Greek Cinema - 100 Years of Film History 1900-2000 - Hellenic

286 Pages·2012·2.51 MB·English

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

____________________________________________

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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.