Ποτέ την Κυριακή
Pote tin Kyriaki

An American scholar (played by Dassin) in Greece becomes infatuated with a prostitute and tries to fashion her in his own image, much to the dismay of his family and friends. Mercouri plays the life-loving, life-affirming heroine, who brings a respectability to the world's oldest profession in this delightful and uniquely tasteful comedy.

1960/ Comedy Drama / Rating:R18 / Director: Jules Dassin

Full Detail

Ilya (Mercouri) views life as one long and happy party until she meets Homer (Jules Dussin). Homer has come to Greece from America seeking the truth of what happened to ancient Greece: the Greece of classic writers and thinkers that has been lost. In Ilya, Homer finds the embodiment of the lost Greece: encouraged at first to learn that Ilya is a lover of Greek tragedy, he's horrified to learn that she has re-written the tragedies so that they have happy endings (in a particularly hilarious scene, Ilya recounts the story of Medea, who she claims was simply unhappy and misunderstood). Homer feels that Ilya is a living symbol of her country, which he feels has degenerated from the love of ideas to the simple pleasures of the flesh. He strikes a bargain with Ilya: if she will give him two weeks of her life, he will teach her the pleasures of the intellect. Ilya settles down to listening to classical composers and reading the great thinkers (and soon she is quoting Aristotle). But fortunately, Ilya is a woman who simply refuses to be repressed, and soon her free-spirit is flying once again. And she effects more of a transformation in Homer than he managed in her.
SOURCE: 2003 by Fred Hunter http://www.classicsondvd.com/neveronsunday.htm

"The film is Mercouri's show all the way, and in giving the best comic performance of her career, she demonstrates that the Greek people already know as much philosophy as they need to know." Michael Costello, All Movie Guide


Starring

Melina Mercouri
Jules Dassin
Giorgos Foundas
Despo Diamantidou
Titos Vandis
Thanassis Vengos
Dimitris Papamichail
Faedon Georgitsis

Music by Manos Hadjidakis with bouzouki soloist Yiorgos Zambetas

An American scholar (played by Dassin) in Greece becomes infatuated with a prostitute and tries to fashion her in his own image, much to the dismay of his family and friends. Mercouri plays the life-loving, life-affirming heroine, who brings a respectability to the world's oldest profession in this delightful and uniquely tasteful comedy.

Mercouri won Best Actress Award 
(Cannes Film Festival 1960 and New York Film Critics Circle 1960)

Dassin won an Oscar for Best Story and Screenplay written directly for the Screen Award (Academy Awards 1960)

Hadjidakis won an Oscar for Best Song Award (Academy Awards 1960) for his irresistible theme song

Other credits: 

Script: Jules Dassin, Cinematography: Jacques Natteau, Music: Manos Hadjidakis, Editing: Roger Dwyre, Art Director: Alekos Zonis, Costume Design: Deni Vachlioti
___________________________________________________________________________

Awards:

Best Story and Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen (win) - Jules Dassin - 1960 Academy Awards
Best British Film (win) - Jules Dassin - 1960 British Academy Awards
Best Foreign Film (win) 1960 Golden Globe Awards
Best Actress (win) - Melina Mercouri - 1960 Cannes International Film Festival (shared with Jeanne Moreau)
Best Actress (win) - Melina Mercouri - 1960 New York Film Critics Circle
Best Song (win) - Manos Hadjidakis - 1960 Academy Awards
Best Actress (nom) - Melina Mercouri - 1960 Academy Awards
Best Director (nom) - Jules Dassin - 1960 Academy Awards
Best Original Screenplay (nom) - Jules Dassin - 1960 Academy Awards
Best Foreign Film (nom) - Jules Dassin - 1960 New York Film Critics Circle

Jules Dassin

One of the most defiantly visible survivors of the Hollywood Blacklist was American director Jules Dassin. Following high school in the Bronx and drama school in Europe (paying his own way), Dassin made his stage debut at age 25 with the Yiddish Theatre in New York. In Hollywood, Dassin worked his way up to a directorial spot at MGM's short subjects unit, where he handled a brilliant 20-minute adaptation of Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart (1941). This led to a promotion to features like Nazi Agent (1942), Reunion in France (1942) and The Canterville Ghost (1944). From MGM, Dassin went to work for producer Mark Hellinger at Universal Studios, where he turned out two full-blooded crime classics: Brute Force (1947) and The Naked City (1948). Unfortunately, the late 1940s were difficult times for anyone with even the slightest leftist political leanings. After being identified as a communist by director Ed Dmytryk during a House UnAmerican Activities Committee hearing, Dassin found himself completely shut out by Hollywood. The last 1950s film which Dassin directed for a major studio was 20th Century-Fox's Night and the City, which was shot in London. Then he moved to France, where he helmed one of the most influential "crime caper" movies ever made, Riffifi (1954). So successful was this melodrama that it spawned numerous rip-offs (Riffifi in Tokyo was one of the most blatant) and parodies, including Dassin's own Topkapi (1964). Operating in Greece by 1959, Dassin directed his second wife Melina Mercouri in Never On Sunday (1960), a robust comedy about a joyous prostitute; Mercouri's performance was superb enough for viewers to forgive Dassin's own lackluster performance as a stuffy American moralist. Permitted back in the U.S.-studio system in the mid-1960s, Dassin directed Uptight (1968), a black-oriented remake of The Informer which proved beyond doubt that Dassin's alleged "communistic" tendencies were just a bit old hat. Not many of Jules Dassin's later, more personal films (notably an indictment of the Greek junta leaders, The Rehearsal [1974]) were seen in America, but the director's reputation, so idiotically maligned in the early 1950s, had been completely restored so far as Hollywood was concerned--even though the man himself chose to shun the U.S. for self-imposed Swiss exile. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hc&id=1800047886&cf=biog&intl=us

Filmography

o Circle of Two (1981)
o A Dream of Passion (1978)
o Topkapi (1964)
o Never on Sunday (1960)
o The Law (1958)
o He Who Must Die (1957)
o Rififi (1954)
o Night and the City (1950)
o The Naked City (1948)
o Brute Force (1947)
o The Canterville Ghost (1944)
o Reunion in France (1942)

Melina Mercouri

Vibrant, intensely free-spirited Greek actress Melina Mercouri was the daughter of a prominent Athenian politician. Much against the desires of her parents, she became an actress in her teens, enrolling in the National Theater of Greece and entering films in 1955. In 1960 she gained international stardom (and a shelf full of industry awards) for her portrayal of a vivacious Piraeus prostitute in Never on Sunday; the film was directed by American expatriate Jules Dassin, who helmed several subsequent Mercouri films (Topkapi was the best) and in 1966 became her second husband. When Greece was overtaken by a military junta in 1966, Mercouri ardently protested this affront to the world's oldest democracy. As a result, her citizenship was revoked, and from 1967 through 1974 she was denied re-entry into her native country. In 1977, she made a triumphant return to her former home turf glory when she was elected to the Greek Parliament. From 1981 through 1985, Mercouri served as Greece's Minister of Culture and Sciences, and from 1985 until 1989 was her country's Minister of Culture, Youth, and Sports. She was also one of the founders of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement. In the U.S., Melina Mercouri made her Broadway debut in the 1965 musical version of Never on Sunday, Illya Darling. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hc&id=1800059812&cf=biog&intl=us

Reviews:

By Michael Costello, All Movie Guide
Forced out of Hollywood by the blacklist, noted noir director Jules Dassin (Brute Force [1949], Rififi [1954]) took a detour from his customary genre to make this entertaining comedy on a shoe-string budget. To his surprise, it became an international hit. The story, a twist on the legend of Pygmalion, concerns an academic type (Dassin) who journeys to Greece in hopes of understanding why it's lost the kind of cultural weight it had in the days of Plato and Aristotle. As his part in the battle against cultural illiteracy, he decides to tutor down-to-earth prostitute Melina Mercouri in her country's heritage. Despite the familiarity of its high-concept premise, this hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold comedy gets a great deal of mileage from the contrast between the owlishly earnest Dassin and his real-life spouse, the spirited, live-for-today courtesan. The film is Mercouri's show all the way, however, and in giving the best comic performance of her career, she demonstrates that the Greek people already know as much philosophy as they need to know. http://www.outpost.com/product/3680555

By Moira Sullivan, Lesbos, Greece for Movie Magazine.
Never on Sunday stars Melina Mercouri in the Cannes award-winning role of her career. Mercouri plays Ilya, an independent prostitute who chooses her own clientele. Director-screenwriter Jules Dassin plays Homer Thrace, an American amateur philosopher from Middletown Connecticut, fascinated by the rise and fall of Greek civilization. Upon meeting Ilya Homer perceives her lifestyle as a symbol of the decline and is determined to reform her and somehow right the wrongs of Greek culture. Unbeknownst to Illya he accepts money for this task from her greatest enemy, Mr. No Face, a pimp who controls the other prostitutes of the area. Homer's antics are corny and irritating to all which makes Mercouri shine ever bright--especially for her tolerance and later forgiveness of his foolishness.

This pearl of a film with black and white cinematography was set in the Greek port city Piraeus and the cast was almost entirely Greek. The bouzouki theme song and music and Oscar winning best song Never on Sunday by Manos Hadjidakis is irresistible-- first introduced to us by Ilya's little phonograph. Dassin captures the essence of the devotion of the Greeks to the sea and to sea faring vessels. The opening scene reveals Mercouri ready for her daily swim, looked on admiringly by fisherman and port authorities. While the film serves to exploit the myth of the happy prostitute, it reveals the charm and powerful simplicity of the Greece people. The interaction of Homer with the residents as the lone American complete with tourist hat and hanging camera is comic. In one classic scene, Homer tells a bouzouki player that he is not a musician because he can not read music. Ilya comes to the rescue reminding the player that the birds that sing also do not read music. Her childlike relationship to life is further realized by her insistence that the Greek tragedies somehow land on their feet, and everyone goes to the seashore at the end.

Ilya prefers to see her many admirers as her friends rather than exploiters. While this may seem odd and even somewhat disturbing the power of Mercouri is that she manages to pull it all off with great humour. Dassin and Mercouri who were married in 1966 made a total of nine films and both were political figures. Expatriate Dassin was blacklisted during the McCarthy era. Mercouri, the daughter of a former mayor of Athens was expelled from Greece in 1967 from the Greek Colonel's junta. Mercouri later became a member of Parliament in 1977 and the cultural minister of Greece during the 1980's. She died of lung cancer in 1994 and the country went into a period of national mourning.
http://www.shoestring.org/mmi_revs/neveronsunday-ms-110674683.html

By Bosley Crowther, The New York Times, October 19, 1960
Perhaps the most amiable serpent ever to glide onto the screen and attempt to entice an innocent woman away from a life of heroic sin is presented to us by Jules Dassin, with himself in the serpent's role, in his new picture, NEVER ON SUNDAY, which came to the Plaza yesterday. From the moment he enters smiling into a Piraeus (Greece) cafe and proclaims to a mob of happy Greek boozers that he is an American tourist in search of the Truth, he makes a most genial companion. One almost wishes for his sake, that he could accomplish the purpose he embarks on, which is the moral reformation of a prostitute.

... It is the bouncing and beaming expansiveness with which Miss Mercouri endows this woman and the patience with which Mr. Dassin tries to urge her to simmer down, to assume a little moral decorum and abandon some of her nonintellectual and professional whims, that make for tremendous good humor in the often lusty episodes of this film. There are plenty of expansive Greek gentlemen to help make them droll and lusty, too.

In addition to Miss Mercouri and Mr. Dassin, both of whom are superb-she in a flashy, forceful fashion and he in a Chaplinesque vein-there is Georges Foundas, who plays a cheerful, hot-blooded Italian-Grecian swain, and Titos Vandis, who is delightful as a dull-witted champion of the girl. Mitsos Liguisos is sly and mellow as a seaport amoralist, and Dimos Starrenios is blonde and billowy as an antagonistic prostitute.