An American cinematographer, born in Ohio, a graduate of UCLA and the American Institute of Cinematography and who worked in Hollywood from 1927 onwards, comes to India in 1935 to sell cinema equipment. He stays behind for 17 years, makes several Tamil films, introduces MGR as an actor and directs MS Subbulakshmi’s most celebrated film, Meera (1945) as well as the seminal MGR hit Manthiri Kumari (1950) among others, before returning to USA! The man was Ellis R Duncan.

Duncan’s first film in India was Sati Leelavathi (1936), based on SS Vasan’s novel. It is today chiefly remembered as the film that introduced MGR to Tamil audiences. It was with Iru Sakodarargal (1936) that Duncan became a top director in the newly developing Tamil film industry. The film is one of the earliest Tamil films based on a contemporary, social theme as against mythologicals and is a story about the conflicts and values of the joint family system. The film was shot in Bombay at Sagar Movietone and was a key film in Duncan’s attempts to create a more sophisticated cinematic language for Tamil films which otherwise were just photographed drama and nothing more. Duncan edited the film, drastically reduced the number of songs, made sure the comedy track was incorporated coherently into the film’s main storyline and also shot sequences outdoors wherever he could.

Since obviously Duncan did not know Tamil, he hired interpreters who were known as ‘rush directors.’ But Duncan understood the importance of the spoken word. He introduced the famed scenarist Elangovan with Ambikapathy (1937), Ponmudi (1949) remains one of poet Bharatdasan’s best known scripts while Manthiri Kumari was Kaurunanidhi’s first major literary contribution to cinema.

Ambikapathy was one of the earliest film dealing with historical fiction in Tamil Cinema. Duncan saw the film as a parallel to Romeo and Juliet. So he based some of the film’s sequences on the latter. A highlight of the film is the balcony scene showing the hero, Ambikapathy climbing up the balcony to meet his beloved, the princess Amaravathi. The film was made at New Theatres Studio in Calcutta and the music was composed by the blind singer-composer KC Dey.

Meera, a bilingual in Tamil and Hindi is one of Duncan’s most well-known films. The film starred MS Subbulakshmi who played Meerabai. Her rendering of Meera Bhajans in Hindi remained for years the definitive version of Meerabai’s immortal lyrics. Originally a huge Tamil hit, the equally successful Hindi version had the great Sarojini Naidu introduce Subbulakshmi to a North Indian audience. The Hindi version premiere was attended by Lord and Lady Mountbatten and Jawaharlal Nehru among others. The Tamil version is known for some of novelist Kalki’s best work as a lyrics writer, in particular the song Katrinile Varum Geetham. It is said that Duncan and his cinemtographer used a mould of Subbulakshmi's face and shot it at various angles with different lighting techniques. After viewing the results, they chose the best ones to create Meera's ethereal, angelic beauty. The scene where a young Meera changes into adulthood remains much admired even today. The transition is shown in a song, Nanda Bala En Manala. When the changeover takes place, there is a 45 second musical interlude as part of the song. Normally this too would have been recorded along with the song in a recording studio but Duncan first shot the scene, which consisted of a number of shots of the statue of Krishna, lighted lamps with flames flickering, flowers on plates, prayer offerings, Krishna's flute before cutting to a shot of Subbulakshmi singing. Duncan edited these shots into a rapidly cut fast-paced sequence while the music director Venkataraman subsequently scored the interlude music in rhythm to the shots.

Interestingly, Duncan had directed Subbulakhsmi earlier in Shakuntalai (1940) where she played the title role opposite another stalwart of Carnatic music, GN Balasubramaniam. The songs Premayil Yavum Marandhome and Anandamen Solvene were extremely popular. A highlight of the film is the sequence where angels come out dripping wet from a pond and soar towards the sky. Duncan made the angels (fair-skinned local Anglo-Indian girls) wet their costumes and took shots of them jumping into the pond and then reversed the shot in the final film to get the effort!

During World War II, Duncan was engaged to make war propaganda films. He made Returning Soldier (1945), a film in Tamil with TS Balaiya in the lead, in support of the war effort.

Duncan then made Ponmudi about two Siva Mudaliar families in the business milieu of Kaveripooram whose children have been betrothed to each other. But the two families have a fallout over a land deal which forces the children to meet in secret. When they get caught, the boy, Ponmudi, is sent to North India on 'business' while the girl, Poonkothai, runs away from home. Of course the distraught parents make up, send meesages that all is well everything gets but not before Ponmudi has to be rescued from tribals as he was being prepared as a human sacrifice!

Duncan's last Tamil film was the MGR box office smash hit Manthiri Kumari. The film was based on the Tamil classic Kundalakesi. Its dialogues by Karunanidhi were extremely popular. His barbs against the royal priest were part of the ideology of the Dravidian movement. The songs were another major factor in the film's success in partilcuar Varai Nee Varai sing by Tiruchi Loganathan. The film also sees a dance number by the Travancore sisters Lalitha and Padmini. While MGR, of course, played the hero, a commandant of the king's army, the portrayal of the minister's daughter played by Madhuri is the standout performance in the film. She plays an assertive and confident woman who handles a sword with much dexterity and who kills her wayward husband. Such an independent female character was a rarity in films then.

An Indo-US co-production on which Duncan was co-director and associate Producer, The Jungle (1952) starring Rod Cameron, Marie Windsor and Caeser Romero was dubbed into Tamil as Kaadu (1952)!

Duncan returned to the States but returned to India occassionally as 2nd unit photographer for Harry Black (1958) and Tarzan Comes to India (1962). Duncan passed away in the United States though his exact date of death is unknown.