Sundar Rao Nadkarni was an Indian film actor, editor, cinematographer, producer and director. He was the director of the first hit film for AVM productions Bhookailas in Telugu in the year 1940, and later the record-creating Tamil filmHaridas.

Sundar Rao Nadkarni was born inMangalore,Karnataka.^[1] He started his career inBangalore as an actor in silent films produced by Surya Films. Later, he moved toBombay where he took to film direction and editing. Nadkarni caught the eye of film producerAvichi Meiyappa Chettiar who, after the success ofSabhapathy, was looking to make another comedy film. Thereon, he moved to Coimbatore and finally Madras, where he settled down permanently.

In 1942, Nadkarni directed the Tamil filmEn Manaivi which was a hit. Following this success, Nadkarni also made other successful Tamil films. But his greatest hit was the 1944 filmHaridas which set a record by becoming the first Tamil film to run for 110 weeks at a single theatre. He directed all the top Tamil actors during his active years, notably M. K. Thyagaraja Bhagavathar and T. R. Rajakumari inHaridas (1944), Narsimha Bharathi inKrishna Vijayam (1950), and MGR and Savitri inMahadevi (1957).

• Randor Guy (18 July 2008)."En Manaivi 1942".The Hindu. Archived fromthe original on 25 January 2013.

• Tamil film directors
• Mangaloreans
• Konkani people
• Indian silent film directors
• 20th-century Indian people
• Telugu film directors
• Kannada film directors

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