Before looking at the Pygmalion-esque 1960 comedy Never On Sunday, it's important to introduce its director: Jules Dassin. Today, the man is hailed as one of the masters of film noir, helming such classics as The Naked City and Night and the City. Ironically, the Connecticut-born Dassin is also known for his European films, which were made after he was blacklisted by Hollywood. The blacklist effectively killed his career for the first half of the 1950s, but in 1955, he finally managed to make the French crime classic Rififi. That film won him immediate international acclaim and he became one of the hottest directors in Europe.
Unfortunately, most of his post-Rififi films aren't as remembered today, mostly because they just haven't aged well or they were never popular in the U.S. Even his 1964 Topkapi, which won Peter Ustinov an Oscar, is virtually unknown. Of course, that doesn't mean that they are bad films, especially Never On Sunday.
The film is set in the Greek port of Piraeus, where prostitute Illia (Melina Mercuouri) has won the adulation of the men and the jealousy of her competition, since she's an independent businesswoman. She's got the whole little town wrapped around her finger and she loves the way life is now. She soon meets Homer (Dassin), a tourist from Connecticut who is in love with all things Greece. He is shocked to see that such a beautiful woman from one of the greatest societies in the world lives this way and decides to teach her about the best Ancient Greece has to offer. Of course, she doesn't want any of it until he hatches the idea to pay her to take his lessons. The drama, of course, lies in where he gets the money.
Never On Sunday really comes down to a unique twist on the Pygmalion story, in which a sculptor tries to create a woman in his own image and falls in love with her. However, the woman becomes her own person and is no longer his ideal. In some cases, like in George Bernard Shaw's play, the teacher and the student amicably separate. But then you have My Fair Lady, the musical version, in which Eliza Doolittle actually goes back to Henry Higgins. For Shaw, the key was showing that the role of teacher and student is interchangeable – it often turns out that the teacher learns more from the student. Dassin plays with this idea. His Homer, who he unfortunately decided to play himself, is all about learning where humanity went wrong and why society isn't as perfect as Ancient Greece. But Homer quickly learns that embracing the present can be just as thrilling thanks to Illia, a powerful woman out to prove Aristotle wrong.
One of the great things about Never On Sunday that makes it work – despite the oddball performance from its director as Homer – is the local flavor that Dassin kept in the film. If this was a major studio project, two more glamorous stars would have taken the roles and it wouldn't have meshed well at all. That's not to say that Melina Mercuouri isn't downright sexy – she is, which is one reason why she starred in the majority of Dassin's post-Rififi films (the other is that they got married in 1966) – but she looks the part. As a Greek, you can tell that she belongs in this part of the world. She is perfect in this role and earned every ounce of that Oscar nomination. (Her competition that year included Greer Garson, Elizabeth Taylor, Deborah Kerr and Shirley MacLaine, but Liz won.) Mercuouri looks amazing with her fellow Greeks in the film and you can instantly see why they had fallen in love with her.
Another key part of the film is the music by Manos Hadjidakis, who won an Oscar for the title song. European films from the 1960s had some amazing soundtracks, and Hadjidakis' work on this film is no exception.
Never On Sunday is one of those fun comedies you just don't expect from a director like Dassin. It is hilarious and shows an amazing control of timing. At just 90 minutes long, it is a breeze and so much fun to watch. Mercuouri brings a joy and skill to the screen that I don't think many could actresses could pull off. Illia might be a prostitute, but she is one of the great female characters in film.
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