O Psarogiannos

When a film bureaucracy takes over, as it has in Australia, Hong Kong or Greece, the life seeps out of production.

Greek films of the sixties were usually lack luster but they did produce Irene Papas, Michael Cacoyannis, Melina Mercouri, Spiros Focas and the rest and, if you followed through on them, you found Georgas Foundas - the Raf Vallone of the Hellenic scene. Even in preposterous melodramas he contributed a certain virile dignity and his was the strongest voice in the Cacoyannis films, in all of which he figured - the murderous footballer in STELLA, the murderous yahoo in GIRL IN BLACK and the murderous suitor in ZORBA THE GREEK.

Here Foundas is center stage in a full blooded family drama made without lighting (no interiors, like the last Boetticher westerns) in an island location where he is the head of an isolated family who must confront his own son by a woman he abandoned decades earlier. Our hero celebrated his current marriage by passing through the fire with his bride and his daughter shows up blistered, not to be out done. Foundas asks the newcomer how he survives on his rock ledge and the boy shoves a hand full of white gull feathers off the edge - very primal, very much out of character with the Greek films made around it.

The black and white photography and bold stroke performances carry things along better than the better known art film product.