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Never on Sunday (1960, Greece/US)
(aka Pote Tin Kyriaki)
In writer/director Jules Dassin's controversial, low-budget,
black and white, off-beat, Pygmalion-like romantic comedy
(in both English and Greek with subtitles), about a "Happy
Street-Walker of Piraeus" (the film's tagline) in Greece (the
Athens port city of Piraeus) - the recipient of an X certificate,
but with five Academy Awards nominations, including Best Director,
Best Actress, Best Original Story, and Best Costume Design, and an
Oscar for Best Original Song (Never On Sunday):
- the opening pre-credits sequence (to the tune of
the title song in the background) - as exuberant, earthy, free-spirited
prostitute Ilya (Oscar-nominated and Cannes Best Actress Melina
Mercouri) advertised her sexual wares (but "never on Sunday" - "Every
Sunday is open house for my special friends") as she shed
her clothes racing down a pier and jumping in the ocean (in a black
bra and panties) - followed by many other shipyard workers; it
was said of her that she was unlike most whores: "But she
makes no prices, and only if she likes you"; she regaled the
workers with news that she had customers once per hour - the baker
at 9, the fruit man at 10, and the butcher at 11
- Ilya's co-star: Homer Thrace (director Dassin himself,
who later married his female star) - an uptight American tourist
and classical Greek scholar (he called himself "an amateur philosopher")
from Middletown, Connecticut, who had his first glimpse of Ilya as
his ship was docking, and she was leading a pack of swimmers to greet
his vessel - he noted: "There is the purity that was Greece"
- the film's theme song, featuring Greek music (highlighting
the traditional bouzouki instrument played by the locals)
heard during the credits
- in a cafe, Homer's statement that he was looking for
something very specific in Greece: "I came to Greece to find
the truth....Our world is unhappy. Why? Where did it begin to go
wrong? Might not the traces be here? No society ever reached the
heights that were attained by ancient Greece. It was a cradle of
culture. It was a happy country. What happened? What made it fall?
Historians don't satisfy me. Wars, politics, something's missing.
Something personal. I want to walk where Aristotle walked. And Socrates.
I can't explain it, but I don't know. I have a feeling I'll find
something"
Beginning of Attraction Between Ilya and Homer
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Homer: "The personification. Her, the answer
to the mystery.
A personal equation of the fall of ancient Greece."
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- and then when Ilya went off with a sailor-customer,
Homer had an inspiration: "Maybe that's what I'm looking for.
What luck! Ilya - the symbol of my quest. The personification.
Her, the answer to the mystery. A personal equation of the fall
of ancient Greece"; later at her door, he told her: "You
are the beauty that was Greece. You are the reason I came to Greece" -
and the next morning, he pursued her
- on one of her Sunday open-houses (her birthday), Ilya
entertained her "special friends", including Homer, who
realized she truly loved classic Greek tragedies, but he was aghast
that she would change their endings to make them happy; he surmised
that Ilya was unhappy with her lifestyle - "A whore can't be
happy. A whorish world can't be happy! I'd like to reach her mind....(with)
reason, in place of fantasy. Morality, instead of immorality. I've
got to educate her. Transform her...Ilya is lovely. But for me, she's
not a woman; she's an idea. She's an outlaw. Yes! Can't you see?
The law must be re-established everywhere"; he overheard her
reciting another changed, happy ending to her friends: ("And
they all go to the seashore!")
- their attendance in the open-air Greek amphitheatre,
where she stared at the blank stage, and then they watched Euripedes'
tragic Greek play Medea - with her great pleasure (without being
dismayed by Medea killing her children); afterwards, during a visit
to the Acropolis, he couldn't believe she would change the tragic
endings, and then he became more personal about her lifestyle - he
revealed his real intent - to uplift Ilya's morals, save and reform
her: "What happened to you? All evil is disharmony. You are
in disharmony with yourself. You have beauty, grace, and you are
--- I, American Boy Scout, I will bring you back to harmony...I'm
fighting for your soul, listen to me"
At an Open-Air Greek Amphitheatre and at Acropolis
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- Homer's proposition: for two weeks, Ilya had to
agree to stop prostituting herself to study the beauty of Greek
culture and history: "Beauty that was Greece - give me two
weeks of your life...I want every minute of two weeks...If in the
end of two weeks, you don't begin to think my way, I'll disappear...I'll
make you see a world you never knew about...You'll be reborn. Ilya,
two little weeks"
- during the two week period, Ilya entertained herself
- she placed a small record player on her bed to play the film's
instrumental theme song, as she sang and danced barefooted to the
music while clicking her fingers to the beat
Homer's Confession and Departure
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"I've been dying to sleep with her...From
the first minute"
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Homer Departing From Port
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- in the conclusion, Ilya's free-spirited nature overcame
Homer's retraining, and his personality was the one that was transformed;
he finally admitted to her that he was in love with her sensual
nature: "I've been dying to sleep with her...From the first
minute" - but it was too late, for she had found love with
Tonio (Giorgos Foundas); Homer waved to her as she and others jumped
in the water from a boat in the harbor (a mirror to the opening
scene) as he departed from the Piraeus port (and threw his academic
notepad into the water)
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Ilya Shedding Clothes and Racing to Pier to Jump Into
Ocean
Homer Viewing Ilya: "There is the purity that was
Greece"
Homer to Ilya: "You are the beauty that was Greece"
Homer Pursuing Ilya
During Birthday Open House: Ilya Changing Endings
of Greek Tragedies to Make Them Happy
Semi-Nude With One of Her Clients-Lovers
Homer's Proposition: Ilya's Two Week Period of Abstinence
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