RIP Jules Dassin
Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2008 5:04 am
Acclaimed film director best known for Never on Sunday (with wife Melina Mercouri) and Topkapi. Dassin got Oscar nominations for writing and directing Sunday. Despite his name, he was an American Jew who got his start in film making with some hard boiled film noirs in the 1940's including Naked City and Night and the City with Richard Widmark (one of Widmark's best roles).
Dassin had been a member of the Communist party in the 1930's and left the US after being blacklisted in the 1950's. In Frace, he made a classic crime thriller Rififi, which is generally considered the inspiration for virtually all modern heist films and featured a dialogue-less nearly thirty minute long robbery sequence. Dassin himself costarred in Sunday, which became an international hit.
He eventually married Mercouri and then returned to New York where he got a Tony nomination for directing Illya Darling, the musical version of Mercouri. While in the U.S. directing Illya, the Greek government was overthrown by a military junta, and he and Mercouri remained in the U.S. for several years until a civilian government took over and they returned to a heroes welcome.
Age 96.
Dassin had been a member of the Communist party in the 1930's and left the US after being blacklisted in the 1950's. In Frace, he made a classic crime thriller Rififi, which is generally considered the inspiration for virtually all modern heist films and featured a dialogue-less nearly thirty minute long robbery sequence. Dassin himself costarred in Sunday, which became an international hit.
He eventually married Mercouri and then returned to New York where he got a Tony nomination for directing Illya Darling, the musical version of Mercouri. While in the U.S. directing Illya, the Greek government was overthrown by a military junta, and he and Mercouri remained in the U.S. for several years until a civilian government took over and they returned to a heroes welcome.
Age 96.