October 31, 1931, 75 years ago the first talking movie of Tollywood was released. The Movie 'Kalidas' was released at the Cinema Central (now Murugan Talkies) near Broadway. The movie was based on the life of the great Sanskrit poet and dramatist Kalidas.
Movie Plot: A minister at the court of King Vijayavarman of Thejavathi wants Princess Vidhyakumari (Rajalakshmi) to marry his son. She refuses and the minister tricks her into marrying a cowhand. The duped princess invokes the help of Kali, who appears to the couple and endows the cowhand with literary talent, allowing him to become Kalidas (Venkatesan).
> Kalidas was the First Tamil Talkie, almost (the first complete Tamil talkie was ‘Galavarishi’).
> The movie featured over 50 songs!
> The first song in the movie “Gandhiyin Kai Rattiname” (by T P Rajalakshmi) is the first Tamil Movie Song.
> The Movie was also India's first Bi-lingual with the Hero, who played Kalidas talks in Telugu and the heroine talks in Tamil! Some characters even spoke Urdu!
Apparently the makers of the first Indian Talkie 'Alam Ara' had their doubts whether their imported sound recording equipment which had recorded Hindi could record Tamil! So to decrease the risk they made the actors speak in Tamil, Telugu and Urdu!!
Actors: T P Rajalakshmi, Thevaram Rajambal, T Sushila Devi, J Sushila, P G Venkatesan, M S Santhanalakshmi, L V Prasad. A Talkie Projector
Unfortunately no copies of the film or gramophone recordings of the movie in existence.
