Pakshiraja Studios was a

motion picture A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, since ...

movie studio A film studio (also known as movie studio or simply studio) is a major entertainment company that makes films. Today, studios are mostly financing and distribution entities. In addition, they may have their own studio facility or facilities; howe ...

Coimbatore Coimbatore (Tamil: kōyamputtūr, ), also known as Kovai (), is one of the major Metropolitan cities of India, metropolitan cities in the States and union territories of India, Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located on the banks of the Noyy ...

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is the southernmost States and union territories of India, state of India. The List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of Indi ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

, established by S. M. Sriramulu Naidu in 1945. The studio predominantly produced movies in

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of South India ** Telugu literature, is the body of works written in the Telugu language. * Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Tel ...

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

and

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of ...

languages, also having made one Kannada film. The studio had major releases in the 1950s and early 1960s and is well known for some blockbusters of the times.

History

During the early 1930s, Coimbatore became a hub for some of the south Indian language movies, especially Tamil and Telugu, when the director Naidu and other industrialists started

Central Studios Central Studios was an Indian film studio in the neighbourhood of Singanallur, Coimbatore, Singanallur, Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, started by B.Rangaswamy Naidu (a.k.a. B. R. Naidu) and other prominent industrialists like Swamikannu Vincent of C ...

. Naidu became the creative head and started making his own movies under the banner of

Pakshiraja Films {{Use Indian English, date=February 2018 Pakshiraja Films was an Indian Movie production company based in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India.It was owned and operated by Film Director S. M. Sriramulu Naidu.From 1937 to 1945 the company released movies f ...

. By the early 1930s, another movie studio, Premier Cinetone Studio was under operation in Red Fields, Coimbatore. In 1945, Naidu left Central Studios and took over the Premier Cinetone Studio located in Puliyakulam Road, Red Fields, Coimbatore. He constructed new floors and infrastructure and made it a fully-fledged movie studio with in-house processing lasoratories.

Popular movies

The most popular films from that studio was '' Malaikkallan'' (1955), starring M. G. R and

P. Bhanumathi P. Bhanumathi Ramakrishna (7 September 1925 – 24 December 2005) was an Indian actress, singer, film producer, director, music composer, and novelist. She is regarded as the first female super star of Telugu cinema. She is also considered the ...

, and '' Azaad'' (1955) starring

Dilip Kumar Dilip Kumar (born Muhammad Yusuf Khan; 11 December 1922 – 7 July 2021) was an Indian actor and film producer, who worked in Hindi cinema. Credited with pioneering method acting in cinema, he dominated Hindi cinema from the 1950s throughout t ...

and

Meena Kumari Meena Kumari (born Mahjabeen Bano; 1 August 1933 – 31 March 1972) was an Indian actress and poet, who worked in Hindi films. Known as "The Tragedy Queen", she is regarded among the finest and greatest actresses in the history of Indian cinem ...

, which was the highest-grossing film in

Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, is primarily produced in Mumbai. The popular term Bollywood is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (former name of Mumbai) and "Cinema of the United States, Hollywood". The in ...

for that year, as well as Kumar and Kumari's first in lighter roles as against their tragic roles in most other movies. ''Malaikkallan'' was

M. G. Ramachandran Maruthur Gopalan Ramachandran (17 January 1917 – 24 December 1987), popularly known by his initialism M.G.R. and as Makkal Thilagam/Puratchi Thalaivar, was an Indian actor, politician, and philanthropist who served as the chief minister of ...

's first major box office hit.

Present status

Movie production in the studio slowly declined since mid 1960s. With Central Studios going out of movie industry some time earlier and declining production at Salem Modern Theaters, Chennai has become the ''de facto'' capital for the south Indian movie industry. In 1970, Sriramulu relocated his studio facilities to establish Chamundeshwari Studios in Bangalore. The studio premises and structures still remain more or less intact with several other establishments housed inside.

List of movies

Movies listed here are partial list only.

References

Baker-turned filmmaker - The Hindu article

Movie Review - Maragatham

Projecting cinema The Hindu

External links

* {{Authority control 1945 establishments in India Film production companies of Tamil Nadu Indian film studios Hindi cinema Companies based in Coimbatore Filmfare Awards winners Film production companies based in Coimbatore