[ I would like to place on record the inspiring initiative by Adv Narayan, who has been tirelessly following up leads and collecting factual information to set Malayalam Cinema's most debated part of history straight - that of the actual year of release of The Lost Child / Vigathakumaran, the first film in Malayalam film history, and also to Saju Chelangatt ( son of Chelangatt Gopalakrishnan) who shared invaluable information on the journalist's quest. This post, tries to put it all in perspective, so that this also becomes a starting point of further debates, discussions and possibly, as Narayan states, the gateway to laying our hands on actual memorabilia of the film itself - even a reel of it from some corner of the planet would be a possibility. ]
So, when was The Lost Child / Vigathakumaran screened for the first time – 1928 or 1930 ?
Pix Credit : Current Books
The intention of this rather long note is to lay it out on the table, the facts, the percieved fabrications and how the latter have mostly drowned out the former that had been brought to light by meticulous research – in this regard, a respected veteran journalist’s life’s work. The objective is very clear – for any student of Malayalam cinema history who finds himsef/herself befuddled at the contradictory information on the year of release, this would serve as a chronological guide on the way the information has come to stay that way, based on the information that I have been able to collate from various sources. The easiest point of reference to begin with would be,the researched writings of Chelangatt Gopalakrishnan, the veteran journalist. The way the historical date/year of the release of the first Malayalam movie stands now, the print, internet and visual media by now has 1928 and 1930 mentioned in equal measure, drowning out the ACTUAL information that had been consistently served for over a decade in the popular print medium, all due to two purportedly bits of information that ‘proved’ 1930 as the release year. If one looks at a rough timeline of this ‘historical fudging’, it would resemble on these lines.
1960 – 90′s.
Redeeming and reinstating JC Daniel’s rightful place in Malayalam Film history.
October 19, 1973 | Screen Film Magazine. { Click to Read the Complete Article.}
There can be absolutely no dispute when it comes to acknowledging the single-minded determination of a film journalist and humanist who literally rescued the father of Malayalam cinema from obscurity and through his sustained campaign, finally made the state machinery grudgingly admit and accept his contribution to Malayalam film industry. True, there have been local historians and cineastes with a historic bend of mind who had pursued ( and still do ) the origins of the first Malayalam film and its creator on their own terms in their personal quests, but none could even hold a candle to Chelangatt’s sustained campaign on three fronts. He was at the same time fighting three battles – on behalf of the Daniel couple with the state government to accord him the due recognition as the father of Malayalam cinema, with the State exchequer to allocate him an incremental amount as monthly financial assistance, and with the regimented media who kept parroting TR Sundaram ( producer of Balan, our first talkie ) as the Father of Malayalam Cinema. His first article on the existence of JC Daniel and the details of Vigathakumaran/The Lost Child came out in 1968, published in Malayali, a popular magazine published from Thiruvananthapuram, of which he was the Chief Editor. A torrent of articles in the same vein followed to almost all film magazines that were published in South India. Each one of them said exactly the same thing – Vigathakumaran/The Lost Child was first screened on November 7, 1928. Though it took its own sweet time, in the face of hard evidence, and after some useless stone-walling, the government finally caved in. But JC Daniel never lived to see that – he died in abject penury, a broken man, on May 29, 1975. It took close to two decades for the government to make it official – The JC Daniel Award was instituted in 1992, with legendary film maker TE Vasudevan chosen as the first honorary recipient. Through out the two decades, right from meeting JC Daniel till his recognition, Chelangattu Gopalakrishnan consistently repeated in all his articles and official communications on the date of the release of Vigathakumaran/The Lost Child as being November 7, 1928. It was based on this that the State government even fixed the year 2003 to celebrate the 75 years of Malayalam cinema as the theme for the VIIIth edition of the International Film Festival of Kerala from 12 – 19 December, 2003. According to Saju Chelangatt, it was during the eve of this grand celebration that a hand-bill/pamphlet purported to be the publicity material of Vigathakumaran/The Lost Child surfaced, supposedly by Kunnukuzhy Mani, local film historian, which showed October 23, 1930 as the release date !
The 2000′s.
A ‘Xerox Copy from 1930‘ and other references from the Past .
Pix Credit & Rights : CURRENT BOOKS
The above handbill/pamphlet that is said to have surfaced during the VIII IFFK (2003) made enough noise to have it picked up by media houses, who gleefully ran with the story, and from then on, has been bandied about so much in the Malayalam media in terms of historical context, on par with Chelangatt’s historical fact of November 7, 1928. that, at some point of time in the past decade, it started over-shadowing the two decades of meticulous research put in by Chelangatt Ramakrishnan. There is also a reference of ”a news report that appeared in the Deepika of 23 October 1930, covering the release of the film” that has been repeated often by R. Gopalakrishnan, who went on to make a documentary on JC Daniel in 2006, called The Lost Life in which he repeats the year as 1930.
From the Lost Life, made by R Gopalakrishnan.
Check out 1:59.
[ Arguably the first 'integration' and thereby legitimising of this 'new date' into the visual media. He had also mentioned this new date on record, in The Hindu, on the eve of the documentary’s completion, on Feb 24, 2006. In a cover feature done on him by Malayala Manorama in its Shree pullout, dated 29 January, 2006, he repeats this 1930 argument quoting the above Handbill and also adds, “അക്കാലത്തെ പത്രങ്ങള് പരിശോധിച്ചപ്പോഴും മേല്പറഞ്ഞ തീയതിയില് തന്നെയാണ് സിനിമ റിലീസ് ചെയ്തതെന്ന് ബോധ്യപ്പെട്ടു.” The news periodicals ( dailies/newspapers were non-existent for the times) available at Trivandrum were Kerala Kaumudi ( periodical), Malayali and Malayala Rajyam, as far as I could gather. There could be more. Deepika ( Nazrani Deepika then ) was published from Mannanam till it shifted to Kottayam in 1939. { * If anyone reading this has access or could find access to any of these folded up/still in print news archives, it would be fantastic if you could get a scanned image of those articles and send it to oldmalayalamcinema@gmail.com. That would be precious. }
What bugs me about this “New found evidence”.
The entire argument of this new date revolves around this Hand Bill/invite of the movie of which only a copy exists ! The original archival document of which this copy has been made has NEVER been mentioned anywhere. In the article that came in Malayala Manorama Shree, R Gopalakrishnan mentions about archival material that he was able to collect from the possession of Janet Daniel ( Mrs JC Daniel ) but he does not mention whether this bill too came from her. If it was, then it begs the question – How on earth could a meticulous researcher and journalist have missed this crucial aspect in his interactions with JC Daniel in person ? Going by the same logic, every single aspect that JC Daniel spoke to Chelangatt Ramakrishnan has to be verified again, isn’t it ? And whatever remained and had been bequeathed to Janet would have been passed on from the great man himself, and he would have been the first person to show Chelangatt this, if ever he had it in person ! Every single record chronicled by Chelangatt says November 7, 1928. And to top it all, a decade after it surfaced, Kunnukuzhi Mani comes around expressing doubts on the “authenticity” of this Handbill ! I could confidently say, to date, this Handbill’s source has NEVER been verified or authenticated by any single journalist who ran the story. How bizarre can it be ?
2. The ‘mythical’ news report that appeared in the Deepika of 23 October 1930, covering the release of the film has never been presented or printed anywhere as a scanned image, or been reproduced ANYWHERE in the media, not even substantiating the argument ! I would really, really love to see that from the Deepika archives, if it exists. But enough damage has been done already.
The Historical Damage.
In Print Media.
The mention about this new date in Malayala Manorama and The Hindu have already been mentioned there, and the latter is available on the web, as a referral document, and being The Hindu, one takes it as bonafide, vetted information. What has been more damaging is that this relentless, shall I say, misinformation repeated ever so often even influenced the publishers of Chelangatt Gopalakrishnan’s Biography of JC Daniel that they wanted the entire set of dates mentioned in his original manuscripts be changed to this new date on the handbill because they felt this unverified ‘historical document’ was more reliable than a life time of research by Chelangatt Gopalkrishnan.
It was convenient for them too to present Chelangatt’s original research in the way they deemed fit as Chelangatt Gopalakrishnan had passed away on June 4, 2010. The book came out in July 2011, and carries this date this date across the book, which was NEVER written by the author. The publishers also deemed it fit to include this Handbill amongst other historical documents and photographs given in the book in its Addendum, giving the impression that this was also a part of Chelangatt Gopalkrishnan’s precious finds. It isn’t ! It has NOTHING to do with the author.
All it does is willfully misguide you, and ply you with misinformation, with a document that Chelangatt Gopalakrishnan had NO CLUE about in the first place. It uncannily reminds you of that certain quote by The Reich’s Master of Propaganda, “That propaganda is good which leads to success, and that is bad which fails to achieve the desired result. It is not propaganda’s task to be intelligent, its task is to lead to success.” And success, it has been. So if you are planning to buy a copy of this book, I would suggest you to wait till they bring out its next edition, with the content reverted to the original writings of Chelangatt Gopalakrishnan and the Handbill removed from the biography’s photo gallery.
A reasonable number of “conversations” must have happened in the web publishing front too, since then, though the State machinery has thankfully stuck to its guns, possibly out of sheer sloth or inertia, and the government still sticks to Chelangatt’s original submissions.
In Visual Media.
1. Documentaries.
There have been two documentaries, to my knowledge, that have been based on the life and times of JC Daniel, the father of Malayalam cinema, The Lost Life (2006) directed by R Gopalakrishnan and The Lost Child ( 2012) directed by Kiran Ravindran.
a. The Lost Life by R Gopalakrishnan (2006).
A 20-odd minute long documentary that chronicles the life and times of JC Daniel, and also reiterates the date of release of Vigathakumaran/ The Lost Child as October 23, 1930 based on the Handbill/Invite.
b. The Lost Child by Kiran Ravindran ( 2012 )
A 56 – minute documentary on the life and contributions of Dr J C Daniel, the father of Malayalam cinema. No details are available online and according to what Adv Narayan has shared based on his conversations with the director, the documentary upholds Chelangatt Gopalakrishnan’s finding of 7 November, 1928, with some vociferous support from movie critics like Vijayakrishnan who speaks on record about the whole “episode”.
2. Feature productions.
a. Vigatha Kumaran/The Lost Child (Redux )
JC Daniel’s Vigathakumaran/The Lost Child was “re-created/ remade” with the modern technology and film-making techniques available – though the year of release of the re-creation seems a bit disputed, with Malayala Sangeetham Info showing 2003 and Cinemalayalam displaying 2002. It was produced and directed by Kowdiar Das.
b. Celluloid by Kamal (2013).
Arguably, this biopic on JC Daniel would be the biggest and slated to be the most influential ( in formulating public opinion and perception ) once released, especially with its A-list actors in the cast and some of Malayalam film industry’s veterans helming its production, based on Vinu Abraham’s book, Nashta Nayika, on Rosy, the heroine of Vighathakumaran. Director Kamal also has stuck to the “new” October 23, 1930 as the date of release of Vigatha Kumaran in the production, as is evident from the teaser of the movie. Call it irresponsible or outright bizarre, the biopic has Srinivasan essaying the role of Chelangatt Gopalakrishnan who has never associated himself with this date as the date of Vigathakumaran/ The Lost Child’s release.
Kamal himself speaks about the pre-production efforts of the movie, stating 1928 as the year of Vigathakumaran/The Lost Child’s making in a video available on the web.
Director Kamal on JC Daniel.
He says it right there at 0:23. This video was posted on the web in December, 2012. I presume shooting must have been on by this time for the movie, and the biopic’s trailer was released soon after. And guess what the movie he directed tells us ?
The Trailer of Celluloid (2013)
For those who missed that shot at 0:09 of the Movie’s publicity bill, I have added a screen grab below which clearly shows the date in it.
So much for diligent research and responsibility, if you ask me. It goes from bizarre to pure senselessness when one looks at the fact that it is a movie that also chronicles the efforts of Chelangatt Gopalakrishnan in rewriting Malayalam film history, with NO mention of the crucial date of the movie release he diligently recorded, based on conversations with JC Daniel himself ! This movie, once released, will go on to be a source of information in popular movie culture for anyone who would want to learn about the father of Malayalam cinema. Forget us, think of a child 5 generations into the future, interested in Malayalam film history, pulling out a video file of this movie, watching it and forming the opinion of Malayalam movie history beginning from October 23, 1930, based on an unverified document ! Wouldn’t it be criminal, this dissemination of misinformation ?
I really, really hope that he goes back and edits/reshoots the parts of the movie that goes against the recorded history of Malayalam cinema, atleast for the sake of holding true to the original research and findings of the character that is portrayed in the biopic called Celluloid (2013 ).
A Short Video feature on Chelangatt Gopalakrishnan.
Please do write in with your thoughts.
Related : The Kerala Movie Studio Legacy | JC Daniel’s The Travancore National Pictures
