== 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 [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Ramnoth|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]]