Never on Sunday – (1960; b/w, subtitles for Greek, much of the dialogue in English) “Can a bird read music?” Illia (Melina Mercouri) asks Taki, the gifted bouzouki player whom Homer has convinced is not a real musician because he can’t read music. “No,” he answers from the behind the bathroom door. “That doesn’t stop it from singing.”  To the Port of Piraeus outside Athens comes Homer Thrace (Jules Dassin) of Middletown, Connecticut, an amateur philosopher in search of the truth and to discover what caused ancient Greece, the cradle of civilization, the home of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle to fall from the heights of intellectual achievement.

In Illia, a whore who tells men they are slaves, Homer sees a symbol of Greece’s decline and makes his mission an effort to reform her. He is impressed with her linguistic versatility: “Where did you learn all those languages?” She laughs, “In bed.” The story is akin to Zorba the Greek in which a natural soul, a free spirit eventually teaches an intellectual the real meaning life and its pleasures. Another recent arrival, Antonio, a Greek/Italian who works in the shipyard, falls in love and wants Illia all for himself.

On Sundays Illia invites her special friends (no paying clients) to her apartment for a party where she retells the Greek tragedies she has seen in the amphitheater, such as Medea and Oedipus Rex, as comedies, ending each with “they all go to the seashore” and live happily ever after. Such reinterpretation irritates Homer who argues with Illia that Medea was a murderess of her children; Illia tells Homer that he has made her hate Greek tragedy. Frustrated in his repeated efforts at replacing her fantasies and immorality with reason and modesty, to “bring you back to harmony” as he has told her, he accepts a proposition from Mr Face/No Face, the local vice king who owns and overcharges the prostitutes for their apartments: “We would both like Illia to retire … for different reasons.”

Mr Face/No Face, worried that Illia’s rebellious independence will influence the other women, offers to bankroll two weeks of exclusivity with Illia during which time Homer expects he can teach her that true happiness arises from the pleasures of the mind. Thus, Illia eats from the apple of wisdom and knows shame. But she is no Eve to be cast from her garden of delights. (The name “Illia” suggests The Iliad, the Greek epic poem purportedly by Homer.)

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in video and/or DVD format, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

Copyright © 2007 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

Patrick Ivers can be reached via e-mail at .

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in video and/or DVD format, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

Copyright © 2007 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

Patrick Ivers can be reached via e-mail at .