Ellis R. Dungan Biography 
Ellis R. Dungan was an American film director who has given contributions to Indian cinema in the 1930s and 1940s. He has directed many Indian films, predominantly in Tamil language. He is best remembered as Tamil movie lovers as the director who gave the first break to Tamil’s most popular hero – M. G. Ramachandran, through the movie - Sati Leelavati (1936), the movie which also marked the career beginning of legendary character artists like T. S. Balaiya and N. S. Krishnan. The movie came to limelight as it was the first Tamil film to be a subject of court case involving copyright violations. Sati Leelavati – is his first film credited as a film director. He has also directed many English movies, apart from one Hindi film, Meera in 1947. He is credited to introducing many western innovations to Indian film screen and revolutionizing Indian cinema.
He was born on May 11, 1909 in Barton, Ohio, United States of America. He studied at University of Southern California and moved to India in 1935 where he started his career as a film maker of Tamil movies. He reached India with the invitation of another USC student - Manik Lal Tandon of Mumbai, whose family had intensions to enter film making industry. Then he reached Kolkata invited by Tandon who was making the Tamil film - Nandanar (1935). Tandon introduced him to A. N. Marudhachalam Chettiar, a film producer and made his film debut as a director with the film - Sati Leelavati (1936).
The film was scripted by noted theatre artist Kandaswamy Mudaliar who was to launch his son M.K. Radha through the movie. Thus the movie starred a few newcomers and marked Ellis R. Dungan’s debut as a film director too. Later he directed many Tamil movies and language has never been his barrier to direct films. He also introduced many new techniques to Tamil films. His last Tamil film was Manthiri Kumari in 1950. Post Indian independence he returned to US in 1958 and started a film production company and continued his journey as a film maker. Dungan died in Wheeling on December 1, 2001 at the age of 92.
Published: N/A
Updated: January 30, 2016
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