Greek Cinema - 100 Years of Film History 1900-2000, Volume 1/ Trifon Tzavalas Tzavalas, Trifon, 2012 P
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
GREEK CINEMA Volume 1 100 Years of Film History 1900-2000 Trifon Tzavalas © Copyright 2012, Trifon Tzavalas and the Hellenic University Club of Southern California. All rights reserved. Work may not be reproduced without permission by Trifon Tzavalas or the publisher. Quoting is permitted with a reference to the source and a notice to the publisher at [email protected]. Please use this e-mail to inform the editor of any errors. Published by the Hellenic University Club of Southern California PO Box 45581 Los Angeles, CA 90045-0581 USA Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication Data Tzavalas, Trifon, 1935- Greek Cinema - 100 Years of Film History 1900-2000, Volume 1/ Trifon Tzavalas Tzavalas, Trifon, 2012 p. cm Includes bibliographical references and index, 1. Motion Pictures Arrived in Greece. 2. The Silent Greek Movies. 3. The Period of Talking Movies Begins. 4. The Decade of 1951 – 1960. 5. The Decade of 1961 – 1970, 6. The Years 1971 – 1975, 7. The Years 1976 – 2000, References: Hellenic Movies That Participated in Domestic and Foreign Festivals, 1949 – 2000; Greek Performers in Foreign Films Productions: Actresses, Actors; Bibliography ISBN-13: 978-1-938385-11-7 (PDF) 791.976 Published in the United States of America First Edition 2012 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ____________________________________________ DONATION INFORMATION The Hellenic University Club of Southern California is a Non-Profit Cultural Organization and its publications are intended to help readers and researchers enhance the knowledge and understanding of Greek cultural heritage. For more information on its activities go to: www.huc.org Use of this book is free; however we kindly request a donation of $5.00 per printed volume of the work. This donation will fund grants to educational organizations which promote Greek culture. Libraries and public institutions are exempt from this request. You can donate by visiting the web site of the Club Please write below the PayPal receipt www.huc.org, and using PayPal or by sending a check to: or check number, and date to show the Hellenic University Club of Southern California legitimacy of your copy. PO Box 45581 Los Angeles, CA 90045-0581 Receipt/Check # Date USA Dedicated to the memory of my parents Sophia and Panagiotis -Trifon Tzavalas CONTENTS VOLUME 1 ACKNOWLEDGMENT FOREWORD CHAPTER 1: Motion Pictures Arrived in Greece…………………………………. 7 CHAPTER 2: The Silent Greek Movies………………………………………… 15 CHAPTER 3: The Period of Talking Movies Begins……………………………… 51 CHAPTER 4: The Decade of 1951 – 1960 ………………………………………... 71 CHAPTER 5: The Decade of 1961 – 1970………………………………………... 99 CHAPTER 6: The Years 1971 – 1975…………………………………………….. 137 CHAPTER 7: The Years 1976 – 2000…………………………………………….. 153 GREEK MOVIES THAT PARTICIPATED IN DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN FESTIVALS, 1949 -2000…………………………………… 193 GREEK PERFORMERS IN FOREIGN FILMS PRODUCTIONS: Actors………………………………………… 263 BIBLIOGRAPHY: Books, Encyclopedias, Magazines, Newspapers…………… 273 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my sincere thanks and appreciation to the well-known theatrical author, scriptwriter, and film director Giorgos Th. Tzavellas, (1916-76) for his kindness in providing me with his personal material regarding the Greek cinema. I am also grateful to Vasilis Georgiadis (1921-2000) for his contribution of considerable data with reference to my work. Vasilis Georgiadis was an editor and publisher of Greek Motion Pictures Almanac. In addition, he was a motion picture and television director of note· the contributions from such a very busy man are doubly appreciated. For his interest and help with material for my work I would also like to thank the well- known author, scriptwriter and film director, Nestor P. Matsas. Also, I would like to thank the historian of the Greek Cinema and film director Yannis Soldatos and the editor and publisher of the Greek Motion Pictures Magazine Theamata (The Shows), Aeolos Varelas and the producers Panayiotis and Christos Kyriakopoulos, and the Giorgos E. Pashalidis. Finally, I am indebted to the author Lewis Girion, and Panagiotis (Takis) Demopoulos of Los Angeles, California, for their kindness and their patient instruction in reading the manuscript of my work and correcting some errors. I also want to thank all the directors who responded to my requests for information. FOREWORD This work surveys the general view of the cinema in Greece over the 100 years from 1900 to 2000. It considers not only the films themselves, but their financial, technical and political background from the period of their introduction in Greece to their eventual development. This work also is an attempt to depict what has been done with motion picture production during the 20th century in chronological order. While there is a rather meager supply of sources in United States, we are fortunate enough to discover and use some important Greek texts and sources of information. The story of Greek cinema is not any different than that of any other small European country. The predominance of the foreign films in Greece over the domestic motion picture industry subjected the latter to many vicissitudes, the chief of which was the raising of capital. However, we shall see how the movies were produced, what kind of films they were, and from whence the producers, directors and script-writers mostly drew their subjects. We shall examine what their circumstances were and consider their main difficulties, such as capital, experience and technical facilities; and, finally, examine certain other forms of entertainment which the Greek cinema had to compete with. We have endeavored to be accurate throughout. It became necessary to examine the history of the Greek cinema, and in parallel the influence on it by its European and American counterpart. We found it expedient to divide our work into six sections, as follows: Motion Pictures Arrived in Greece; The Silent Greek Movies; The Period of Talking Movies Begins; The Decade of 1951-1960; The Decade of 1961-1970; the last five years of 1971-1975, and the 1976-2000 period. Under those sections we shall discuss a few details of other forms of entertainment. Mainly, how the first foreign films were received, and, in some detail, the domestic (Greek) productions on the more successful films. In that way, we hope that the reader will have a clear picture of the Greek movies and their plots to form his own judgment. Finally, we have examined the effect of government regulations and censorship on both domestic and foreign films. In this work, we have tried, to the best of our knowledge, to research the scattered articles about the Greek cinema, and put them in chronological order so that later historians may be able to do better. CHAPTER 1 MOTION PICTURES ARRIVED IN GREECE Before motion pictures were introduced to Greece as a form of entertainment, the theater of shadows (Karaghiozis) was the main form of recreation available to the average person. And, according to C. W. Ceram, in his work Archaeology of Cinema during the 19th century Karaghiozis dominated the shadow entertainment of Greece and, for that matter, of Egypt and North Africa. To analyze the reasons why the Greek theater failed to flourish, despite its classical tradition and the repeated efforts by many to revive this art form, goes beyond the scope of this work. Nevertheless, the fact remains that theatrical production was extremely low during the last decades of the 19th century. But we can state here that one of the reasons “the theater” failed to make any progress down to the end of the 19th century was the fact that a good part of Greek society (especially in Athens) preferred Italian melodramas (which were of extremely poor quality) and also variety shows (commonly called varieté) to native theatrical presentations.l The theater of shadows, together with variety shows, were the most favored form of entertainment among the Greeks for a long time. As Olive Blackham, a writer on the subject, remarks in Shadow Puppets (London, l960), “The shadow theater is still alive in Greece.” However, the number of shadow theaters gradually decreased. From about 12 theaters which were operating as far back as the l950’s, there are only a few of them left in the 1990’s (such as the well-known theaters of Titania and Haridimos). According to C. W. Ceram, the theater of shadows, or as it is better known, Karaghiozis (“Kara” meaning black and “gheox” eye in the Turkish language), apparently originated in the Far East. Others claim that the shadow theater was invented somewhere in Asia. Karaghiozis, however, was introduced to Greece from the Near East and through Turkey. Closely associated with the origin of Karaghiozis, however, is the question regarding the exact time of its introduction to the Greek public. A few writers have suggested that Karaghiozis was introduced to Greece as late as l860 by a certain Yannis Vrachalis, a Greek from Constantinople. However, the majority of writers, including such well-known critics as Konstantinos Dimaras, rightly believed that Karaghiozis arrived in Greece long before the Greek nation became independent (c. 1829). For the question of where Karaghiozis originated, many opinions have been expressed by writers. Giorgos Tsokopoulos, in his article, states that, “…It is well known that the theater, the so-called shadow theater, ‘hombres Chinises’ originated in China;” from China moved to Persia, and then to Syria and Egypt. The Turks took Karaghiozis from Syria and 7 Egypt; they also took poetry from the Arabs, storytelling and myth from Persia, music from Byzantium, and Stage Theater from Egypt. At that time, the Turks were engaged in wars, and they did not have time for creating art. Therefore, by “not having anything, they grasped whatever they could.” 2 On the other hand, Sabri Esat Siyavusgil, in his work, “Karagoz” 3 claims that the shadow theater was imported into the Near East by the Turks, though the same claim can be put by the Arabs who have borrowed the idea from India.