An advertisement announcing the release of Kalidas was published on 30 October 1931 in The Hindu, where it was proclaimed that the film was the "first talkie to be screened in the city with Tamil and Telugu songs" [REF].
In his 1997 book Starlight, Starbright: The Early Tamil Cinema, Randor Guy described Kalidas as a "crude experiment" that had poor lip sync; when characters opened their mouths there was no sound, and when dialogue or song was heard, artistes remained silent.