Those were the days: Sabapathy, movie that tickled Madras’s funny bone amid looming war scare

It was undoubtedly the toughest time to make an audience laugh. All around Madras there were glum faces. Every sound was a scare. Every bird in the sky was a suspect. The World War was raging across the world. The Japanese had captured Malaya. And Singapore — the Asian headquarters of the allied powers was under fierce attack. 

If Singapore fell, it was the turn of Madras to face the bombardment. Refugees from all the affected areas were flooding in with tales of torment and torture. 

Everything was scarce and hunger rampant. Rationing of essentials was the new norm. Blackouts were already in the vouge. Even the beach was restricted territory. Citizens were already in touch with relatives in the mofussil, for everyone knew an evacuation was on the cards. Perhaps in a year, Madras would be an abandoned city under Japanese rule. 

This was hardly a time for a comedy movie to be made. But AV Meiyappan would produce one in his Pragati pictures and make it a hit. Fascinated with cinema, Meiyappan had dwindled his resources by making three flops in a row. Flops for no fault of his. One had the actors with half-closed eyes in the glaring lights and one had a soundtrack that ran at a different speed than the film causing a huge audio mix-up. 

Hiring a haunted palace in Mandaveli, Meiyappan had completed a Telugu film. And then a story that was 30 years old on stage was brought to his notice. The doyen of drama, Pammal Sambanda Mudaliar had written the play for himself and acted the role well past middle age (it was the role of a school student). Meiyappan was taking a huge gamble. Other than being a comedy, the play was still being run all over the Tamil diaspora by different drama companies. Once Meiyappan decided to take the risk and gave the go-ahead, A Krishnaswamy rehashed the script. 

The banner which released Sabapathy was not yet AVM. It was called Pragati Pictures. The confidence that this and a couple of comedies gave Meiyappan allowed him to strike on his own and form the powerful AVM banner and elevate him to the status of a movie mogul. 

Actors then were on monthly salaries and TR Ramachandran was chosen as the bumbling hero. Ramachandran evoked laughter just on appearance, with his eyes especially (they were saucer-like and occupied a large part of his upper face). His salary was Rs 35 a month (the whole movie was shot for less than Rs 40,000). But the film got him comparisons with Eddie Cantor, the American comedian, and was remembered for long. 

A struggling actor who watched this talkie was in for a shock. He was also called Ramachandran and would attain demi-god status much later in his career. MGR actually changed his name to MG Ramachandar to avoid confusion (the two would act together in quite a few movies later, including the AVM classic of the 1960s, Anbe Vaa). 

The heroine was Lux Padma, one of the series of actresses who had modelled for the soap Lux but chose to add it to her name. Incidentally, Lux, initially named Sunlight Flakes in 1899, was sold as a laundry detergent. The makers were astounded to find out that Lux was also consumed as a cosmetic soap by the women. In 1925, Lux was relaunched as a beauty soap with the focus on endorsing its beauty-enhancing qualities and marketing focused on building correlations with the glamorous film stars of the times. Almost all the beauties of the silver screen have been featured in India but the one to add it to her name was Padma. But it didn’t do much to her career. 

The storyline was straightforward. An imbecile who cannot cross his matriculation but technically belongs to the zamindar class which seemed to have no need for education. His bumbling manservant also shared the name of Sabapathy. 

Once asked in an exam to describe how a steam engine runs, Sabapathy would write ‘Chikku bukku chikku bukku’ for 14 pages believing it would be accepted as right. 

His exasperated father employs a tuition master who ends up serving his own plate of humour as well. Finally, Sabapathy is married off to an educated girl with modern values including car driving (the year was 1941). And she transforms him to pass the exams. With lots of songs and jokes, the audience forgot the dreary circumstances outside the theatre. AVM was careful that no mention of the war was made in the movie. Not wishing to remind the audience either. 

In Madras, ironically it was released in Paragon, a few hundred metres from the sea and the fort which would have been the first places the Japanese would aim for. 

Eight years later, Kalki, while reviewing another of Meiyappan’s films, Vaazhkai now in his own banner and owned studio AVM where coincidentally TR Ramachandran plays the hero with a heroine who was a foot taller and destined to take India by storm, Vyjayanthi Mala, would mention Sabapathy. He would say the humour was higher class targeted and many of them puns in English. While urban classes enjoyed, it went over the heads of the rural population. 

But Sabapathy perhaps is the most popular movie of the ’40s that still is played on television.