Fedra

I first saw Phaedra almost 40 years ago and still check the Radio Times most

weeks in the hope that it will resurface! I too find it hard to understand why the film seems to have disappeared so completely. Does the critical response at the time of its first release still sour selectors minds?

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.

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?

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...

One more voice to be added to the many! Where, oh where is this movie and why isn't it on video or DVD??? When each of the stars, Mercouri and Perkins, passed away one hoped that at very least it might make it to TV in some kind of tribute. No such luck. Brilliant acting, extremely well directed by Dassin (who made the classic RIFIFI) this movie deserves a greater appreciation than it has received. Terrific performances by Mercouri as the love-obsessed stepmother and Perkins as the stepson who allows himself to be seduced by her. The critics were hostile and cynical when the movie first came out, possibly because of the very public antics of Onassis and Callas, but the movie itself deserved a much better reception. (One movie which this viewer has never been able to forget!) Classically elegant, this is a well made movie that Dassin's talents translated from ancient themes into modern with a true director's skill. This movie deserves to be seen again! Where is it?????