Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

A sexually frustrated Maria (Mercouri) is traveling through Spain with her husband and a younger woman Claire. Maria's husband is carrying on with Claire and Maria an alcoholic is sexual with every man who chances her way including a murderer in the town they are stuck in.The murderer had committed a crime of passion with which perhaps Maria (Mercouri) identifies. She helps the murderer get out of town and falls in love with him in the process although they are together for perhaps a half hour and exchange three words...This film is arty erotic the final flamenco dance looks like a surrogate drugged out orgasm involving all the actors and extras.60s middle age sexual sequence....lots of these made= Whose Afraid of Virginia Wolf... Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone.... etc etc... this one was briefer with less story to it.I only watched it to see Mercouri (did any actress have a deeper voice?)Trust me this thing is boring.

There was only one reason why I watched "10:30 PM Summer"--because it was directed by Jules Dassin. Dassin might just be among the most underrated directors of all time--with some amazing classics and hidden gems among his many films. Some of them are pretty famous (such as "Rafifi") but many others are just great films that somehow slipped through the cracks (such as "Thieves Highway" and "Brute Force"). Is "10:30 PM Summer" one of these hidden gems? It certainly is not considered a classic.I noticed on IMDb that the reviews for this film were all over the place and very inconsistent. One declared that the Melina Mercouri was 'the worst actress ever' while another thought she was 'magnificent' and one of the only good things about the film! And, scores ranged from 3 stars to 10! This film boasts a strange international cast with a Brit (Peter Finch), German (Romy Schneider) and Greek (Melina Mercouri) in the leads. The story is set Spain! It's a tale about a bizarre three-some--with a husband and wife and the husband's lover all on some sort of road trip. During the course of the trip, they wander into a town where a double murder just occurred--as a jealous husband shot his wife and her lover. This causes Mercouri's character to further lament her life and she spends most of the film drinking and talking and brooding. This is THE problem with the film. It is VERY talky and has very little in the way of plot. As a result, it felt very dull to me...very dull indeed. A rather lifeless and talky mess--a rare case where Dassin had a misfire.

I remember when this film opened in London in 1967. It opened simultaneously with 'Accident' by Joe Losey, and 'Accident' eclipsed this one, as they were considered too similar: mysterious, conveying ineffable unspoken currents between people, a pervasive air of unreality and aetherial suggestiveness of things that could not quite be seen. Of the two, this was the more difficult to describe and comprehend. So 'Accident' ran for a long time, while this closed in a week. It is only now that this neglected masterpiece, doubtless buried for decades because it was 'a commercial failure', has reappeared and I have been able to see it again. The colour has not faded and is as fresh as when it was first released. Jules Dassin surpassed himself with this masterpiece. It is his greatest work. Of course, it all relies heavily upon the genius of his wife, Melina Mercouri. It is the most subtle and understated, and hence probably the most powerful, of all her overwhelmingly brilliant performances. Mercouri was more than just a genius, she was a demented and Dionysiac genius, a genuine Greek maenad, a barefoot raver on the heights of Parnassus, in the best traditions of her culture. She is here well matched by Peter Finch at the top of his form, two years after he did 'The Pumpkin Eater' and 'Girl with Green Eyes', in both of which he had proved he was one of the leading film actors of his generation. Now in this intense film together, they speak the unspoken thoughts of a highly complex marriage and of emotional ties where two people have grown together at the root: but will the root snap? The beautiful and alluring Romy Schneider is part of a strange trio on a journey in Spain, where passion crackles in the air, and the flamenco hands clap, as a murderer aged only 19 comes into the story. I read the original novella by Marguerite Duras and thought it was poorly written and, although evocative, far from being a superior work. But it provided the atmosphere Dassin and Mercouri were looking for, a hothouse of semi-articulate and complex emotions, of raging currents of suppressed passions, a crisis of existential doubts, a veritable torrent or electrical storm, to match the real storm which lashes the stranded travellers in the film. Rarely has the invisible been filmed so successfully. This film was not really filmed in Spain, it was filmed in the ionosphere, and what appear to be buildings and people are really plasmas of charged particles. Dassin rose above reality, to film what lies behind it. These things are sometimes thought and felt, they are never seen. But here he reveals them to the eye, like a cloud parting. This is not mere cinema, it is something higher.

I just saw this film (at LACMA) after having seen it when it first came out. Wow! I didn't remember it that way at all! I guess when you're 19 this kind of stuff seems hot stuff, or very very deep. Now that I'm 56, I think it's just kind of pretentious but full of wonderful acting, nice cinematography and lighting, and very pretty actors! Romy Schneider looks beautiful in this, yes. But I have seen her looking even better (mostly in French films). She did, though, have some very early-50s kind of makeup, which was perplexing, considering this was '66. Melina, unbelievably, looks very contemporary; she could have just stepped out onto Rodeo Drive in 2004. I had forgotten how STRIKING her looks are. And her emoting is, well, breath-taking. Peter Finch looked so slender and drop-dead elegant. His face took MY breath away. God, what a face! (No wonder everyone supposedly from Vivian Leigh to Danny Kaye fell in love with him!) Note: Topkapi came before this film, not after. As to the plot, maybe I'm just dense, but I didn't really see the point. I just wanted to be a part of the party! Altho' Melina played, supposedly, a horrible drunkard, I felt she acted like a reasoned lady at all times and don't see what the husband and the lover were "tsch tsch"ing about. She seemed to keep it together pretty darned well for a supposed alcoholic. The whole bit about the murderer was just a turn-off to me, and I thought it kind of spoiled the fun (some of you smarties will say, Duh, that was the POINT!), but I didn't WANT the fun to stop! In sum, pretty people in exotic locales. Lots of this film was very engrossing. The actors are everything here.