Pote tin Kyriaki

Plot synopsis:
In Piraeus, the port city of Athens, Greece, a free-spirited woman named Ilya (Melina Mercouri) is the most popular with all the men because she is a prostitute who isn't only interested in the highest-paying client.She never sets a price, and she must like the man before she will go with him. A young philosophical intellectual Homer Thrace (Jules Dassin) arrives from America in search of the truth behind the fall of the greatness of ancient Greece when Plato and Aristotle lived. He is introduced to Ilya by his friend the Captain (Mitsos Ligizos) in the local taverna as she meets and dances with her male friends/clients. Homer is immediately smitten by Ilya and her spirit and - when he sees her leave with an English sailor after negotiating a price for the evening - equally horrified by her lifestyle. There is also a subplot regarding the other prostitutes, who admire Ilya for her freedom; however a local pimp named No Face (Alexis Salomos) keeps the women in high-priced apartments and isolated so they don't "get ideas".Homer can't accept Ilya's earthy feel-good philosophy, particularly when he finds that she has made up her own happy endings for the classical Greek tragedies, and refuses to accept the real plots even when she sees them performed at the annual festival. "A whore can't be happy, a whorish world can't be happy!" Homer exclaims. He believes that if he can show Ilya the cultural side of living for two weeks she will leave prostitution for a better life. Since Ilya cannot go for two weeks without a steady income, Homer pays her handsomely in return for her agreement to study the great art and philosophy of the world.She agrees partly because she is beginning to fall for one of her clients, a handsome half-Italian named Tonio (Giorgos Foundas) who is sincerely in love with her. Little does she know that No Face offers Homer a large amount of money to complete his task. The two weeks is a long affair in which Ilya endures her agreement to study instead of her regular activity, especially missing her Sundays when she has traditionally kept Open House for all her friends. Then her friend Despo (Despo Diamantidou), a prostitute who lives in one of No Face's apartments, discovers the source of Homer's educational fund and tells Ilya, and the experiment is over. Ilya furiously turns on Homer, then leads the other girls in a united revolt just as the Navy fleet comes into port; they blockade themselves inside the apartment block and throw mattresses and bedding down onto the heads of the frustrated sailors. They're jailed, and No Face's attorney arrives to bargain with them. The women hold the cards, and a satisfactory agreement is reached.Ilya returns to the taverna, where Homer has created a crisis by telling Taki, the virtuoso bouzouki player, that he's not a true musician because he can't read music. Taki has locked himself in the bathroom, but on the suggestion of one of the others, Ilya asks him through the door if the birds can read music. If they can't, should they stop singing? Taki comes out, happy to play again, and everyone joins in joyful dancing. Homer, a little drunk, admits to Ilya in front of all the others that he's wanted her since the first time he saw her. "Oh, Homer, why didn't you say?" she wonders. But Tonio intervenes. Sweeping her up in his arms, he cries, "It's too late!" and carries her out into the night. The Captain tells Homer that with love, anything is possible. Soon Homer, sadder but much wiser, is leaving for home. His ship pulls away from the pier, and he watches as Ilya and her friends dive into the water and wave a farewell, just as they'd greeted him at the beginning of the film.

Tags: romantic

Review:
Coming from the 50's generation, I remember seeing this movie when I was a teenager and being absolutely fascinated by the Greek setting, music and dancing.
"Never on Sunday" is why.Aided immeasurably by Manos Hadjidakis' unforgettable score (you're probably already humming the theme) and Jules Dassin's story, Mercouri's incredible presence stole the show -- and hearts worldwide.Dassin is perfect in what would be the "nebbish" role, were he Jewish.
The Greeks have, perhaps, 27 words for "nebbish" as they do for "love." Dassin brilliantly inhabits one of them.Rarely has the energy and life force of a particular time and place been so economically and delightfully captured on film.There's a reason "Never on Sunday" is a legend and part of every serious film lover's collection.
Never on Sunday, a story of the attempts of an American to reform a Greek prostitute and the adventures they both share in the process.
The sensitive and skillful direction of Jules Dassin ranks as one of the best efforts I can remember in a film because of the humor and pathos he managed to combine and capture as well as the great love of life of the Greek people.
Melina Mercouri takes an often-played role - the 'Whore with a Heart of Gold who Loves Life Despite It All' - and makes it her career-defining movie role, and she is the entire reason to watch the movie.
Jules Dassin has directed a great movie but he should have hired an actor to play Homer, and not played it himself.
Melina Mercouri, "The Last Greek Goddess", stars in the comedy "Never on Sunday"(1960) directed/written by Jules Dassin.
Mercouri was 40 years old when she played Illia but she did not hide a single day of her age and she was gorgeous, full of the inner fire and absolutely irresistible.
When the new Pygmalion, the intellectual American named Homer (of course) sails into the town and meets Illia, he decides that his search for meaning of life would end in Pyres if he would reform Illia and make her change her way of life.
Homer played by director/writer Jules Dassin is the weakest part of this mostly charming comedy.
I agree with one of the IMDb commenters who said that "Jules Dassin has directed a great movie but he should have hired an actor to play Homer, and not played it himself...
A better actor might have found a way around the rough spots but Dassin magnifies them." I guess that in real life Dassin was much more charming that in the film because he and Mercouri were married in 1966 and stayed married until her death in 1994.7.5/10.
If I remember correctly, she has a way of rewriting Greek tragedies in her head so that, at the end, "everyone goes to the seashore." I imagine that the film isn't as vivid as it was in its day because while the scenery was beautiful the photography was not special.
You might not like Jules Dassin as Mercuri's foil -- he acted in as well as wrote and directed the film -- but see it for Mercuri.
Melina Mercouri was perhaps Greek's best known actress.
While American born and bred, Jules Dassin's character, Homer, tries to capture his vacation in Greece.
It is no wonder that in real life, Jules Dassin and Melina Mercouri fell in love..
To a committed hellenophile, this film represents all things that are great about Greece - the food, the music, the people.First, there is the incomparable music of Manos Hatzidakis, who won an Oscar for the title song.Then, there is Melina Mercouri, the star of the film, who won at Cannes for her role, as well as getting an Oscar and BAFTA nomination.
The Minister of Culture after the fall of the dictatorship in Greece, she was magnificent.She later married the writer/director of the film, Jules Dassin, who received two Oscar nominations for this film, as well as a BAFTA nomination.
Dassin is also well know for the film Rififi.Watching film is a trip back to the old Greece when the spirit was high and people lived life to the fullest.
"Never on Sunday", that charming Jules Dassin film, was shown unexpectedly on cable recently.
The director himself decided to play the pivotal role of Homer Thrace, a Brooklyn scholar familiar with Greek culture, but naive in matters of the heart and sex.Ilya, a happy-go-lucky prostitute, is loved by the men working in the port.
In a way, the relationship that develops between Homer and Ilya, is a modified version of Pygmalion and Galatea, something that Homer was happy to undertake, even though he knew better not to try.Melina Mercouri dominates the film.
Ms. Mercouri's effortless performance wins the viewer right away because one realizes she is, like Fellini's Cabiria, a genuine soul that gives love without expecting anything in return.Jules Dassin has been criticized by some contributors to IMDb by his take on Homer, but actually, he also gives an appealing account of his scholar.
Ultimately, the film was another triumph for Jules Dassin, an American original whose body of work speak for itself..
It is more important to be happy than to understand everything.PROS AND CONS Every recent prostitute film from 'Irma la Duce' to 'Pretty Woman' owes a lot to this work.
It was one of the first films that shed light on the idea that prostitution was a respectable and acceptable way to make a living.If nothing else this film is a homage by Jules Dassin to his wife, Melina Mercouri.
It appears care free, relaxed and almost infectious with its love of the simple life.The plot of the film is not overly complex and deals with an outsider, Homer (Dassin) arriving in town to study Greek culture.
Hence the title to the film.Homer is smitten by Ilya and decides that he must 'save' her from what he perceives as a wretched life that is going no where and decides to educate her so that she can see the error of her ways.
The education of Ilya does have a silver lining, which if anything, leaves the town more corrupted than when Homer found it.The underlying theme of the film is that one should strive to be happy in what you do and more importantly, who you know.
From the second the film begins to the moment it ends, Jule's Dassin's bouyant movie brims with life, love, laughter, great music, great food, wonderfulcharacters and a delightful modern fable.
In these precarious times it is great to search out a film like this which is life-affirming, beautiful and profound.
Melina Mercouri's Ilia is one of the great screen creations of all time--and every man will fall in love with her when they watch this film.
When I first saw the film in 1950, I thought he was terrible, but seeing the film again I realize that the character must be this way to show the difference between him, and the people of Greece.The fat whores in the very tight dresses were just wonderful.
It's set in Greece, and has a painfully dated and almost naive tourist view of Greek "culture" on the docks of a fishing village.Director Jules Dassin, born in Middletown, Connecticut just as Homer, the leading rather clueless character of this movie, loved Greece.
He's an uneven director, and a not so compelling actor, but apparently no one had the heart to tell him this.There is some sharp acting here, not what you would call naturalistic, but colorful, especially from the leading woman, Melina Mercouri.
And all the location shooting is fun, for sure.So you can get yourself in the mood for this kind of European old school film, but for 1960 it's weirdly out of date, and it lacks the punch of other true Euro productions of the time (and I'm not just talking French New Wave, but all kinds of great post-war movies).
Never on Sunday:Director Jules Dassin and actress Melina Mercouri show that what is good for X is bad for Y..
Greek film "Never on Sunday" is a perfect film for all those viewers who appreciate good cinema and have already seen films directed by Jules Dassin namely Rififi, Topkapi and Celui Qui Doit Mourir.
The film's star cast includes director Jules Dassin who is paired against his wife Melina Mercouri, one of Greek cinema's best known actresses who was also active as the minister of culture in her native Greece.
Middle-aged American scholar Jules Dassin (as Homer) goes from Connecticut to a Greek sea port, where he discovers vivacious thirty-something prostitute Melina Mercouri (as Ilya).
As he soaks up local culture, Mr. Dassin decides to play "Pygmalion" with Ms. Mercouri.
Speaking about morality and happiness, Dassin wants Mercouri to cleave only unto him; but, that means she must give up her regular seamen, including handsome Giorgos Foundas (as Tonio) and the occasional lonely young sailor.
In the end, Mercouri and the music are the film's main assets.
MGM made sturdy record albums; it still plays.****** Never on Sunday (5/25/60) Jules Dassin ~ Melina Mercouri, Jules Dassin, Giorgos Foundas, Titos Vandis.
He meets a happy, independent prostitute in Piraeus and believes that she embodies the reasons that Greece is no longer great, and using a pimp's money, tries to reform her.Full of cliches, but pleasant none the less, mainly for the Greek music and for the look and atmosphere of the time..
Jules Dassin has directed a delightful film starring Melina Mercouri as the happy whore with the heart of gold.
As wonderful as Mercouri is, and she is wonderful, Dassin is a disaster, whose performance almost destroys his film.
How lucky we are that Ms Mercouri, who won best actress at the Cannes film festival for her role here, was at the top of her form.
Hollywood blacklist Jules Dassin's Greek comedy, starring his future wife and muse Mercouri, which was a sensational success, acquired 5 Oscar nominations (including BEST DIRECTOR and LEADING ACTRESS, with one win for BEST SONG, the titular NEVER ON Sunday, a record- breaking first-time for a foreign movie).
The story is a variation of the Pygmalion, a delectable tug- of-war between a golden-heart Greek prostitute's free spirit and an amateur American philosopher's attempt to save her from the oldest profession.Ilya (Mercouri), a sought-after prostitute lives in the port of Piraeus, who exerts her own volition instead of the highest bid when comes to choose her customer, she meets Homer (Dassin), an American tourist, the scholar type, who clashes with denizens in a bar brawl on grounds of baffling cultural disparity, and reeks of the superior Western morality to persuade Ilya from doing what she does best, Homer is seeking for the truth in the cradle of culture, and immediately correlates Ilya with the fall of the Ancient Greece, it is beyond his understanding why such a marvel of beauty could be so content with her debased occupation.
Through their entanglement, especially their vastly contradictory interpretations about Greek tragedy, they agree to try out a tentative plan, Ilya stops receiving her patrons and Homer educates her with literature and philosophy, but a less convincing plot-device eventually would set her back to her larger-than-life spirit, Homer's experiment fails miserably, just one time, a prostitute doesn't need salvation, her Greek blood renders her unbridled exuberance and spontaneity, that's something no education can alter, like her passionate romance with local worker Tonio (Foundas)This Black-and-White picture is a winsome culture-clashing curio, Mercouri unleashes her divine charisma which infatuates not just Homer and her regular clientèle, also us, wide-eyed viewers as well, her personification as the object of passion, a magnificent force-of-nature defies all the earthly categorization, eventually becomes an invitation card for people to visit her enchanting motherland; to that effect, Dassin sacrifices her character for bookish caricature, utters "Ilya, you are a Greek, you must be logical, since it is established by Aristotle" and a devoted second fiddler for Mercouri to hog the limelight entirely.
It is most unfortunate that a talented director Jules Dassin, Hollywood black list runaway, director of a very influential heist flick, Rififi , should cast himself as the goofy American that wants to educate his real life wife, Melina Mercouri.
There's a lot of haughty drinking of the ouzo and the Zorba dancing, but really, the premise of Ancient Greece corrupted in the symbol of this smiling whore; indeed, Greece to be restored to greatness is so fuzzy, Dassin and Mercouri must have cooked it up in the Mediteranean sun.
Jules Dassin wrote, directed, and co-stars in this Greek-infused play on "Pygmalion", wherein an American scholar vacationing in Greece becomes obsessed with reforming the most popular prostitute in the village: a fiery local who picks and chooses her men--and celebrates alongside all her paramours with an 'open house' on Sunday.
Melina Mercouri gives a star-making performance as the passionate Ilya, though Dassin, who also co-produced the film uncredited, may have taken on more than he could handle.
We understand that educating Mercouri's Ilya, in effect, replaces her sexual desires with a quest for knowledge, but one isn't sure how the professor personally hopes to benefit romantically from this denouement--nor how his plan relates to the greedy landlord who keeps raising the rent on all the prostitutes in town.
The music and the film's celebration of life (and sex without need for attachments, which Dassin tells us can be cured by true love) put the movie over at the US box-office, but only Mercouri's delicious performance remains memorable today.
Flipped over this exuberant film when it first came out, but got bored sooner in the plot line mainly because of Jules Dassin's feckless role as Homer the Mentor to his big everything prostitute Ilya.
An American scholar (Jules Dassin) in Greece meets earthy, happy prostitute Ilya (Melina Mercouri).
Everybody is happy, sex is seen as a great thing, everybody gets drunk and there's no problem with it and all the Greek men know how to dance and sing.
Mercouri also sings the title song in Greek.The bad things--there's some badly overdubbed dialogue in the beginning (watch the fighting scene), Dassins' character is extremely annoying and unlikable and this was so predictable I started to get bored.
Dassin's Homer, a gently goofy parody of a naive American provincial let loose in the big bad Old World, is the only one who's negative about Ilya's profession.
As she says, "Oh, Homer, I think you have big problems with your morals." NOS is a romantic vision of personal freedom working for the best: Ilya can conduct her business independently because her clients are also friends who will protect her from the local gangster - and her clients are friends because that's the way she conducts her business, on a basis of personal liking and trust rather than the bottom line.
Of course it's a fable; it takes place in a circumscribed neighborhood world where that kind of personal relationship can rule, and the only downside for Ilya seems to be her uncertainty whether she is "someone who it is good to love" now that she's feeling more deeply for her lover Tonio - which is why she lets Homer try his experiment.
Not classically beautiful but possessing a smile and a personality that could light up Chicago, Mercouri plays Ilya, a prostitute in a small Greek village of Piraeus who brings life and music to those around her.
Surrounded by a small troop of male groupies, she is a fountain of joy and life.Into the picture comes Homer Thrace (Dassin), an American who is smart but does not possess a great deal of common sense.
Watching her turn a local tavern into a place of life and music, he explains that he has become disillusioned by the sadness in the world and has returned to Greece, the cradle of civilization, in an attempt to discover what went wrong.
Through this woman, brimming with happiness, he hopes to find out.Homer loves Ilya's spirit but he's troubled by her profession which he finds demeaning.
but not for long.Mercouri gives a performance of a character we don't see much in American films, the kind of person with a lust for life, the kind of person who absolutely lives to get out of bed in the morning.
Except that this is not about Judy Holliday but about Melina Mercouri, a Greek whore who likes her life style and believes that every story ends happily.
The film is drenched in the Greek pop tunes of Manos Hatzidakis, so much so that it's almost a musical.
Give it some effort and -- well, it's pretty deep.Junes Dassin, the director and male lead, is Homer Thrace, the idealistic Grecophile who comes to Piraeus to discover what made the Ancient Greeks so hot, in hopes that, having found the answer, the whole unhappy world of 1960 can be transformed.
He overacts, but then so does Melina Mercouri and just about everyone else, so it hardly detracts from an appreciation of the film.
Mercouri is not stunningly beautiful, and she's burdened with a somewhat abrasive voice, but she has a splendid, long-limbed figure and her character is full of charm.Dassin the screenwriter has injected some thought-provoking exchanges into the dialog but they're pretty lightweight and get lost somewhere along the way in this story of a whore who has found that the greatest happiness comes from acceptance and love, not from Bach's cello solos.
A very charming film about a whore and the men who love her.
Just once, I want to see a film where instead of Melina Mercouri or Julia Roberts playing a nice "professional girl", I'd like to see one where the lady has oral herpes sores or at least a bad yeast infection.Well, the plot revolves around a naive American (played by Jules Dassin) who wants to reform Mercouri and make her a "nice girl".
Mercouri was a wonderful actress in the film, but the overall effect, while rather charming, is also pretty disturbing since it's a prostitution film.