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Greek Tycoon, The

Bland slice of ’70s Transatlantic trash-glam. Jacqueline Bisset and Anthony Quinn play a former first lady and a Mediterranean shipping magnate in the throes of romance. Any relationship to real persons living or dead is pathetically obvious.

4 Comments

4 Comments

  1. George White

    April 20, 2017 at 10:31 pm

    Watched this recently. Featuring guest appearances from Vicki Michelle, John Bennett and Joss Ackland – bizarrely uncredited (perhaps they forgot to credit him, or he fell out), at the start, appears, then mid-way in a sentence – dubbed as if he’s in a kung fu film, all of a sudden.
    It’s technically sci-fi, as someone pointed out, anything that has fictional “former prime ministers” as characters (Roland Culver plays former British PM Robert Keith), etc, is technically set in a parallel universe. And There’s a crash scene which doesn’t even show a crash – it’s just a speedboat cruising around – shots that don’t even seem to be in chronological order. Then cut to Quinn moaning. It’s as if they get permission to use a speedboat, but couldn’t actually do any harm to it. And couldn’t build a model, or anything.
    The presidential assassination is a romantic stroll on the beach as “President Cassidy” and “Liz T” are chased by assassins out of the Professionals, whose bullets leave a gaping wound in James Franciscus’ neck.
    Features a Maria Callas-ish character, “Matalas” played by Euro-crumpet Marilu Toto, in very 70s makeup and hair (its one of these films that’s supposed to take place over years, but every year is 1978) who seems to be fronting some kind of biblical epic – “Delilah”, presumably a musical based on the Tom Jones song.
    And to make it ever so Greek-er the end has Quinn do a Zorba dance.
    Parts of the 70s Greecemania alongside Demis Roussos, Michael J. Bird’s serials e.g. Who Pays the Ferryman?, Moussaka, Nana Mouskouri, and For Your Eyes Only.

  2. Richard16378

    April 21, 2017 at 2:36 pm

    That Greek phase passed into the 1980s with Demis Roussos’s old band mate Vangelis getting to do his keyboard wizardry on films & with Jon Anderson (Athens meets Acrington!).

    Also the film Summer Lovers, which oddly features Depeche Mode’s I Just Can’t Get Enough.

  3. George White

    April 26, 2017 at 4:12 pm

    And the Sidney Sheldon adap The Other Side of Midnight, which was supposed to be Fox’s big film of 1977 – only for a certain George Lucas to come out of the blue.
    The Thorn Birds too IIRC has a segment set in a backlot Greece.
    And then years after all this, we got Adventures on Kythera.
    And the failed Cannon-produced musical of Zorba – I, Zorba! with Quinn reprising his role.

  4. George White

    April 26, 2017 at 4:16 pm

    And how could we forget Clash of the Titans…

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