Elangovan (1913-71)

Tamil script and dialogue writer in the 40s, originally named T.K. Thanikachalam. Début with Duncan?’s seminal Ambikapathy (1937), followed by several story and script credits for films which established a new style in film melodrama: Raja Chandrasekhar’s [[Ashok Kumar]] (1941), R.S. Mani’s Kannagi? (1942), Central Studios’ Sivakavi (1943), R.S. Mani’s Mahamaya? (1944: some accounts credit him with direction as well), K. Subramanyam’s Gokula Dasi (1948), S.M. Sreeramulu Naidu’s Pavalakkodi (1949), and especially Ramnoth?’s epic Ezhai Padum Padu (1950). Formerly associated with the journal Manikodi whose literary idiom he transferred to cinema (cf. Kannamba?’s monologues in Kannagi). Critic and film-maker K. Hariharan writes: ‘ He breathed new fire into film dialogues [with] a passion quite removed from the standard mythologicals’ and quotes popular scenarist A.L. Narayanan as saying that Elangovan and ppP. Neelakantan[[, ‘were the first real screen writers in Tamil’. The literary scripting style was adopted later by e.g. ppA.S.A. Samy[[ in Valmiki (1946) and S.D. Sundaram in Kanniyin Kathali (1949). it was also an important precursor of Annadurai?’s later declamatory scripts. Wrote Raja Sandow’s Thiruneelakantar (1939), Raja Chandrasekhar’s Arundhati (1943), S. Nottani’s Inbavalli (1949), K.S. Gopalakrishnan’s Parijatham (1950) and many others.

Writer