Impressive work that updates the classical tragedy by transferring it to a modern-day Greece of celebrities and tycoons. (Onassis family, anyone ?) The transposition is intelligent and works very well. Melina Mercouri as Phaedra - beautiful, enigmatic, capricious, doomed - is the undisputed star of the movie, which is as it should be. Her death, near the end of the movie, is a potent and memorable scene. I was less impressed by the performance given by Anthony Perkins, although I need to add that I may be prejudiced : I do not like to watch him act, for reasons that may be irrational. Strongly recommended to lovers of all things Greek and/or classical.

I watched this film last night for the second time in my life. Being someone who grew up in the 60s and 70s, I'm used to - and rather fond of - the films of that time. And I like Dassin. I enjoyed Topkapi and I ADORE Rififi. But I found this film did not age very well. The acting is unnatural and over the top, which turns the film into a melodrama rather than a tragedy.They made a lot of fuss about Mercuri in those days. She was considered to be one of those "not beautiful, but fascinating" women. Maybe she was, but I always thought her a rather alarming female, with her decidedly masculine face, the nearly demented intensity of her eyes, her guttural voice and her strident laugh. Then again, I am a woman myself, so maybe it's just that her 'je ne sais quoi' is lost on me. I would not have chosen Perkins to play Alexis, as I never considered his type to be the sort that ignites an overwhelming passion in a woman's heart. But that might be just my personal taste. I liked the way Dassin did the love scene between Alexis and Phaedra. Truly beautiful and erotic, without all the biology text-book, clinical details they inflict on us these days. And Theodorakis' soundtrack is spot on (he is Greek, after all).All in all, this is the sort of film that I watch more for nostalgic reasons than anything else. But I would not put anything on hold for it.

Anthony Perkins has two loves -- Melina Mercouri and an Aston-Martin DB4 -- and it's hard to tell which is more spectacularly hard, fast and beautiful. I've never been a fan of Mercouri, with her mask-like face and disembodied guttural voice, but she's ideally cast as the heroine of this modern dress Greek tragedy, and she moves through the starkly gorgeous Hydra landscape like a queen. Story, setting, costumes and photography have never done an actress more favors; inhuman as she is, you can't look away. When she snarls "I don't care if the whole world burns!" you not only believe it, you want to watch it with her. Dassin's direction is very assured throughout, for example staging a technically difficult scene on the Aegean where Raf Vallone's helicopter circles over Mercouri on their yacht and he drops flowers on her, and in such a way that we register only the outsized emotions. Two other standout moments have been noted extensively in the other comments: the stunningly filmed love scene by the fire and Perkins' final ride in the Aston-Martin, in which he dares and brings off the most wildly over-the-top scene of his career. True, he doesn't seem man enough for Mercouri, especially next to Vallone, but that's part of what makes it a tragedy.

I saw this movie at the tender age of 19 as a down and out college drop out in Los Angeles, in 1962. Given the repressed social environment of my early youth-the deep South-this movie opened up a whole range of insights and expectations of interpersonal and physical attractions within the context of taboo, forbidden relationships. The movie is shot through with the crackle of intellectual and erotic tensions and has, in my view, the single most sensuous scene ever filmed, and there are several from which to select. The musical soundtrack has few peers in film history. A highly under-rated film at the time, and it should be resurrected for contemporary audiences.