Never on Sunday
| Never on Sunday | |
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| Directed by | Jules Dassin |
| Written by | Jules Dassin |
| Starring | Melina Mercouri Jules Dassin Giorgos Fountas |
| Editing by | Roger Dwyre |
| Distributed by | Lopert Pictures Corporation (1960, original) MGM (2003, DVD) |
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| Running time | 91 minutes |
| Country | Greece United States |
| Language | English Greek Russian |
| Budget | $150,000[1] |
| Box office | $4 million (US/ Canada rentals) [2] |
Never on Sunday (Greek: Ποτέ Την Κυριακή, translit. Pote Tin Kyriaki) is a 1960 Greek black-and-white film which tells the story of Ilya, a self-employed, free-spirited prostitute who lives in the port of Piraeus in Greece, and Homer, an American tourist from Middletown, Connecticut — a classical scholar enamored with all things Greek. Homer feels Ilya's life style typifies the degradation of Greek classical culture and attempts to steer her onto the path of morality. It constitutes a variation of the Pygmalion story.
The film stars Melina Mercouri and Jules Dassin, and it gently submerges the viewer into Greek culture, including dance, music, and language (through the use of subtitles). The signature song and the bouzouki theme of the movie became hits of the 1960s and brought the composer, Manos Hadjidakis, an Academy Award.
It won the Academy Award for Best Song (Manos Hadjidakis for "Never on Sunday"). It was nominated for the Academy Awards for, respectively, Best Actress in a Leading Role (Melina Mercouri), Best Costume Design, Black-and-White, Best Director (Jules Dassin) and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay as Written Directly for the Screen (Dassin). Mercouri won the award for Best Actress at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival.[3]
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Cast [edit]
- Melina Mercouri as Ilya
- Jules Dassin as Homer Thrace
- Giorgos Fountas as Tonio
- Titos Vandis as Jorgo
- Mitsos Ligizos as The Captain (as Mitsos Lygizos)
- Despo Diamantidou as Despo
- Dimos Starenios as Poubelle
- Dimitris Papamichael as A Sailor (as Dimitri Papamichael)
- Alexis Solomos as Noface
- Thanassis Veggos as (as Thanassis Veggos)
- Faidon Georgitsis as Sailor
- Nikos Fermas as Waiter
Trivia [edit]
Ilya meets with two British sailors from the HMS Manchester. (The younger one offers her less money, but he appeals to Ilya.) There was no ship called HMS Manchester in the Royal Navy in 1960.
The two Soviet sailors arrive while Homer has Ilya out of her room. The name of the Soviet ship is on the sailors' caps in the Cyrillic alphabet.
When the American fleet arrives, the destroyer, USS Douglas H. Fox (DD-779), is shown from stock footage and is recognizable by the large numbers 779 painted on her bow section.
DVD [edit]
Never on Sunday was released in a Region 1 DVD by MGM Home Video on July 1, 2003.
References [edit]
- ^ Tino Balio, United Artists: The Company The Changed the Film Industry, Uni of Wisconsin Press, 1987 p 127
- ^ "All-Time Top Grossers", Variety, 8 January 1964 p 69
- ^ "Festival de Cannes: Never on Sunday". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-02-18.
External links [edit]
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