Never on Sunday

A Greek comedy set in the port of Piraeus. Ilya is a prostitute working at the harbour. She has set her own rules: she does not work on Sundays, does not take a customer she dislikes and gets on with everyone in the neighbourhood. She goes to see the ancient tragedies and takes every ending as a happy one; she believes everyone who dies in the play has actually gone to the seaside. Homer, who has come from America, considers himself a kind of amateur thinker. He wonders what became of Greek civilisation, and finding Ilya he decides he has the answer: if he educates her he can reverse the country's decline. He gives her books, plays her music, wants her to stop working. Meanwhile the boss of the port wants to break up the circle around her, and the two sides do the same work without knowing it. That is the joke: the man who has come to save her is trying to convince her that her life is bad. Melina Mercouri plays Ilya and took the best actress prize at Cannes. The film's director, Jules Dassin, plays Homer. The music is by Manos Hadjidakis. The title song won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and was the first song not in English to do so. A lively choice for anyone who likes Mediterranean comedy and independent productions of the 1960s. Seen from here, the cheerful register about the profession reads as arguable.