Jules Dassin

A native of Middletown (Connecticut), Julius Dassin -born December 18, 1911- was the son of a Jewish barber. He started out as a stage actor at ARTEF, New York’s Jewish Proletarian Theatre. As he was passionate about cinema, he soon became a short filmmaker, directing The Tell-Tale Heart , an adaptation of the famous story ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’, by Edgar Allan Poe , in which he demonstrated his talent for directing on a budget. reduced. His work caught the attention of MGM executives, who recruited him to direct Nazi Agent (1942), a thriller in which Conrad Veidthe plays two twin brothers, one a Nazi officer and the other in the service of the allies. This promising first feature heralded a brilliant career for Dassin, who immediately established himself, especially after directing Brute Force , a solid film-noir in which Burt Lancaster plays a convict more noble than the jailers guarding him.

Dassin then produced one of his best-known works, The Naked City , in which two police officers investigate the murder of a beautiful model in New York. Perhaps it is one of the most representative films of Dassin’s characteristic style, marked by extreme realism, very close to documentary, a great role played by urban settings, and a predilection for very everyday characters, who find themselves involved in exceptional situations, in this case in pursuit of a murderer. Thieves Market follows , with Richard Conte as a trucker who decides not to submit to the pressures of the leaders of the mafia syndicates. The film has many points in common with La ley del silencio , ofElia Kazan , shot a few years later, and in both films Lee J. Cobb plays a similar role.

With this background, Jules Dassin was destined to become one of the most in-demand American filmmakers, but he was investigated by the Committee on Un-American Activities for being a member of the communist party. When he shoots in London the masterful Night on the Town , set in the world of wrestling, with the deceased a few days before him Richard Widmark , he discovers that he cannot return to American soil. He stays in Great Britain for a while, and later settles in France, where he films Rififi , with one of the most shocking robberies -in a jewelry store- ever filmed, as it lasts about forty minutes and is narrated without dialogue or music. It was starring Jean Servais, who also put himself under his orders in He Who Must Die , an adaptation of a novel by Nikos Kazantzakis , which took place in Greece. In that country he would meet Melina Mercouri , with whom he fell in love during the filming of Never on a Sunday , in which she starred and which would be one of Dassin’s greatest successes. The filmmaker, who had divorced his wife, Beatrice Launer, with whom he had a son, would since then unite his life with the actress, who would star in many of his following films: Fedra (1962) , Topkapi , 10: 30 PM Summer , Promise at Dawn and Cries of Passion .

Dassin gradually lost favor with the public, until he retired after Circle of Two , in 1980. From that moment on, he supported Melina Mercouri in the shadows, whom he accompanied in exile when the Board of Colonels was established in Greece. When democracy returned and Mercouri was elected culture minister, she helped him fight for the return of the Parthenon frieze to Greece, which is on display in London’s British Museum. The director was still involved in this cause after becoming a widower in 1994, and ceded the rights to several of his films to the foundation that bears the name of Melina Mercouri.