Phaedra

This is pure camp. A gravely voiced Greek siren with emphysema seduces her gay stepson. The Perkins character has a Greek father and grew up with his British mother in London. This explains his American accent.

The film could be unbearable because over-pathetic (in the very greek sense of the word) if it hadn't the very special performances of melina Mercouri and Anthony Perkins. The latter gives one of his most convincing performances ever (very subtle & very strong at the time) and the woman, although she's not properly a great actress, gives a show of power and passion that is simply overwhelming. I felt, in many occasions, tented to laugh about the forced 'destiny'-tone of the whole, but every since I finished convinced and shivering with the couple. Pretty admirable little movie.

I am writing for three reasons. First, Phaedra is one of the all time great movies, and I want to give it the EXCELLENT RATING it deserves. Second, I wonder if anyone knows the title of the incredible Johan Sebastian Bach organ music that Anthony Perkins is singing in his car. Third, is there a VHS or DVD of the movie, or any soundtracks available? Anthony Perkins and Melina Mercouri are so passionate and sexy. All these years later, I can still see in my mind most of the movie...especially the scene in front of the fire! And I can hear Anthony Perkins raging in his car and singing Johan Sebastian Bach as if it was on right now. It is a scene that is never out of my memory. Please respond if you can answer any of my inquiries. Thanks.

The powerful Greek shipowner and constructor Thanos (Raf Vallone) proposes to marry Phaedra (Melina Mercouri) during the baptism of a ship with her name. Phaedra, who is the daughter of Thanos'greatest competitor, is a bored woman and has a son from her first marriage. Thanos gives an expensive ring to Phaedra and soon he learns that his estranged son from his first marriage, Alexis (Anthony Perkins), has left the University of Economics in London to dedicate to paint. Thanos asks Phaedra to travel to London to bring Alexis to meet him in Greece. When Phaedra meets Alexis, she falls in love with her stepson and seduces him. Their doomed love affair leads the family to a tragedy. "Phaedra" is a melodrama directed by Jules Dassin with his mate and future wife Melina Mercouri in the lead role. The storyline is based on the tragic story of Phaedra from the Greek mythology and this tale of obsession could have been a soap opera in the hands of another director. Last but not the least, the performances, locations and soundtrack are great. My vote is seven. Title (Brazil): "Profanação" ("Profanity")

I saw this movie as a double feature with Black Orpheus in San Francisco in 1963. Anthony Perkins and Melina Mercouri provide brilliant performances. Perkins is excellent as a young sensitive, melancholy, neurotic who has a fatal relationship with an older very wealthy married Mercouri. She buys him a grey Italian sports car and begins a love affair with him. The double whammy effect of Black Orpheus' tragic love story on top of the potently impossible love story in Phaedra had me reeling for days. Wish it was available on video.

Just as the film Forrest Gump was a finer story than the somewhat unpleasant original novel, Jules Dassin's Phaedra far outdoes Jean Racine's 1677 play, which was in turn based on Euripides's Hippolytus. Familiar as we are with the world's new royalty (the fabulously wealthy) it makes perfect sense to set a Greek classic in the family of a Greek billionaire shipping tycoon (think Aristotle Onassis / Stavros Niarchos), and to involve other European settings, an expensive and elegant automobile (Aston Martin DB4GT, I believe: "0-100-0 in 21.8 seconds"), and a son and stepmother who are educated, move easily among commoners and the powerful, and are thoroughly likeable. Following one of the most erotic scenes in film (although, delightfully, not at all explicit; the telephone scene in It's A Wonderful Life is also in the running), it is difficult not to feel the depth of loss as the family, indeed the entire empire, unravels. Unforgettable, but only to those who have seen it. Are there no prints available? Isn't director Jules Dassin still alive? Isn't it about time for a DVD of this fine, intense film? If you were comfortable with Sean Connery's James Bond in Dr. No, but would have been even happier had it been edgier, less cartoonish, and in crisp, almost 3-dimensional black and white, you have been missing this movie.

A film for middle-aged women and possibly for men who likes men more than women and who...well, I guess you get it. Oh, the worries of the rich and powerful or is it? Maybe it's just what we should think so that we are not envious of them? Probably. Anyway, those who do not know what boredom is should see this film. What did not Jules Dassin do for his wife Melina? In this, the music of Theodorakis could not save him though, since it was simply too bad. I have not announced any spoilers, since I haven't seen all the film yet and just when I'm writing this, the film is on in the background and won't you believe it - there is actually a nice little tune playing, so I have to excuse Theodorakis - it's not his fought. I'm amazed at Melina Mercouri. Was she really as self-centered as she appears to be? I'm not talking about the role here, since she always plays the same role whatever she plays - the role of a talking Buster Keaton and, in a way, more hysterically funny! Or was it Jules Dassin? The wonderful filmmaker of Never On a Sunday (also hysterical), Rififi (fantastic), Two Smart People, Brute Force, Naked City, Night and the City, Topkapi (funny and wonderful!), Thieves' Highway and maybe two more I haven't seen. When it came to Melina he was always on thin ice, sometimes it held as in Never on a Sunday, sometimes it broke most heavily. I have now seen more than three quarters of the film. Melina is still hysterical. Why am I not surprised? Now the whole film around Melina also becomes hysterical. I will not tell you what is going on. Don't worry, you don't want to know. You may think that the rich have it this bad but a communist should know better. Was this the reason why Jules was banned? What a bummer!

I too remember my one and only viewing of Phaedra: 1961, London. The scene I remember most clearly is Melina in her robes, eating breakfast on the cliffs overlooking the road below. I have been using the word "diaphanous" ever since! Does anybody have any idea how one gets the studio to re-release this wonderful film? I've tried some of the revival places like MOMA too but to no avail...

I would also love to see this movie again. I enjoyed it immensely in 1963 and several times more during the Sixties. The BBC showed a copy in 1970 and the last sighting was in 1980 at the National Film Theatre in London, during a Jules Dassin season. The performances of Melina, Tony Perkins and Raf Vallone are incredible and there is the wonderful music of Theodorakis – thankfully still available. Phaedra, where are you?

Read all the comments. They all felt what I feel about this dark little treasure...it must be preserved on DVD. The music was as "haunting" as the story. In my youth, Boston in the 60's,..I went to see this film and it opened a new dimension of love/lust, to this Mid-western farm boy. I had just found Felini, Ingamar Bergmann, George Stevens and foreign films as well. Intense, passionate, angst of sexual love and lust, made even "juicer" by it being your father's wife. The sexual betrayal is really about having sex with your father thru his wife's body. Oedipal twist, struggling with jealousy, self-doubt, with one's father's mature sexual powers, his mother's attraction, and needing to be like Dad, to "top" Dad, but too afraid to try, he goes for his father's object of lust/love? Fritz Perls knew what to do. To save the son from his fearful gay feelings for his father, she, the woman "sacrificed herself", for "them"... besides, she lonesome too. And this emotional fog, with all its questions, only makes the story even better and more convoluted and "delicious" to me. ha Mother feels the struggle between the men, and in a maladaptive action to move toward "wholeness" empathetically, shares her bed with her son. Son finds a "temporary comfort" in having his sexual "audition", with his father's "other half". The son then realizes he has crossed the line, and now all hell breaks loose and he, of course, is sentenced by Life, to die. Praedra must be killed, and Dad must commit suicide I guess? Triangles always are painful. They ALL lose here. The upside-down unconscious gay connection to his father, and by using the female body of his mother, only hides the real problem, and all are destroyed by this sexual adventure. Feelings are facts they say. It would have been "healthier" for the son to be "invited" into his parent's bed and resolve his "ambiguous" sexual orientation issues, in the arms of his father and his mother. There's a huge erotic bomb here for all? ha How would Woody Allen directed this story? I realize this comment is not going to win me any flowers from others, but that's my perception and it could happen just as I have outlined. I am pleased others found this film, a great treasure, and hopefully will be released on DVD. Anthony Perkins's wife, was a photo-journalist,knew he was gay, and was on one of the jetliners that were hi-jacked and flown into the World Trade Center on 9-11. The Perkins' sons are now adults. VSS