Never on Sunday
Pote tin Kyriaki
(1960)
A dense American with delusions of being an intellectual travels to Greece, where he meets a pragmatic prostitute (Melina Mercouri) whom he attempts to transform into a cultured lady. Greek diva Mercouri won a Best Actress Award at Cannes for her saucy role. An interesting side note: Director Jules Dassin pledged to wife Mercouri on her deathbed that he'd work to get the Elgin Marbles (Greek sculptures now housed in London) returned to Athens.
Genre: Comedy
Movie Type: Comedy of Manners, Romantic Comedy
Themes: Pygmalion Stories, Prostitutes, Culture Clash
Director: Jules Dassin
Main Cast: Melina Mercouri, Jules Dassin, Georges Foundas, Titos Vandis, Mitsos Liguisos
Release Year: 1960
Country: GR
Run Time: 91 minutes
In this globally acclaimed comedy drama, eccentric, tough, and carefree Ilya (Melina Mercouri) is one of those characters who makes her mark on film history, and who made an internationally known star out of Mercouri. Ilya is a prostitute in the port of Piraeus with a definite sense of social and economic justice. The aptly named Homer (director Jules Dassin, later to marry his star) arrives in Greece, meets the irrepressible Ilya, and decides she needs more of the traditional Greek culture and less of those flamboyant emotions that are not really Greek, you see. So while he tries to play Henry Higgins, Ilya is willing to give up her usual self for two weeks. The question is, what will happen once the two weeks are over, assuming she can get through them? ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
Never on Sunday (Greek: ¦°¦Ï¦Óέ ¦³¦Ç¦Í ¦ª¦Ô¦Ñ¦É¦Á¦Êή, "Pote Tin Kyriaki") is a 1960 black-and-white film which tells the story of Ilya, a prostitute who lives in the port of Piraeus in Greece, and Homer, an American tourist ¡ª a classical scholar enamored with all things Greek. Ilya is a character close to the "hooker with a heart of gold" clich¨¦. 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 1960s and brought Manos Hadjidakis, the composer, an Academy Award.
The movie was written and directed by Dassin.
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 and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen.
Awards:
1961 Academy Award®: Best Music Song
1961 Academy Award®: Best Actress nominee: Melina Mercouri
1961 Academy Award®: Best Costume Design Black and White nominee
1961 Academy Award®: Best Writing Original Screenplay nominee
1961 Academy Award®: Best Director nominee: Jules Dassin
1961 BAFTA®: Best Film nominee
1961 BAFTA®: Best Actress nominee: Melina Mercouri
1961 Golden Globe Awards: Best Foreign Language Film nominee
Artist: Melina Mercouri
Birth Name: Mercouri, Anna Amalia
Genre: Soundtrack
Active: '90s
Instrument: Vocals
Christened "the last Greek goddess" by her many fans, Melina Mercouri was best known as an actress and cultural activist, but was also a talented singer who recorded successfully in multiple languages. The granddaughter of the former mayor of Athens, and the daughter of a Parliament member, she was born Anna Amalia Mercouri (sometimes spelled Merkouri) in Athens, Greece on October 18, 1923 (though some sources list that year anywhere from 1920 to 1925). She started acting in her teens, and eventually joined Greece's National Theater, where she found tremendous acclaim as a stage actress. Mercouri made her film debut in 1955's Stella, and also sang on the soundtrack, which was composed by Greek legend Manos Hadjidakis. She broke through to international audiences with her starring role in the 1960 comedy Never on Sunday, directed by American expatriate Jules Dassin. Playing a free-spirited prostitute, Mercouri was nominated for an Academy Award, and won Best Female Performance at that year's Cannes Film Festival; she also once again sang on the Hadjidakis-composed soundtrack. Dassin directed Mercouri in several more films, including 1962's Phaedra (music by Mikis Theodorakis) and 1964's Topkapi (music by Hadjidakis); in 1966, Dassin became Mercouri's second husband. Meanwhile, Mercouri made her Broadway debut in Ilya Darling, a stage-musical version of Never on Sunday. As outspoken as some of her characters, Mercouri forcefully criticized the military junta that ruled Greece from 1967-74, and was barred from that country during those years. In the meantime, she made a series of French-language recordings for Universal that sold decently well, though not at the level of her stepson, French pop star Joe Dassin. Her albums during that period of exile included Melina Mercouri, L'Oeillet Rouge, and Je Suis Grecque, but the best-known was 1973's successful Si Melina M'Était Cont¨¦e, which featured several compositions by Vangelis (including the single "Athenes, Ma Ville"). When democracy was restored to Greece, Mercouri returned home and involved herself in politics; in 1977, she was elected to Parliament as a member of the Socialist Party, and served as the country's Minister of Culture from 1981-89. During that time, she waged a high-profile campaign to convince the British Museum to return the marble sculptures that had once adorned the Parthenon, which endeared her to the Greek populace even more. She ran unsuccessfully for Mayor of Athens in 1990, and returned to her post as Minister of Culture in 1993. Unfortunately, on March 6, 1994, Mercouri passed away in New York City due to complications from lung cancer. ~ Steve Huey, All Music Guide
Never On a Sunday by Melina Mercouri
Oh, you can kiss me on a Monday a Monday a Monday
is very very good
Or you can kiss me on a Tuesday a Tuesday a Tuesday
in fact I wish you would
Or you can kiss me on a Wednesday a Thursday a
Friday and Saturday is best
But never ever on a Sunday a Sunday a Sunday
cause that's my day of rest
Most any day you can be my guest
Any day you say but my day of rest
Just name the day that you like the best
Only stay away on my day of rest
Oh, you can kiss me on a cool day a hot day a wet day
which ever one you choose
Or try to kiss me on a gray day a May day a pay day
and see if I refuse
And if you make it on a bleak day a freak day or a week day
Well you can be my guest
But never ever on a Sunday a Sunday the one day
I need a little rest
Oh, you can kiss me on a week day a week day a week day
the day to be my guest
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(c) 2010 Maya Chilam Foundation