Newspaper Boy is a 1955 Malayalam film written and directed by P. Ramdas. It was the first neo-realistic film

Neorealism (art)

In art, neorealism was established by the ex-Camden Town Group painters Charles Ginner and Harold Gilman at the beginning of World War I. They set out to explore the spirit of their age through the shapes and colours of daily life...

 in India. It stars Neyyattinkara Komalam, Adoor Pankajam, Omana Madhavan, P. Gangadharan, S. Parameswaran, P. Ramdas, N. Subramanian, Master Mani and Master Venkiteswaran. The movie, which narrates the life of the common man on the street, was produced by a group of students under the banner of Adarsh Kalamandir.

Synopsis

This film narrated the sad story of a printing press employee and his family reeling through poverty. He dies of extreme poverty and illness, which forces his children to stop their education. His elder son Appu leaves to Madras in search of a job. Failing to secure a job there, he returns and decides to take up the job of a newspaper boy.

Production

P. Ramdas, who was an admirer of stalwarts like V. Shantaram and directors like Amiya Chakravarthy, once read in Filmfare

Filmfare

Filmfare is an English-language tabloid-sized magazine about Indian cinema. Published by The Times Group, India's largest media services conglomerate, in Mumbai , it highlights the doings of the Bollywood film scene...

 magazine that Raj Kapoor

Raj Kapoor

Known as Ranbir Raj Kapoor Rāj Kapūr, 14 December 1924 – 2 June 1988), also known as The Show-Man, was an Indian film actor, producer and director of Hindi cinema. He was the winner of nine Filmfare Awards, while his films Awaara and Boot Polish were nominated for the Palme d'Or at the...

 was India's youngest film director. Ramdas, who was 22 then, decided to do a film and told his friends that he would soon take this honour. One of his friends, S. Parameswaran, who studied with him at University College in Thiruvananthapuram, also wanted to make a film. They decided to modify a short story titled Compositor that was published Mahatma magazine by the latter. They bought an 8 m.m. camera from Madras, went through several books on cinema that was available at the British Library in Thiruvananthapuram. The main crew behind the production of the film was Ramdas, his brother Balakrishnan, Parameswaran, and Kandhaswami, all of them students. The late Nagavalli R.S. Kurup, was the only veteran in the team, and he wrote the dialogues. He was paid Rs. 1,000, a princely sum during those days. The dialogues had a typical Thiruvananthapuram accent, but the story revolved around Thrissur.

Col. Godavarma Raja (G. V. Raja) conducted the switch-on ceremony and shooting began at Merryland Studios on 5 may 1954. Nagavalli played the role of compositor Sankaran Nair. Neyyattinkara Komalam, Prem Nazir

Prem Nazir

Abdul Khader , better known by his stage name Prem Nazir , was an Indian film actor. He is considered one of the all time super stars in Malayalam cinema...

's first heroine, (in the film Marumakal) played the role of Kalyani, the mother of the main character Appu, the newspaper boy. Narayana Pillai, alias Moni, played Appu. The other characters were played by Veeran, Adoor Pankajam, Omana Madhavan, P. Gangadharan, N. Subramanian, Master Mani and Master Venkiteswaran. Parameswaran, Ramdas also made appearances.

The film was completed by the end of 1954 but the release had to be put off because Ramdas had problems finding a distributor. Finally two distributors, R.S. Pictures and Variety Pictures, took up distribution rights. The distributors gave them 50,000 on the condition that if the film did not fetch the amount within a year Ramdas had to pay back the difference.

Release and reactions

The film was screened in New Delhi on the special request of the Government of India for various Central Government institutions. It was also screened at Jose theatre in Thrissur. The film was released on 13 May 1955 in eight theatres. It was met with critical acclaim and became the first neo-realistic film

Neorealism (art)

In art, neorealism was established by the ex-Camden Town Group painters Charles Ginner and Harold Gilman at the beginning of World War I. They set out to explore the spirit of their age through the shapes and colours of daily life...

 in India. Pather Panchali

Pather Panchali

Pather Panchali is a 1955 Bengali drama film written and directed by Satyajit Ray and produced by the Government of the Indian state of West Bengal. Based on Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay's 1929 Bengali novel of the same name, the film was the directorial debut of Ray...

, another film of the same genre was released a few days later only.

However, the film, made at a budget of 1,75,000 was a box office failure. Ramdas as well as his colleagues were bankrupt after the film's failure.

Songs

The songs are composed by Vijayan and his brother A. Ramachandran. There are ten songs in the film, and the playback singers include Kamukara Pusushothaman and Shantha.P.Nair. Ramachandran, one of the composers, says, "There are 10 songs in the film and the songs were used to denote the passage of time or some other specific purpose. I was amazed by the humility of singers such as the late Kamukara Purushotaman and Shanta P. Nair, who readily agreed to sing for youngsters like us. During the re-recording, my brother Vijayan was taken ill and I had it do the work on my own. However, owing to our inexperience, we were not able to transfer the songs to long-play records."