Ellis R Dungan

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Ellis R Dungan

Born	11 May 1909 Barton, Ohio, USA
Died	1 December 2001
Occupation	Tamil film director
Spouse	Elaine Dungan

Ellis R Dungan (born:11th May 1909, death: 1st December 2001) was an American born film director, who was well known for directing Tamil movies between 1936 to 1950.^[1] Often wrongly referred to as Duncan rather than Dungan, he graduated from University of Southern California and moved to India and eventually directed Sati Leelavati introducing M. G. Ramachandran who later was to become Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu through his film career.^[2] He also introduced stalwarts of Tamil cinema including T.S.Balaiah, N.S.Krishnan and M.S. Subbulakshmi^[3]

1 Early life and entry into Tamil cinema
2 Dungan and Tamil cinema
3 Filmography
4 References

[edit] Early life and entry into Tamil cinema

Dungan was born in Barton, Ohio, USA on May 11, 1909. He attended high school in St. Clairsville, where he played quarterback on the football team. He bought his first box camera to take pictures for the school yearbook, for which he was editor-in-chief. He later joined University of Southern California in 1932 in the newly established Cinema Department.^[4] In 1935 he arrived in India with Michael Ormalev, a college-mate, at the invitation of another USC student, Mani Lal Tandon of Bombay, whose family was planning to enter the film industry. When those plans did not take off, Tandon invited them to Calcutta where he was directing the Tamil film "Nandanar." There, he introduced them to a Tamil film producer who was making "Sathi Leelavathi" and suggested that, tied up as he was, Dungan be hired in his place to direct the film and thus directing his first film.^[5]

[edit] Dungan and Tamil cinema

Dungan had no knowledge of Indian languages, a problem which never affected his career as a director of films in Indian languages, especially Tamil. ^[6] He introduced many new techniques into Indian cinema in spite of the technical limitations of the early part of the 20th century in the subcontinent. Since most of his movies were based on Hindu mythical characters he would visit temples and Hindu shrines dressed as a Kashmiri pundit.^[7]