Newspaper Boy (1955)

Interesting facts

Newspaper Boy is a 1955 Indian Malayalam-language drama film. It is the first neo-realistic film in the language. The film narrates the life of the common man on the street. It is noteworthy in that the entire production programme from script-writing to direction was controlled and executed by students. The group of students were from the school Adarsh Kalamandir and the film was written and directed by P. Ramdas. The screenplay was based on a short story written by Ramadas himself.

Production

P. Ramdas once read in Filmfare magazine that Raj Kapoor was India's youngest film director. Ramdas, who was 18 then, dreamed of making a film and told his friends that he would soon take this honour. One of his friends, Subramanian Parameswaran, who studied with him at University College in Thiruvananthapuram, was also passionate about movies.

Ramadas wrote a "film treatment", by making certain changes in his short story, and developed it into a complete script by 1953 September–October. The story is retold from the perspective of a twelve-year-old boy in the screenplay. The story's central character is Lonappan, who was renamed as Sankaran Nair in the screenplay. Nair's son Appu is the central character of the film while this character has little importance in the story.

The film was produced by Adarsh Kalamandir, a subdivision of Mahatma Memorial Association, founded by Ramadas and his friends in 1945 as Balasangham. The enthusiasm of the students found the Association venturing into a field hitherto undreamt of by the student population of the world.

P. Ramdas wanted to cast amateurs and new-faces in all the departments of his film. K. C. Ponkunnam (K. C. Francis) was assigned to write the songs, Kanthaswamy was chosen as the art director, and Vijayan and his brother Ramachandran as music directors. All of them were members of Mahatma Memorial Association and had a long-term association with Ramadas through the plays he had directed. V.

The lead character Appu was inspired by a twelve-year-old newspaper boy Ramadas had met somewhere in a journey to Ernakulam. Ramadas and Parameswaran visited almost all schools and orphanages to find a suitable face but failed. Appu's role was at last given to Master Moni, who was introduced to Ramadas by Nagavally R. S. Kurup. His original name was Narayanan Pillai and was a relative of Kurup.

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