When National Theatre brought cinema to the western suburbs of Chennai

The site of the old National Theatre at Virugambakkam, when it was making way for a state-of-the-art multiplex-cum-shopping mall | Photo Credit: S.S. Kumar National Theatre stood on Arcot Road in Virugambakkam at a time when the western parts of Madras — particularly the Kodambakkam-Vadapalani-Saligramam belt — were emerging as the heart of the city’s film industry. The neighbourhood was dotted with major studios such as AVM, Vijaya-Vauhini and Prasad, and had become closely associated with the growth of Tamil cinema.Against this backdrop, National Theatre offered a more modern cinema-going experience. By the 1960s, it was equipped with a Bauer B.14 Klang film sound system and a Perlex panoramic screen.Virugambakkam itself was a very different place then, says G. Ramakrishnan, a long-time