The greatest movie ever made..!

Gripping story with well-crafted characters

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

The powerful Greek shipowner and constructor Thanos (Raf Vallone) proposes to marry Phaedra (Melina Mercouri) during the baptism of a ship with her name. Phaedra, who is the daughter of Thanos'greatest competitor, is a bored woman and has a son from her first marriage. Thanos gives an expensive ring to Phaedra and soon he learns that his estranged son from his first marriage, Alexis (Anthony Perkins), has left the University of Economics in London to dedicate to paint. Thanos asks Phaedra to travel to London to bring Alexis to meet him in Greece. When Phaedra meets Alexis, she falls in love with her stepson and seduces him. Their doomed love affair leads the family to a tragedy."Phaedra" is a melodrama directed by Jules Dassin with his mate and future wife Melina Mercouri in the lead role. The storyline is based on the tragic story of Phaedra from the Greek mythology and this tale of obsession could have been a soap opera in the hands of another director. Last but not the least, the performances, locations and soundtrack are great. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Profanação" ("Profanity")

Tony Perkins has that young look that made him seem unfit for some more mature roles or those that sought to portray him as an icon of virility. In "Phaedra", that youthful look--and the chiseled perfection of a Greek sculpture--makes him rather suitable for this role as the innocent lover of his father's second wife, played by Melina Mercouri.The story is played with a necessary fatalism, full of dramatic pauses and unavoidable attraction. There is no free will here, as the characters are compelled to play their parts in this tragedy, condemned to suffer the consequences ascribed by the gods and the rules of men.As such, this film may be seen to present the two primary characters as little more than puppets, walking the path that destiny requires. Or was there a moment, however brief, when they embraced their destinies with open arms, knowledgeable of the consequences? Did they really have a choice, given their basic natures? This classic story asks these questions and, in this, the film is true. The photographic style, including the editing, makes the two feel like chess pieces occupying space, being moved by an unseen hand or some force of magnetism, drawn together inescapably. In the end, Phaedra accepts the will of the "gods", while Perkins' Alexis--like Dionysus or Icarus--struggles till the end, proclaiming his illusory freedom from the Fates.

Anthony Perkins has two loves -- Melina Mercouri and an Aston-Martin DB4 -- and it's hard to tell which is more spectacularly hard, fast and beautiful. I've never been a fan of Mercouri, with her mask-like face and disembodied guttural voice, but she's ideally cast as the heroine of this modern dress Greek tragedy, and she moves through the starkly gorgeous Hydra landscape like a queen. Story, setting, costumes and photography have never done an actress more favors; inhuman as she is, you can't look away. When she snarls "I don't care if the whole world burns!" you not only believe it, you want to watch it with her. Dassin's direction is very assured throughout, for example staging a technically difficult scene on the Aegean where Raf Vallone's helicopter circles over Mercouri on their yacht and he drops flowers on her, and in such a way that we register only the outsized emotions. Two other standout moments have been noted extensively in the other comments: the stunningly filmed love scene by the fire and Perkins' final ride in the Aston-Martin, in which he dares and brings off the most wildly over-the-top scene of his career. True, he doesn't seem man enough for Mercouri, especially next to Vallone, but that's part of what makes it a tragedy.

Updated Greek tragedy, coated with a decadent touch of Hollywood and memories of old Joan Crawford movies. Glittering locales highlight this melodrama about a Greek shipping magnate who needs his estranged 24-year-old son to complete a business merger; he asks his second wife to fly out to England and talk sensibly to the boy, but instead, a flirtation develops between step-mother and step-son. After a sequence of indescribably lusty lovemaking, the wife calls off the affair--but just as quickly changes her mind, spiraling into obsessive love for the young stud. The film's beautiful visuals are such a pleasure to take in, it is almost easy to overlook the movie's main flaw: that lazily-rich and chic Melina Mercouri would never turn away her powerful, handsome, adoring husband for this kid, a ne'er-do-well artist and economics school drop-out! That being said, Anthony Perkins does the step-son role justice; although he keeps his mouth too tight (in a grimace) and his eyes continually dart around like Norman Bates, Perkins has a charming ambiance here (especially in the early part of the picture)--a boyish nervousness which suits the film just fine. As Mercouri's hairy-chested husband, Raf Vallone seems more Melina's type, yet she turns away from him like a frigid housewife. It doesn't quite play, however each actor handles the escalating tensions of the plot with surprising seriousness, leading to a tragic finale which really appears heartfelt. An emotional roller-coaster, "Phaedra" is gorgeously shot by Jacques Natteau, blissfully scored by Mikis Theodorakis, and soap fans should eat it up. *** from ****