Olga Weis
• Oct 14, 2025
While Alibabavum 40 Thirudargalum may be lost to time, its place in history is secure. It is not just the first colour film in Tamil; it is a symbol of the industry’s enduring ambition to push beyond the limits of technology and imagination.
However, colour was still prohibitively expensive. After this landmark film, Tamil cinema retreated back to black and white for another seven years. Colour films remained a rarity until the mid-1960s, when the iconic Karnan (1964, starring Sivaji Ganesan and N. T. Rama Rao) popularized colour on a grand scale using Eastmancolor. Tragically, like many early Indian films, Alibabavum 40 Thirudargalum is now considered a lost film . No known complete prints survive. The Gevacolor stock, while revolutionary, was prone to severe fading and discoloration over time. Attempts to recover prints from private collections or international archives (like the National Film Archive of India) have so far failed. Only a few still photographs and the gramophone records of its songs remain as evidence of its once-vibrant glory. Conclusion: The Forgotten Pioneer When we celebrate the visual splendour of modern Tamil blockbusters like Enthiran or Ponniyin Selvan , we owe a silent debt to a 1956 gamble in a Coimbatore studio. S. M. Sriramulu Naidu took a financial risk to prove that Tamil stories deserved to be seen in all their natural colour.
Sriramulu Naidu, known for his technical daring, decided to take the risk. He chose a classic tale from the Arabian Nights —a story of hidden treasure, magical caves, and swashbuckling adventure—perfect for a visual medium. Unlike the famous Technicolor process which required a special, heavy camera, Alibabavum 40 Thirudargalum was shot using Gevacolor . This was a Belgian colour film stock from the Gevaert company (later Agfa-Gevaert). Gevacolor was a single-strip colour negative process that was simpler to handle than Technicolor’s three-strip system, though it required meticulous lighting and exposure.
The film was ( Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves ). The Historical Context: The Race for Colour While Hollywood had embraced Technicolor in the late 1930s (think The Wizard of Oz ), Indian cinema was slower to adopt the expensive and complex technology. The first Indian colour film was the Hindi Kisan Kanya (1937), but it was shot in a crude bipack colour process.
While Alibabavum 40 Thirudargalum may be lost to time, its place in history is secure. It is not just the first colour film in Tamil; it is a symbol of the industry’s enduring ambition to push beyond the limits of technology and imagination.
However, colour was still prohibitively expensive. After this landmark film, Tamil cinema retreated back to black and white for another seven years. Colour films remained a rarity until the mid-1960s, when the iconic Karnan (1964, starring Sivaji Ganesan and N. T. Rama Rao) popularized colour on a grand scale using Eastmancolor. Tragically, like many early Indian films, Alibabavum 40 Thirudargalum is now considered a lost film . No known complete prints survive. The Gevacolor stock, while revolutionary, was prone to severe fading and discoloration over time. Attempts to recover prints from private collections or international archives (like the National Film Archive of India) have so far failed. Only a few still photographs and the gramophone records of its songs remain as evidence of its once-vibrant glory. Conclusion: The Forgotten Pioneer When we celebrate the visual splendour of modern Tamil blockbusters like Enthiran or Ponniyin Selvan , we owe a silent debt to a 1956 gamble in a Coimbatore studio. S. M. Sriramulu Naidu took a financial risk to prove that Tamil stories deserved to be seen in all their natural colour.
Sriramulu Naidu, known for his technical daring, decided to take the risk. He chose a classic tale from the Arabian Nights —a story of hidden treasure, magical caves, and swashbuckling adventure—perfect for a visual medium. Unlike the famous Technicolor process which required a special, heavy camera, Alibabavum 40 Thirudargalum was shot using Gevacolor . This was a Belgian colour film stock from the Gevaert company (later Agfa-Gevaert). Gevacolor was a single-strip colour negative process that was simpler to handle than Technicolor’s three-strip system, though it required meticulous lighting and exposure.
The film was ( Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves ). The Historical Context: The Race for Colour While Hollywood had embraced Technicolor in the late 1930s (think The Wizard of Oz ), Indian cinema was slower to adopt the expensive and complex technology. The first Indian colour film was the Hindi Kisan Kanya (1937), but it was shot in a crude bipack colour process.
