Black-and-White - images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of gray. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings. The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color.
காற்றுக்கென்ன வேலி கடலுக்கென்ன மூடி
கங்கை வெள்ளம் சங்குக்குள்ளே அடங்கி விடாது
மங்கை நெஞ்சம் பொங்கும் போது விலங்குகள் ஏது ?
Heard this song – lyrics of Kannadasan, music of MS Viswanathan, sung by S Janaki – movie : “Avargal” – released in 1977 starring Sujatha, Kamal Haasan, Rajinikanth, directed by K Balachandar A triangular love story, it revolved around a woman who is caught between the man she fell in love with and her former sadistic husband who is supposedly reformed and wants to get back together with her.
This was a Black & White movie and was a commercial failure. Though almost all films of 1950s & 1960s were B&W, the first colour film as ‘Seetha Kalyanam’ released more than 90 years ago. Bhaktha Chetha, directed and produced by Krishnaswami Subrahmanyam, released in 1940 contained sequences which were hand-coloured. This process colourised film shot originally in black and white by colouring the negatives frame by frame.
Then came Keva & Eastmen colours !!!! Gevacolor is a colour motion picture process, established in 1948, originally based in Belgium and an affiliate of Agfacolor. Gevacolor was among the cheapest color film, which encouraged Tamil cinema to produce colour films. Gevacolor made its debut in Tamil cinema through the film Kalyaanam Pannippaar, a 1952 Indian bilingual Tamil-Telugu satirical comedy film directed by L. V. Prasad and produced by B. Nagi Reddy and Aluri Chakrapani under their company Vijaya Vauhini Studios.
The very famous Sivaji starrer ‘Veerapandiya Kattabomman’ of 1959 directed by B. R. Panthulu was entirely shot in Gevacolor and released its prints in Technicolor. Director K. Shankar announced that his film Parma Pidha (1961) would be shot entirely in Eastmancolor. Starring M. G. Ramachandran and B. Sarojadevi in the lead roles, shooting took place for two days but unfortunately, the film was not released. After three years, Eastmancolor made its comeback through the 1964 C. V. Sridhar/ chitralaya Gopu fame – ‘Kadhalikka Neramillai’ becoming tinseldom’s first film entirely in Eastmancolour.
Here is a Black & White picture of Cow(s) and Calf.
Regards – S Sampathkumar
25.3.2025
