Jules Dassin for the Honorary Oscar?
by Andre Soares
Within certain Hollywood circles, there is a movement to pick Jules Dassin, whose film career spans nearly 40 years, as the next recipient of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ Honorary Academy Award.
Having begun his career at the MGM short-film unit in 1941, Dassin went on to direct several important films noirs of the late 1940s — among them The Naked City (1948), one of the first post-war American films to be shot on location, and the thriller Thieves’ Highway (1949).
After filming the Richard Widmark-Gene Tierney vehicle Night and the City in England in 1950, Dassin’s promising Hollywood career came to an abrupt halt as a result of the era’s anti-Red hysteria. The director sought refuge in Europe where he was to make several of his best-known films, including the heist thriller Du rififi chez les hommes / Rififi (1955), starring Jean Servais; the social drama Celui qui doit mourir / He Who Must Die (1957), also with Servais (this film marked the first time the director worked with future wife Melina Mercouri); and the heist comedy-thriller Topkapi (1964), starring Mercouri, Maximilian Schell, and Peter Ustinov.
In 1961, after the Hollywood blacklist had turned light grey, Dassin received Oscar nominations for Best Direction and Best Original Screenplay for his 1960 worldwide hit Pote tin Kyriaki / Never on Sunday, a fable in which he mocked American puritanism while showcasing Mercouri’s talents — both physical and thespian — to best advantage. (The couple made nine films together; they were married in 1966.) Mercouri, who later became the Greek Minister of Culture, died of lung cancer in 1994.
Dassin’s last film was the 1980 box-office and critical disappointment Circle of Two, starring Tatum O’Neal and Richard Burton.
Screenwriter Sandra Berg recently interviewed the director at his home in Greece. Berg’s chat with Dassin has just been published in the Writers Guild magazine Written By. (It can also be found at the WGA website.)
Academy members who would like Dassin to receive the Honorary Academy Award should write a letter of support to Academy president Sid Ganis.
Jules Dassin, by the way, will turn 95 next Dec. 18.
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