Vigathakumaran

Vigathakumaran
A scene from the film
Malayalam	വിഗതകുമാരൻ
Directed by	J. C. Daniel
Produced by	J. C. Daniel
Written by	J. C. Daniel
Starring	J. C. Daniel P. K. Rosy
Edited by	J. C. Daniel
Production company	Travancore National Pictures
Release date	23 October 1930 (1930-10-23)
Country	India
Language	Malayalam (Silent)
Budget	4 lakh (British Indian Rupee)

Vigathakumaran (English: The Lost Child) is a 1928 Indian silent film written, produced and directed by J. C. Daniel. He also played the role of hero in the movie. A social drama, Vigathakumaran was the first Malayalam feature film and J. C. Daniel is considered as the father of Malayalam film industry for this work.

This movie is also credited as the first Indian social drama feature film.

Chandrakumar, son of a rich man in Trivandrum is kidnapped by the villain Bhoothanathan to Ceylon. The efforts of his parents to find him do not succeed and Chandrakumar is brought up as a labourer in an estate. The estate owner, who is British, takes a liking to him and in time, Chandrakumar rises to the post of Superintendent. At this time Jayachandran, a distant relative of Chandrakumar happens to come to Ceylon. Incidentally, he is robbed of all his belongings by Bhoothanathan. Stranded, he gets acquainted with Chandrakumar and they become close friends. They come to Thiruvananthapuram where Chandrakumar's sister falls in love with Jayachandran. Meanwhile Bhoothanathan attempts to kidnap her and the duo's timely intervention saves her. A scar on the back reveals Chandrakumar's identity which eventually leads to the happy reunion of the family.

Daniel was interested in martial arts and was an expert in chelambatam, the traditional martial art of southern Travancore. He published an English book titled Indian Art of Fencing and Sword Play in 1915, when he was 15. Daniel was well aware of the scope of cinema as a public medium. He wished to popularise chelambatam by harnessing the popular influence of cinema. At that time the common mass of Kerala were not even aware of cinema, hence the idea was quite a challenge. He took the challenge and left to Madras (now Chennai) to learn techniques of film-making and to acquire necessary equipments. Madras was the budding centre of film production in South India and had the only permanent talkies in South India, named Gaiety which was established in 1912. However, he could not get what he wanted from Madras and was even denied permission to enter various studio premises in there. That didn't make him to give up. He travelled to Bombay (now Mumbai), the centre of Hindi cinema production. He asked the studio owners for entry claiming that he is a teacher from Kerala and wanted to teach his students about cinema and got entry to the studios there. He could gather enough knowledge and equipments for film production from Bombay and came back to Kerala to fulfil his dream.