A Pioneer with the midas touch

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Be it Mohanlal or three-dimensional cinema, they sounded queer to Malayalees before their rendezvous with  Maliampurackal Chacko Punnoose, as most of them have turned into the familiar names now.  He brought many persons and techniques, all new to Malayalam cinema to change its face literally. Though he did not act any films, Appachan was the  real superstar if one count the number of fresh talents he infused into its stream. He was sharp enough to find out talents from nowhere.  This is evident from the words of T K Rajeevkumar who directed Chanakyan (1989) the last film which came out under the prestigious banner Navodaya. “I was asked to meet him after ad film maker Mathew Paul told him about my mono act performance at Muhamma, Alappuzha. If the meeting itself was a miracle, there was a bigger miracle in waiting. He handed over to me the glasses for three dimensional cinema. Thus I started as an assistant to Jijo in ‘My dear Kuttichathan’, India’s first 3 D film. He was brave enough to give me a film with a novel subject and Kamal Hasan, five years later, ” he said.This was true to ‘Padayottam’, the first indigenously-made 70 mm film, ‘Thacholi ambu’, the first cinemascope film of south India, or ‘Manjil virinja pookal’, a film experimented with all freshers from director, hero, heroine, villain, music director. The success of the film changed the course of Malayalam cinema as Mohanlal, who played the villain role in that film, later earned many laurels as hero and film director Fazil went on to make many success stories in south India, while men from his school mesmerised  Bollywood. This list include Priyadarsan and Siddique who became hot properties there. Box office hits from Navodaya were no flukes as it came out of meticulous planning right from production to distribution. He produced child-centric films like ‘Ente Mamattukuttyammakku’ which made Baby Shalini a darling of south India in no time.  He later tried the same in ‘Onnu Muthal Poojyam Vare’, which is now a study materiel in film institutes. Film personalities like Siby Malayil, Reghunath Paleri, Jerry Amaldev, Mohan Sithara and Venugopal all have a Navodaya brand.Appachan was more than a producer when he took the initiative to complete the second 70mm made in Malayalam ‘Kadathanadan Ambady’ or arranged a theatrical release for much acclaimed film Piravi.