up in the same manner, but at a different angle. They are pointing their guns, loaded with blanks, at detective Sivanandan (Javar Seetharaman), who has solved the case but wants to test his hypothesis.

The movie is anything but overblown. A rare songless film for its time, Andha Naal is a properly cinematic murder mystery, one that relies as much on Macguffins and red herrings as on cinematography and editing to create a sense of suspense and atmospherics. Despite its origins as an unstaged play and despite being shot by S Maruti Rao with a largely static camera, the movie has numerous scenes with dexterous chiaroscuro lighting effects, dramatic close-ups, and judicious cutting.

The opening itself is eye-popping for its time: Rajan, his face contorted by pain and impending death,staggers away from the camera soon after an opening title card and voiceover locate the time and place: Chennai, October 12, 1943, during World War II and the day after the Japanese air force has bombed the city.

Rajan dies of his gunshot wound, but returns through shards of subjective flashbacks. Each of his family members and his nosy neighbour Chinniah (PD Sambanda) has a different theory about the culprit. Chinniah asserts that Rajan’s brother Pattabi (TK Balachandran) is responsible since he bickered with his brother over money. Pattabi blames his shrewish wife Hema (Menaka). Hema has her own suspect – Rajan’s lover, the actor Ambujam (Suryakala). Only Rajan’s saintly wife Usha (Pandari Bai) appears to be blameless.

Rajan’s death plays out over and over again as each of these