== Elangovan (1913-71) ==

Tamil script and dialogue writer in the 40s,
originally named T.K. Thanikachalam. Début
with [[Ellis R. Duncan|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 [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kannagi|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]]