MEERA & SAKUNTHALA by M.S.S.

Meera is a 1945 Tamil-language film starring M. S. Subbulakshmi, Kumari Kamala, T. S. Baliah
and Chittoor V. Nagaiah based on the life of the devotional singer and dancer Meera. The film was
directed by American film director Ellis R. Dungan.

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Subbulakshmi and her husband T. Sadasivam formed Royal Talkies to produce their own films.
They decided to make a movie based Shakuntala's life and asked director K. Subramaniam,
to direct the film. Subramaniam was not able to do so because of prior commitments and
recommended Ellis Dungan to be hired instead.Sadasivam wrote the screenplay and Papanasam
Sivan was hired to write the lyrics. Carnatic singer G. N. Balasubramaniam was cast as King Dushyanta.
The comedic duo of N.S.Krishnan - T.A.Mathuram were also among the cast.
Dungan introduced several new techniques to Tamil cinema in this film.
The scene where Shakuntala loses her ring was shot in slow motion through a glass tank filled with water.
In his autobiography (A Guide to Adventure: An Autobiography, Dorrance Publishing Company (2002)),
Dungan wrote the following about his use of a European dancer for adding glamour to the film :
“I hired a scantily dressed female dancer for the role of a water nymph.
She was a young European girl in her late twenties, possessing a beautiful Venus-type figure,
who performed acrobatic dances with a male partner in cabaret shows at the Connemara Hotel in Madras.
In an unheard-of technique in Indian films, she came up out of a water tank and danced in her rather
skin-tight one-piece bathing suit. Believe me, it created quite a bit of excitement among the Indian
actors and film..”

The completed film was 17,400 Feet in length (around 3 hours run time).

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