerous films from the same era. Song books used to be released by film producers then, along with the records bearing the songs of the movie. These books are treasure troves for film aficionados and in some cases where the original film print has been destroyed, they serve as the only source of information about the film’s production process and the crew which worked on it. They typically contain lyrics of all the songs featured in the movie.
Ellis Dungan was an American film maker who made numerous Tamil films between the years 1936-1950. His debut film Sathi Leelavathi also happened to be Tamil cinema superstar MGR’s (M G Ramachandran) debut film.
This documentary made by Ellis Dungan is a rare find from the West Virginia State Archives. It showcases a typical South Indian village in the 1940’s through the eyes of this American film maker. A song and dance sequence has also been incorporated in this documentary.
TCRC is proud to house memorabilia pertaining to some of Dungan’s films.
A ‘lobby card’ usually featured an image from the film that was being played at the theatre and was displayed in the glass-pane covered notice boards that characterized the lobbies of most single screen theatres in those days.
This is the lobby card of “Policekaaran Magal,” a successful Tamil film released in 1962.
The Cinema Resource Centre (TCRC) 