I’ve liked Randor Guy’s writing ever since I read a piece that he wrote in Vikatan, about Chennai’s Kaapi Clubs. Every conceivable, olde-worlde coffee club was in it, Rathna café and everything. I fell in love with old Chennai back then.

That was what made me listen to his speech about Vintage Movies, movies that showcased Madras as it had once been.

On 25th August in the Pennathur Subramaniam High School, Madras. He began, in a raspy voice, on “Vintage Cinema: Madras in Movies,” giving competition to the rains that had suddenly decided to pay a visit to the event as well, about the first Thamizh movie that had spoken to its audience.

Before this period, you read what the characters said via subtitles, as “talkies” hadn’t become the norm yet. The first Thamizh talkie, the “Kalidas,” was actually a Tamil/Telugu/Hindi movie, as its producer, Ardeshir Irani, strengthened by the hit of his first Hindi film, “Alam Ara,” hadn’t had the courage to know if Tamil could be “heard” by the audience. Hindi had worked, yes, but Thamizh? Therefore, he put in some of Telugu, and then, not content, added Hindi as well.

Our first movie, apparently, was a trilingual production.

T.P Rajalakshmi was the heroine of the movie, and she was paraded in the tiles as “Cinema Rani.” It was enough, apparently, to ensure enough wealth and encomiums to last her a lifetime. She’d been married at a very young age (like most young girls of those times), had lost her husband, which drove her father to suicide … and mother and daughter suddenly found themselves stranded.

At which point the mother had a kind of epiphany: her daughter would act in the pictures!

Now, you’ll agree, I’m sure, that this was a humongous step to take. By a woman reared in an orthodox Brahmin family. Perhaps the mother knew something that only destiny would reveal later on; her daughter’s hidden acting talents. Or perhaps it was just sheer desperation. I rather think it was the latter. Either way, the two of them came to ‘Trichinapoli,’ to meet yesteryear movie director, Jagannatha Iyer, who auditioned the girl for a part.

There was a man sitting nearby, watching the girl act, and he pronounced that she’d become a star, as she had the makings of a great actress. The man was Sankaradas Swamigal, revered as the father of the genre of Thamizh Drama. And it came true, what he said … T.P Rajalakshmi did create history – by becoming the first woman to star in a Tamil “talkie.”

Mythological themes had always been popular with moviemakers in those early years of cinema, and they came with another advantage: you already had the scripts. It was a simple job, converting them into movie screenplays. Shooting for cinema was something of a novelty, and in Chennai, it was often done in Adyar, the wooded common. Rainy days meant a problem, as there were no lighting facilities, and actors would scurry about to act while the sun shone, and snack on their lunch when it poured. The crows of Adyar grew quite accustomed to the scraps of food they threw away and haunted the area: this was why, in the credits of those movies, you often had an Anglo-Indian, called a “Crow-Shooter” Joe, who had to shoo away crows before any scene could be filmed.

Ah, the weird and wonderful minds of our filmmakers.

Heroines of those days earned a princely sum of Rs. 30 a month – which was what the heroine of the first Thamizh hit, “Valli Thirumanam,” had been paid. Those were the days when you could buy 16 measures of rice for a rupee, and thirteen rupees bought a gold sovereign.

A windfall!

M K Thyagara Bhagavathar, with his curly hair and milk-white skin had ruled the roost, while heroes sang endless songs in movies that ran for four hours, only barely touching their heroines.

I still remember the age-old notices from the 50 year old ‘Sivaji’ magazines that I’ve saved at home: bits and pieces of paper falling to nothing, carrying strange looking photographs of men and women, dressed to look like a combination of a Goddess, crossed with, I don’t know … Bette Davis? Joan Crawford? You take one look at those posters of “Gnana Soundari,” and you’re hit with the make-up and coiffure of those old Broadway shows.

Movie clips of old films followed, where old Madras could be seen, with its shots of trams, a near-empty (and impossible to even imagine) shot of Mount Road, with one lonely car passing by, breezy avenues of Mylapore, San Thome and the Kodambakkam Railway Stations. Clips from yester-century hits such as “En Manaivi,” “Parasakthi,” “Swarga Seema,” “Vaazkkai,” and “Thyaga Bhoomi.” R Padma, the sex symbol of those days (simply because she appears as country girl, with no jacket on) dances and sings rigidly (she’s extremely conscious of the camera), about Madras’s strange buses, and “bullock-carts that fly in the air without bullocks” – she means aeroplanes.

And she mimes a pipe, to imitate the huge loudspeakers they had in the Marina Beach during the 1930s and 40s, and the Corporation Radio (as the AIR was known back then), blared out concerts of Ariyakkudi, Chemmangudi, and all those other kudis. And everyone listened, to the accompaniment of the waves crashing on the shore and the stiff, salty breezes.

There’s a movie called “Genovo” (I think), where MGR actually walks down the aisle with his bride, in complete Christian ensemble!

And there was the story of Kannamba, which was a hoot: she being a Telugu actress, they wrote out entire dialogues on apiece of blackboard during shoots, and displayed it behind the camera. And when Kannamba spoke the dialogues for the movie “Kannagi”, she ended each word with a Teluguistic “oo” sound … [“En pechoo, en moochoo…”] which ended up being a bit of a comedy to all concerned. The movie proved to a hit anyway.

“Kaithi” (Prisoner) was another movie which proved to be a hassle for its producers, Jupiter Pictures. [Or, as they’re touted in Tamil, “Jupiter Picturesaar.”] Apparently, the director wanted to call his picture “Rattham” (Blood), subtly signifying the underlying theme of the movie (which, incidentally, was the remake of a Humphrey Bogart movie, ‘Dark Passage’) … and when they tried to come up with tag-lines for advertisements, they wrote “Raththam Odukirathu…” (‘Blood’ running to full houses in theatres…) – which turned out to be something of a fiasco, ’cause, eh: Blood? Running? Rumours say that Jupiter Pictures backed off, and the director had to go back, with a heavy heart, to “Kaithi.” Which kind of spoilt his mood, but what else could be done?

That’s what I love about Randor Guy – all the wonderful anecdotes.

Those movies showed a Madras that’s hard to imagine (except perhaps, for those who actually lived in it) – with it tree-lined roads, large temples, and little clumps of villages. Kodambakkam was a suburb miles away, ’cause Mylapore was the hub of the city, and whoever would go and live in Kodambakkam, of all the outlandish, God-forsaken places (as someone says in ‘En Manaivi’?) And look at what Madras is, now.

If that isn’t a hallmark of a true Pattinam, don’t know what else is.