Jules Dassin: Another Great Gone
According to Britain’s Guardian: “Jules Dassin (pictured), the film director, screenwriter and actor, who has died in Athens aged 96, claimed that after the screening of his film ‘He Who Must Die at Cannes in 1957,’ Jean Cocteau, who was on the jury, fainted with admiration, exclaiming: ‘To think this beautiful film was made by a Frenchman.’ Dassin added laconically: ‘They set the record straight after they brought him round.'”
While the Dassin obituaries have focused on his wonderful work directing the movie “Rififi,” it’s two of his other ventures that have caught my eye. Specifically: the film “Up Tight!†(1968), a remake of a John Ford classic, “The Informer,†set in a poor black neighborhood, with a script by its star, Ruby Dee(!) And then there was the 1967 Broadway musical comedy “Illya Darling,†based on “Never on Sunday,†for which Melina Mercouri was nominated for a Tony Award. My friend Skipp Lynch, who seems to have seen every obscure Broadway musical of the 1960s out of town, tells me that he caught “Illya Darling” on tour with Cyd Charisse. Now 87, Miss Charisse (nee Tula Eullice Finklea) is still whinnying with us, and can often be seen in the company of her longtime husband, Tony Martin, who is a very hale 95.
