Rent Never on Sunday (1960)

Greek Comedy. - Never on Sunday review by Steve

Dated culture clash comedy that supposes an introverted American academic finds another way of living among the spontaneous and non-materialistic residents of the Athenian port of Piraeus. But then attempts to change a carefree but illiterate sex worker to be more like himself.

So it’s Pygmalion, but set in 1960s Greece. Presumably this was personal for its writer/director Jules Dassin who settled in the country while a political casualty of the Communist blacklist. He also plays the earnest traveller of good intentions. And maybe there is some satire of American imperialism.

This was a box office success, and nominated for five Oscars. Its ethnographic approach to postwar Athens now feels patronising, though nostalgic for a time before mass tourism. The musical theme became hugely popular and will be instantly recognised by anyone who has ever been in a Greek restaurant.

It is most memorable for the performance of Dassin’s future wife, Melina Mercouri, as the happy-go-lucky working girl, a symbol of a naive but uncorrupted proletariat. She is really the whole film. Perhaps this had a greater impact in the ‘50s, a decade of conformity, but now seems ironically to lack spontaneity.