Word: mercourial
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Phaedra. Melina Mercouri purrs, snarls and shrieks in the title role of this modern-day version of an old Greek myth. Raf Vallone, as her ship-tycoon husband, is healthily Hellenic in a role with obvious overtones of Onassisism. Only Tony Perkins, as Vallone's stepson over whom all the trouble brews, seems not quite believable. Director Jules Dassin has sought to bring off cinematic high tragedy in a contemporary setting...
When Vallone dispatches Mercouri to London to persuade Perkins to come to Greece for the summer, the iron gate of tragedy begins creakingly to close. She falls in love with him; later, in Paris, she abandons her Joan Crawfordish role of older-woman-attracted-to-younger-man and seduces him with Hellenic thoroughness. It happens on the floor, and the camera chronicles the event with a mixture of cinematic symbolism and Aubusson-scorching realism...
...time Perkins gets to Greece, Mercouri is desperate. His ardor for her has cooled; he feels she has tricked him into coming to visit his father; she can no longer bear for Vallone to touch her. She watches as Perkins' affection for his father grows, shutting her out of their lives. Lurking always in the background is the sinister figure of her maid, a mannish mystic possessing an unnatural affection for her mistress. The maid warns Mercouri: "Put that boy out of your heart or everything will fall...
...Scene: Wives of the crew members of Vallone's newest ship, the S.S. Phaedra, standing mutely in the corridor outside his office to await news of the shipwreck that has killed most of their husbands. The women are swathed in rusty black, and Mercouri, a vengeful virago in white silk, elbows her way savagely through the crowd as she seeks out Vallone to tell him that she and Perkins have been lovers...
...Scene: Vallone, already torn with grief over the ship disaster, hears Mercouri's declaration, summons Perkins into his office. In a rage he sweeps the objects on his desk to the floor, slaps him viciously again and again, slashing Perkins' face with his ring. Vallone: ''Get out of Greece! Carry my curse wherever you go!'' Perkins, leaving, with blood covering his face: "I loved...