Le jour où les poissons sont sortis de l'eau

Fascinating misfire from writer-director Michael Cacoyannis concerns two atom bombs lost in the Aegean Sea, and the unconventional search team (American agents disguised as flashy tourists) who sail to a remote Greek island to retrieve them. Wildly uneven semi-comedy/sort-of drama seems stuck in a weird dichotomy of its own design: the picture is a brazen apocalyptic parody while, at the same time, a buddy picture between a male pilot and a navigator from NATO (they spend a great deal of time together bare-chested in their BVDs, though there are no sexual overtones between the two, at least none that I picked up on). It's the silliest of ventures, decked out in garish mod attire, and yet one can hardly look away. For those who do stick with it, the final sequence manages to pack a surprisingly thought-provoking little jab. We're all doomed, Cacoyannis says, but at least we'll go out dancing. ** from ****

Where can I get a copy of this film? It was shown in late '67 in London and after very bad reviews was closed after 2 weeks and never seen again. The British Film Institute, when I asked over 10 years ago, only had some storyboards but no copy.

Having read the comments about the confused nature and baffling plot of the film, I can only support these from the point of view of someone who was an extra in the film. Yes we had to wear cheaply made primary coloured cotton clothes (and in my case some wrap-round 'shades' that made sweat run into your eyes.) I was travelling in an old VW van with fellow students, and we were recruited in Athens, and paid 10 shillings a day each with a cold chicken meal thrown in. Filming seemed chaotic and often appeared to made up on the spot (a bunch of bikers were filmed at one point), and at night most takes were stopped when the arc lamps burnt out. The dead fish in the harbour mostly sank. The third assistant director had great fun trying to get us to act as a crowd. The local cops prowled about looking for some longhairs to beat up (not us though as we had wheels).

The wonderful Sam Wanamaker looked stately on set, Candice Bergen looked very nice from where I stood in the background on a night shoot, Tom Courtney looked lonely off set. Colin Blakeley became a favourite actor of mine when I spotted him as I walked down the harbour towards the house used as the wardrobe, lurking in costume rags. The Wardrobe Mistress - a formidable women - passed by and told him in forthright terms to clear off as we were on the set (the whole harbour). With a grunt he shambled off in the character of a tramp. Minutes later he was on camera scoffing food at a table! Priceless! Where can I get a copy of this film?

I watched this movie on-line (couldn't find it any other way - search for the Greek title "Όταν τα Ψάρια Βγήκαν στη Στεριά") for the main reason that it was filmed at the village my mother came from, Galaxidi, which is not an island but nevertheless looks and feels like an island. In fact, my grandmother owned the only hotel at the time and it was used to host the leading actors, while she herself had to host the music composer at her home (Theodorakis), the place I am currently sitting to write this review while on vacation.

The film is certainly weird, I guess Kakogiannis tried to do something progressive on his own after the wild success he met with "Zorba the Greek". One has to take into account that 1967 was the beginning of a 7 year dictatorship period for Greece where the military was in control. At that time there was a push to promote tourism and align Greece to the modern times, even if that meant dressing people in funny costumes to follow the hippie trends, show tolerance to homosexuality and the whims of tourists. I think it was around that time that the Greek islands like Myconos, Rhodos & Corfu became tourist attractions.

The film did remind me a bit of Dr. Strangelove and the dancing style looked really familiar making me believe that it was Fotis Metaxopoulos doing the Choreography (he did it for the majority of Greek films of the time).

I mostly liked the 2 stranded pilots and the leading actress that came late in the film but it still looked gorgeous. I somehow expected a happy ending so the abrupt finish was a bit of a surprise.

I think the film is enjoyable and is worth seeing to get the hippie feeling of those times.

This isn't a great movie, and not even really a good movie, but it is...well, something. It seems to be the wacky, 1960s, Greek bastard/child of "Dr. Strangelove" and "The Russians Are Coming". It popped up recently on the Fox Movie Channel. Tom Courtenay was playing very serious in "Doctor Zhivago" a couple of years earlier. Here he is trying for laughs and mostly in his underwear. In fact there are lots of pretty people wearing very little, and when they are wearing something it's often designed by the director/writer/producer himself, and it's beyond the valley of mod. In fact, the movie could use more mod and more Grecian scenery. Recommended if you like movies from the late 60s.

This is the first of 3 efforts by this foremost Greek film-maker that I will be watching in tribute to his recent passing; that said, I have 3 other early works of his which I decided to by-pass at the moment. Following the commercial success of ZORBA THE Greek (1964), Cacoyannis was probably given carte blanche and he responded with a Cold War satire that seems to have been inspired both by DR. STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB (1963) and THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING, THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING! (1966)! The results, however, turned out to be rather limp and its failure sent the director back to his favorite subject i.e. Greek tragedy (more on this in my next review!).

The plot deals with a plane carrying nuclear armaments crashing onto a small and obscure Greek island – when the aircraft is spotted by a fisherman and the locals cheer that they will finally make the news, the U.S. Air Force is quick to dispel the rumors, asserting that no plane (and its dangerous cargo) has gone missing! In the meantime, the two pilots (Tom Courtenay and Colin Blakely, actually Brits!) have swum to land in their underwear, and they spend two-thirds of the running-time trying to figure out how to acquire some form of clothing and food but, more importantly, contact their base to give them their position. What they do not know is that a military operation – led by Sam Wanamaker and numbering among its components Ian Ogilvy – has been commissioned, arriving incognito as land/business assessors for the purposes of erecting a hotel there, to retrieve the box containing the nuclear gizmo (having assumed the pilots drowned)! Soon after, however, tourists inundate the island – having become the newest thing in paradise resorts overnight!

Others who come into the picture are a shepherd and his wife who actually discover the box and spend the entire film attempting to open it, and a nymphomaniac artist (Candice Bergen) who becomes involved with Ogilvy. The leading lady's role is quite pointless, though, especially since she leaves well before the end after having made yet another conquest! Similarly, Courtenay seems to have been recruited merely because his name was hip at the time (anybody could have played his character, and his compulsion for food is especially unconvincing in view of the actor's lanky figure)!

Though not quite as bad as the BOMB rating allotted it by the "Leonard Maltin Film Guide" would suggest, and the proceedings certainly prove amusing in spots, overall this is far from inspired stuff and decidedly forgettable into the bargain! What is more, for such a backwards community, the characters are decked out in the height of Carnaby Street fashion (amazingly, Cacoyannis personally designed the clothes!): we are thus treated to a couple of modern dances – the traditional Greek form being relegated to the opening titles, despite the whole film being scored by ZORBA's Mikis Theodorakis – which would not have been amiss within AIP's "Beach Party" franchise!

The film ends abruptly – via an ostentatious but effective series of ever-distant zooms – with the titular sequence (a multitude of dead fish are seen rising to the surface) indicating that the radiation has taken effect. Actually, the whole population is infected since the water system has also been unwittingly contaminated by the shepherd's wife! Unfortunately, the copy I acquired was plagued throughout with video/audio glitches which made the whole experience of watching the film even less enthusing!