He Who Must Die

He Who Must Die (aka Celui Qui Doit Mourir)(Jules Dassin, 1957) A French production of a Greek story directed by an ex-patriated (and blacklisted) American, He Who Must Die is based on a story by Nikos Kazantzakis (who also wrote the novels that formed the basis of Zorba the Greek and The Last Temptation of Christ). 

The time is 1921 during the midst of the Greco-Turkish Wars. Turk forces are taking over Greek cities and if there is no cooperation from the populace, they are burned to the ground and its people forced to relocate. Such is the fate of one such nameless town, and its priest, Father Fotis (Jean Servais—the star of Rififi), gathers his flock to make them ready to embark on a journey by foot in the Greek wilderness, to find help and land to restart their devastated community and a new way of life in exile. One old man carries the bones of his father and grandfather in a sack on which to build the foundation of their new imagined town, the church being its center.

As they start their journey, it is a time of celebration in the occupied town of Lycovrisi, overseen by the Turk governor Agha (Gregoire Aslan). Every seven years, they stage their own version of the Passion Play, the participants chosen by the town priest Grigoris (Fernand Ledoux) and the mayor Patriarchos (Gert Frobe): a mendacious peddler Yannakos (Rene LeFevre) is chosen to play the apostle Peter; the mayor's son Michelis (Maurice Ronet) will play the apostle John; Kostandis (Lucien Raimbourgh), the cafe owner is chosen to play James; the town butcher, Panagiotaras (Roger Hanin) will play Judas, a role he rejects but is forced upon him; and the most surprising choices are the town's widow (and prostitute) Katerina (Melina Mercouri) to play Mary Magdalene, and a stuttering, shy shepherd Monolios (Pierre Vaneck) is chosen to play Christ.

At first, the players are unnerved by the heavy responsibility of their roles (especially Manolios, who is afraid to speak in front of crowds), but the authoritarian Grigoris will not change his mind. The Passion Play will go on and the die (and the Play) has been cast. 

But, the arrival of the burned town's refugees changes everything. Flotis implores Grigoris to help his people. They have walked for 21 days and many have died enroute. All they ask is a barren parcel of land and maybe some food to eat until they are established. But, the town priest will have none of it, banishing the refugees, and spreading the idea that the dead among probably didn't die of starvation or exhaustion, but of cholera. The refugees are stunned by the town's lack of charity, but decide to leave—lest they be attacked by the locals—and make their way to an area of the foothills of the mountain Sarakina that overlooks Lycovrisi.

But, their plight, and their priest's harsh attitude toward them, which borders on persecution, stirs something in the Passion players. Yannakos is the first to visit, on a mission from rich townsman Ladas (Dimos Starenios) who has sent him to see if he can take any of the refugees' jewelry in exchange for food or water. But, Yannakos has a crisis of conscience when he goes up the mountain and sees how destitute they are. Michelis soon follows, and then Manolios, who is so moved by the refugees that he finds his voice and implores the people of Lycovrisi to offer charity, despite the derision heaped upon him by Grigoris who tells him that the role of Christ has gone to his head and he's become an anti-Christ. He tells Michelis in private that it is dangerous for a Turk occupied city to help rebels against the Turks.

But, Manolios will not be deterred, and when Michelis, the mayor's son, says that he will help Manolios and the displaced villagers, Grigorios expels him from the village and threatens the shepherd with excommunication. It doesn't even phase Manolios, and Michelis confronts the angry priest with a venomous "If Jesus Christ came back to Earth, he would be crucified again again. And you would be the one to drive the nails in." His fiancee begs him to not go or she'll break off their engagement, but Michelis is steadfast. He will go with Monolios. His betrayal of his father and the town, causes the mayor to fall under ill health. But Michelis will inherit the town, the deeds, everything, when his father dies and such is his convictions that he is willing to give the people in the mountains the deeds to start a new life.

The priest, Grigoris, will not stand for that. His authority has been defied, and Manolios' message already shows the danger of spreading, further undermining his own power. So he goes to the Turk Agha and tells him that if he wants to keep control of the village and, eventually, occupied Greece, that he must quell the rebellion. He demands that Agha bring Manolios to him personally—for what purposes he doesn't say, but it probably won't be Confirmation. Probably more like Last Rites.

Agha takes an armed guard and goes to the compound in the city where Michelis has taken in some of the refugees and Manolios goes over the barricade to talk to him. The Turk tells him that Grigoris just wants to talk, that he (Agha) is a politician, not a fighter, but if Manolios really wants to do some good, he'll come quietly, so that Agha doesn't order his men to fire on the people behind the barricade. Manolios ponders, takes a stick, attacks the soldier manning the mounted machine gun and runs. Volleys fire back and forth—men on either side are killed, and Manolios is taken prisoner.

Dassin is in his element here. His years in Hollywood before the blacklist gave him ample opportunity to hone his craft and purge himself of any indulgences and take a harder edge with his subject matter. His approach is straightforward, unsentimental, but no less, for want of a better term, impassioned. And his work on social issues and the world of film-noir provides a bitter undercurrent to what is a religious film...in Cinemascope, no less.

I'm not sure what the issue is, but it is a tough road to buy a copy of He Who Must Die—you can see a rather dulled, sub-titled version online, slightly cropped of its full Cinemascope width, but at least it's not pan-and-scanned. Maybe the ideas are a little...revolutionary, but that's not stopped films before. It's safe to say that Dassin would later strive to make better films, more far-reaching films, but never one as powerful as this one. It might be his masterpiece.

Topkapi

Topkapi (Jules Dassin, 1964) Dassin spoofs his earlier crime dramas with this comedy-caper (based on an Eric Ambler novel) set in Istanbul. There an odd assortment of crooks (Melina Mercouri, Maximillian Schell, Robert Morley) recruit an English prat (Peter Ustinov, who replaced a planned Peter Sellers and went on to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the role) to take the fall for an elaborate heist—the stealing of a priceless ornamental dagger from the well-alarmed Topkapi museum. Shot in rapturous color—with an opening sequence that seems a precursor to psychedelic films—Dassin uses the local color to spice up the activities of the wily criminals and their elaborate scheme, which involves clambering over the pointed roof-tops, impeding the progress of a beam from a nearby lighthouse, suspending an aerialist over the display, while also precisely elevating its heavy glass case. It's one of those "Mission: Impossble" capers, where what could go wrong probably will, and the precisely planned plot goes out the window and they have to punt, lateral, and do whatever can come to mind to get over the goal line. The escapade is fraught with perils of all sorts, not the least of which is getting caught.

It's a jolly good time, and Dassin has as much fun seriously pulling off the robbery as he does spoofing the characters who fully fulfill the old adage of the best-laid plans of mice and men...and women. Twists and turns abound as much as a silhouette of an Istanbul skyline. Schell and Mercouri have never looked more glamorous—Dassin lovingly channels his Hollywood studio days with M-G-M with a directorial smile—and Ustinov has never looked more sweaty or been more peripatetic; Elizabeth Taylor won a sympathy-Oscar that year, and maybe the Academy did the same for Ustinov, seeing him scramble white-knuckled over high, slippery Istanbul rooftops.

For years, there was talk of a remake under the direction of Paul Verhoeven, with Pierce Brosnan repeating his debonair thief role from The Thomas Crown Affair to be called The Topkapi Affair. As it's been 18 years since that remake hit theaters, interest seems to have waned... at least until some studio head sees a heist film having a good opening weekend and asks if they have anything in the pile.

Never On Sunday

Never On Sunday aka Pote tin Kyriaki (Ποτέ την Κυριακή) (Jules Dassin, 1960) A truly odd film, not the typical Jules Dassin film or the style in which he was accustomed, but is obviously a labor of love for the expatriate blacklisted writer-director who made a new life and career for himself in Greece. If the movie wasn't so openly good-hearted, one would almost think Jules Dassin was thumbing his nose at his detractors in Hollywood by showing off his newly-adopted country and tackling subject matter that the movie capitol wouldn't touch at the time, and do so in such a light-hearted manner. Old detractors like the stodgy Cecil B. DeMille would have simmered (if he hadn't been dead for a year).

Never On Sunday tells the story of a touristing American intellectual and Greek scholar (named Homer, naturally), scribbling away in his notebook about the customs and way of life in modern Greece. His first night, his ebullient inquisitiveness gets him into a barroom brawl; the shiner he receives he'll keep throughout the movie. That Dassin casts himself in the role parallels his own joy of discovering the care-free life in Europe,* and by casting his wife, Melina Mercouri, as the effervescent prostitute Ilya, he was able to give her a show-piece that introduced her to the rest of the world.** And the charming score by Manos Hatzidakis topped popular music charts.

Part travelogue, part home movie, part character study, Never On Sunday would prove to be Dassin's greatest hit, and showed off the gifted director's ability to economically make an audience-grabbing film without having to resort to the pot-boiler crime dramas he had specialized in previously. And the tricks he learned to shoot a film anonymously making The Naked City allowed extensive location work, which inspired a tourism boom that still exists today.

It's a wise little film, too, as tourist Homer falls in love with the land of his expertise, and with Ilya, but finds that his academic's view of Greece doesn't fit the reality. And Ilya? He spends a lot of his time trying to rescue her from her life of prostitution, only to find that she doesn't want to be rescued. As with other learned men who find their Shangri-La, Homer regretfully leaves, tossing away his notes on the philosophy of Greece, and looking back as he sails away from the idyllic life he's not ready to embrace. Just as Homer tosses away his travel notebook at the end of the film, Dassin was able to put aside the past, and create a new life in his adapted Greece, and the fiery actress who would become his Muse, activist partner and lifelong companion.

* Dassin, in a 2004 interview included on the Naked City DVD tells the story of why he cast himself in the film--no money in the budget for a star. Once the film was completed, Dassin had conversations with an interested Jack Lemmon, and convinced the producers to give him more money to re-shoot his scenes if, having seen the film, Lemmon agreed to participate. Dassin screened the film for him, and Lemmon's comments damned with faint praise--he said Dassin was so awful in the role that he was actually charming, and told Dassin he didn't need to re-shoot. End of story. When the subject of his performance came up in the Q & A, Dassin put his head in his hands and said "Oy!"

** Mercouri won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival that year, and was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar. She had been nominated at Cannes before, as Dassin was nominated that year for Best Director for Rififi. He won. She lost. Spying her later, nursing her disappointment he went up to her and said "An award's just an award, it doesn't take away from the work," to which she replied "Screw you! You won!!" "It was love at first sight," said Dassin.