History of Malayalam Cinema

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India's film history is almost as old as the history of film itself. From the 1920s film industries concentrating on Bombay, Calcutta and madras began to form. Hindi , Bengali, Tamil n telugu silent movies began to be made. even then nothing was happening in Kerala. The first Malayalam silent movie was JC Daniel's Vigathakumaran released in 1930. it failed economically. But it is notable that while mythological films ruled all over the Indian cinema arena, J C Daniel had the courage to produce the first ever Malayalam film with a social theme. The second film Marthandavarma was made in 1931. It was based on a novel of the same name by C V Raman Pillai, and was produced by Sunder raj. But due to a legal confrontation regarding the rights of the film, the producer had to withdraw the film from cinema halls after few exhibitions. the film was finally released in 1974. By Marthandavarma the history of silent Malayalam cinema too came to an end. Indian cinema had already entered the talkie age even before Marthandavarma was released. the first Malayalam movie with a soundtrack was Balan, released in 1938. it was directed by S.Nottani n produced by TR Sundaram under the banner of "Modern theatres". Followed by the success of Balan, Jnanambika was released in 1940. in 1941, the first mythological Malayalam movie Prahalada was released. from 1948, things began to change. the first Kerala based film company "Kerala talkies" was established which produced Nirmala. it was directed by PJ Cheriyan n the Legendary Malayalam poet, G Shankar Kurup penned the lyrics for this film. the same year the first studio of Kerala, "Udaya studio" was setup by Kunchako n his friends. from 1950-1978, there was a rapid surge in film production, with a record 123 films being made in 1978. the only studio in Kerala was not enough 2 handle all these n hence, film production continued in

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