 British documentary, and in particular the documentary movement of the 1930s
and 40s, spawned a number of talented and prolific female directors. But by the
time Indian-born (and Jewish) Sarah Erulkar joined the ranks in 1947,
documentary directing was, like many postwar professions, rapidly becoming the
preserve of men. While many women directors retired prematurely (often following
marriage), Erulkar managed to negotiate the myriad obstructions she encountered
across her 40-year career and build a legacy of over 80 films.
Short-circuiting the usual gradual ascent from technician or scriptwriter to
director, her rise was meteoric. Arriving at the Shell Film Unit, she quickly
proved her worth scripting and editing the short film Aircraft Today
and Tomorrow (1946), before graduating to director on her second assignment, the similarly-themed
Flight for Tomorrow (1947). A trip to India with her
father, to take part in the Indian independence celebrations, gave rise to her
second directing role for Shell, Lord Siva Danced (1946). The film, starring celebrated dancer Ram Gopal, became
something of a cult classic in India.
But if being a woman and Indian was no barrier to advancement at Shell, being
a woman and married definitely was. In 1952, having directed two more films for
Shell, Erulkar found herself newly unemployed as a result of marrying her
colleague, Peter de Normanville, then employed in the capacity of assistant
director. Shell overseer Arthur Elton advised Erulkar that, as a married woman,
her role should now be "to put out Peter's slippers". The fact that it was her
new husband who had the more junior role, and was earning eight pounds per week
to Erulkar's 18, was apparently irrelevant in the face of ingrained convention.
Fortunately, though, her husband was entirely supportive of her career
ambitions, and after the birth of their children they both combined parenthood
with their respective filmmaking.
As a freelancer, she navigated her way through most of the major players in
postwar documentary. Snapped up by World Wide Pictures on leaving Shell to
direct District Nurse (1952), charting a day in the life of two nurses in the
rural Southeast of England, she then joined Donald Alexander and his colleagues
at the National Coal Board Film Unit, where she honed her cutting skills. During
this time she also directed films for Leon Clore's two companies, Graphic Films
and Basic Films. After leaving the NCB she worked almost exclusively as a
director until she retired in the early 1980s, running the gauntlet of
commissioning bodies, including the British Productivity Council, the Central Office of Information, the
Gas Council and the General Post Office. Adaptability was key, and her work over
the years extended across the spectrum of non-fiction genres, from classic
documentary, travelogue and 'trigger' films to children's features, medical
training films and public information films, as well as a swathe of promotional
films for various commercial bodies.
Around a fifth of her films (more in the later phase of her career), engage
with what might be termed 'women's themes' - notable examples including Birthright
(1958) and Something Nice to Eat (1967), on birth control and cooking
respectively - but between these she tackled any number of different
assignments, including some highly technical or industrial subjects, as in Spat
System (1960), promoting its sponsor's GKN Screws and Fasteners products.
(However, she never matched the output in this field of her husband, who
specialised in science films.)
Erulkar's instinctive artistry, combined with a passion for life and people,
brought universal appeal to specialist subject matter, and meant that she was
always in demand. Her work brought her a plethora of awards, including two
BAFTAs, for Picture to Post 1(969) and the prescient environmentally-themed The
Air my Enemy (1971).
Unlike many of her contemporaries, who were happy to switch over to more
lucrative television or feature films, she never wavered in her passion for
documentary and relished the sheer diversity and quantity of projects that came
her way, while retaining a touching humility: "I was always so grateful when
anyone employed me," she has said, "I always felt I must be such an oddity that
they had to sell me to the sponsor as well."
Katy McGahan
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FILM & TV CREDITS
