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Greece must be one of the most filmed countries of the world outside the United States. Athens and the Greek islands have been the set for many Hollywood movies. The country is next only to France, Britain and Italy in the number of appearances on major motion pictures. From Zorba to the final scene of The Bourne Identity, Greece has provided dramatic backdrops and fascinating culture for the Hollywood studios. The latest addition to this 50-year-olf tradition is Mamma Mia!, the ABBA music-based musical starring Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth, set in Skopelos.
Holywood came to Greece in the early 1960s, with Zorba, The Boy on a Dolphin, Never on Sunday, and The Guns of Navarone.
In Zorba, based on Nikos Kazantzakis' book, British writer Basil, played by Alan Bates, comes to Crete to revive a mine his father owned. There, he meets a Greek character named Zorba, immortalized by Anthony Quinn, and hires him to help, little suspecting that Zorba's exuberance will lead him to some dark and troubling places. Although the movie, as the book, paints an alien and disturbing portrait of life in a Greek village, it also celebrates the zest for life and its gifts. On top of that, gorgeous cinematography and one of the greatest film scores ever give this movie almost demonic energy.
In Never on Sunday, director Jules Dassin plays an American scholar in Greece who is infatuated with a prostitute. He tries to improve her and pull her from her wayward ways, much to the dismay of his family and friends. Late Melina Mercouri, Greece's world-famous actress and cultural ambassador, won Best Actress awards from the Cannes Film Festival and New York Film Critics Circle. The film won an Oscar for Best Song, composed by Manos Hadjidakis and sung by Merkouri.
In the Boy on a Dolphin, Sophia Loren plays a peasant girl from the island of Hydra who works as a sponge diver. When, in one of her dives, she discovers a golden statue of a boy riding a bronze dolphin, chained to the body framework of an ancient wrecked ship, she tries to look for a rich American sponsor for the raising of the sunken statue. Her two alternatives are US archeologist Jim Calder (Alan Ladd), devoted to return lost artifacts of great value to their home countries, and Victor Parmalee (Clifton Webb), an ambitious art collector, prepared to pay a high price to cool his insatiable desire for ancient treasures.
The Guns of Navarone remains one of the landmark war movies of all time. Based on Alistair MacLean's thrilling novel, the 1961 movie features Gregory Peck as the head of a star-studded cast charged with a near impossible mission: destroy a pair of German guns nestled in a protective cave on the strategic Mediterranean island of Navarone, from where they can control a vital sea passage. Navarone is the island of Rhodes. Also starring in this action-packed drama, that featured some breakthrough special effects, were David Niven, Anthony Quinn, Stanley Bakes, James Darren, and Irene Papas.
In the comedy High Season, Jacqueline Bisset plays a photographer who lives in the exotic Greek islands with her sculptor husband Patrick (James Fox). The film lampoons tourists, contains beautiful scenery, and focuses on the relationship and eventual reconciliation of Katherine and Patrick.
Summer Lovers and Shirley Valentine, from the 1980s, are both filmed in Greek islands and play off the theme of love and sexy adenture under the Aegean sun. Shirley Valentine made a bit of a splash in the mid 1980s with its depiction of a tired, bored, ignored British wife who goes to Greece on vacation and falls for a Greek fisherman, who proves to be as unreliable as her British husband.
Luc Besson's The Big Blue is one of the most loved underwater movies of all time. Filmed off the Greek islands of Amorgos and Koufonissia and in the Italian resort of Taormina, the 1988 movie, starring Rosanna Arquette and Jean Reno, is the story of two extremely able divers and their rivalry for the world diving championship title.
15 Minutes takes place in New York City and stars Robert de Niro and Edward Burns. De Niro is a star cop who is chasing two Eastern European psychotic serial killers who film the murders they commit and send them to TV stations to be broadcast. The Greek connection in this harrowing film is de Niro's Greek American girlfriend, played by Greek American actress Melina Kanakaredes. When de Niro plans to propose to her, he goes to the restaurant bathroom and rehearses telling her that he loves her in Greek in front of the mirror. "Se latrevo, se agapo" says de Niro, "I adore you, I love you", in front of the mirror, in a touching scene that Greek audiences will never forget.
Then came My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the Greek-American Moonstruck. Starring Nia Vardalos and John Corbett, the movie was produced by Tom Hanks at the suggestion of his Greek-American wife Rita Wilson, and made more than $100 million in the US box office, the highest-grossing independent movie of all time. A Greek-American girl falls for a WASP, in Chicago, and ends up marrying him despite the hillarious cultural difficulties that threaten to derail the romance.
The Bourne Identity, starring Matt Damon, Franca Potente and Chris Cooper, ends spectacularly at the Sea Satin seafood restaurant, in Mykonos, which was converted, for the purposes of this scene, to a bike renting store. The zoom out, just before the end titles, with the aerial view of the arid sides of Mykonos, will remain unforgettable.
The latest instance of Hollywood-in-Greece is Mamma Mia!, set in Skopelos, in which the daughter of an American former hippie, played by Meryl Streep, who has settled permanently on that Greek island, is about to get married and sets out to find out who her real father is. The candidates are 3 former boyfriends (Brosnan, Firth and Stellan Skarsgard) who are invited to the island for the wedding, and, from there, the story takes off. In a theater near you in summer 2008.
