1st and last Tamil film noir!*

Andha Naal (That day, Tamil;1954)

http://chennaimadras.blogspot.com/2010/03/forgotten-escape.html
"1943 Japanese Fighter Plane dropped bombs on City and disappeared"

'That day' refers to the day Japanese bombers dropped their bombs into Madras - 11th October 1943 at 11pm! - Hey, I did not know that the Japanese went that far. I thought the war ended when they were still at the India-Burma border! A quick Google check revealed that Japanese planes did indeed run a half-hearted practice bombing of Madras. In 1914 (World War 1) too, that town was bombarded by a German light cruiser ship, SMS Emden, for a good half an hour. As you recall, SMS Emden made a heroic entry into Penang Harbour disguised as a British ship to sink down a Russian ship (Zhemchug) in the Battle of Penang. It made a speedy escape to continue her terror to be labelled the most hunted ship of that era.

The film starts with Rajan (Sivaji), a radio engineer, falling to the ground in Sivaji's usual dramatic fashion after a gunshot.

The neighbour, Chinnaya, upon hearing the gunshot, runs to inform a policeman nearby. A police inspector and CID officer, Sathyanandam (Jawar Seetharaman, who also wrote the screenplay), comes to the scene of the crime to investigate. Many of the suspects' stories are told in a series of flashbacks, like in the TV law drama Petrocelli in the 1970s.

He starts interviewing Chinnaya about the case. Chinnaya tells his version of whom he thought was the killer. Chinnaya overheard Rajan involved in a heated argument over the family property, and a threat of murder was overheard with his brother, Pattabi. When Pattabi was interviewed, he reiterated that Pattabi's hot-tempered, money-minded wife had a feud with her brother-in-law Rajan over money matters. He suspects that his (Pattabi's) wife would have killed him after seeing Rajan pack his luggage with all his money.

Pattabi's wife, on the other hand, reveals that Rajan has a mistress, Anbujam and has overheard Rajan refusing to take responsibility for their unborn child. She suggests that Ambujam would have killed him after seeing him about to run away without her.

When interviewed, Ambujam, a dancer, reveals that she was initially Chinnaya's mistress but had changed lovers after meeting Rajan. That infuriated Chinnaya, who must have blown his top after discovering that Ambujam and Rajan were to elope from a love letter.

The police officer reaches a dead end. Rajan's wife, Usha (Pandaribai), is then interviewed. Rajan and Usha were actively involved in Indian nationalistic activities in college.

In the finale, in true whodunit fashion, all the suspects (Chinnaya, Pattabi, Hema, Usha, and Ambujam) congregate in Rajan's house.

The CID officer's tricks brought out a confession. Usha starts telling her side of the story. After meeting Usha in a nationalist meeting, they fall in love and get married. He tries in vain to get a decent living by selling his radio invention all over India. After managing to sell his invention to Japan, he becomes their mole. Overhearing a radio instruction from Japan on the bombing of Madras, a quarrel starts between Usha and Rajan.

As we know, there were two groups of nationalists in India circa WW2; one who fought for the British against the Japanese, hoping to get self-rule in return, and the other who worked with the Japanese to drive the colonial master out of India lock, stock and barrel. Rajan (like Subash Chandra Bose) was in the latter. Usha believed that Indians should decide their future, not bring in foreigners to determine their future. She quotes how Babur was brought in from Afghanistan by warring brothers in the Lodi Dynasty. Babur then established the Mughal Empire. Internal problems between Nawabs brought the British, who also became their master, so there was a possibility that history would follow suit. A power-packed dialogue-filled argument fills up a good half an hour of the movie's tail-end. After seeing the joy in her husband's face after the Madras bombing and seeing the map of destruction planned for Tamil Nadu, she hurls a revolver at him. During a struggle, the trigger goes off, and Rajan dies.

An excellent movie with rich dialogue, the right lighting for film noir and high-quality acting. It is said to be the only film noir ever made in Tamil. Even though it earned awards for its quality, it did not bring in quite a return that the producers had expected. Without any songs, pretty damsels' dance sequences and swashbuckling heroism but lengthy dialogue, the Indian public would have felt short-changed and taken for a ride! After Koondukili, this is the only movie in which Sivaji acts as a villain. A good story that ended with quite a surprise. A+ in my books of good Tamil movies.

See here, here and here for the excellence of Tamil noir!

*Based on Akira Kurosawa's 1950 film 'Rashômon'. Next movie to watch!