Central Studios

Movie industry in Coimbatore

Movies became a major industry in Coimbatore when in 1905 a South Indian Railways employee Samikannu Vincent purchased a film projector along with some silent films from a Frenchman named Du Pont who had fallen ill on his touring exhibition. Samikannu Vincent then built a business as film exhibitor first by traveling around the country and finally erecting tents theatres for screening films. His tent cinema became popular as he traveled all over the state with his mobile unit. In 1917, Samikannu Vincent built South India's first permanent cinema theatre, Variety Hall Cinema, at TownHall; it is now called ad Delite theatre. As Samikannu Vincent also generated his own electric power for his theatres, he built a series of theatres in and around the city to screen silent films. He also became a distributor for the French Pathé Frères movie projectors. In the early 1930s he launched the Variety Hall Talkies banner to make sound film (a.k.a. talkies) and released a few movies which were mainly shot in Calcutta. Feeling a need to have a movie studio, he was instrumental, along with other industrialists and movie makers, in establishing a fully equipped studio in Coimbatore.

Also during the late 1920s, another firm under Sabapathy was involved in the distributorship of an Italian movie projector company, eventually leading to the manufacture of their own brand of movie projectors in Coimbatore. By the early thirties Coimbatore already had a studio named Premier Cinetone Studio (later renamed Pakshiraja Studios). In 1935 a London-educated graduate, T. R. Sundaram, built a fully equipped movie studio, Modern Theatres, in Salem, and the region became the central hub for movie activity.

Studio beginnings

Central Studio was founded by a group of prominent industrialists B. Rangaswamy Naidu, R. K. Ramakrishnan Chettiar (brother of India's first Finance Minister R. K. Shanmukham Chetty), Samikannu Vincent, and another new movie director S. M. Sriramulu Naidu (who joined as a working partner). Studio commenced its operation in 1936 with their first release being Thukkaram in 1937 directed by S. M. Sriramulu Naidu. By the early 1940s the Studio became the central hub of Tamil Movie industry.

The Studio is located at Singanallur, near to the Trichy Road in Coimbatore city. The Studio had almost all modern facilities required for a Movie studio along with Sound and film editing labs and technical workshops. The sound engineers and cameramen were all Germans during the 30s and most of the Make-Up team were from Mumbai. The studio also had a music department headed by S. M. Subbaiah Naidu. The studio also boasted the BNC Mitchell Camera, then a Hollywood standard, which cost a whopping Rs 500,000 in the 1930s and the Studio was equipped with 10 KW, 5 KW AND 2 KW lights. Most of the artists and technicians were on monthly payroll.