BLAST FROM THE PAST
Pattinathaar 1936
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M. M. Dhandapani Desikar, V. N. Sundaram, P. G. Venkatesan and D. R. Muthulakshmi
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left a huge impact on people’s minds Pattinathaar
During the late 1930s, many Tamil
films revolving around the
lives of saints and folk myth figures
were made. They included
Nandanar, Bhadrachala Ramadas,
Mahatma Kabir, Arunagirinadhar,
Sundaramoorthy
Nayanar, Purandaradasar, Tukaram,
Thulasidas, Kannappa
Nayanar, Thayumaanavar, Sankaracharya
and Vipranarayana.
In those days, it was the practice
for more than one producer
to make more than one version
of a story and the producers
vied with each other to release
their film first. Because the stories
were in the public domain
and had no copyright claims, it
was easy to make such films.
However in their hurry to release
the film, quality invariably
took a backseat. The Pattinathar
folk myth was filmed thrice. One
was `Lotus' Pattinathar (Lotus
being the name of the film
company!) in 1935, starring C. S.
Sundaramurthy Odhuvaar in the
title role. Though he was trained
to sing hymns, he was no match
for Dhandapani Desikar nor did
he have such a fabulous voice.
The Lotus version sadly did not
blossom.
A later day version came out
in 1962 with T. M. Soundararajan
as the saint.
However, the most successful
of them all was made in 1936
which ran for 25 long weeks.
Produced by M. T. Rajan (who
took on-screen credit for direction)
of Vel Pictures, the film
was indeed directed by the sadly
neglected Tamil cinema pioneer,
journalist-turned-filmmaker
Murugadasa (Muthuswami Iyer)
with brilliant camera wizardry
by K. Ramnoth and equally fine
art direction by A. K. Sekhar. It
was written by the Tamil scholar,
screenwriter, who directed a
few films, T. C. Vadivelu Naicker.
The title role of the celebrated
saint of Thiruvottriyur,
popularly known as Pattinathaar,
was played by the famed
musician and Thamizh Isai exponent,
M. M. Dhandapani Desikar.
He played many such
saintly roles in those years, including
the Gemini Studios'
Nandanar.
Pattinathaar composed many
hymns and songs and, expectedly,
the film had 52 songs, most
of them rendered by Dhandapani
Desikar.
Even though Desikar sang
well and emoted to the best of
his ability, there was considerable
criticism that he was too fat
to play a saint who ate only once
a day throughout his life!
Desikar's film created an
enormous impact on the minds
of young men of that era and it
was strongly believed that many
of them, including married men,
took to `sanyasam' donning saffron
robes, long hair and sacred
ash. Vel Pictures with its own
studio on Eldams Road in the
Pitapuram Palace later shifted
to Guindy to a more spacious
location where it functioned for
many years, producing films in
Tamil and Telugu. V. L. Narasu,
coffee magnate-turned-producer,
took over the studio and
Narasu Studios witnessed the
making of multilingual movies,
including Hindi movies, until it
went out of business. Campa
Cola, one of the early soft drink
companies, acquired the studio.
Remembered for Being the
most successful saint-based film
and for the saint's classical compositions
rendered with emotion
by Dhandapani Desikar.
Sadly no print of this film exists
today.
RANDOR GUY
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