Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

atlasmb 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.

alberg22 I saw Dassin's "Phaedra" in 1966 in the "Monumental Cine Censa" (long gone...) in Montevideo, Uruguay. I was 20 years old and had gone to watch the movie with my very first love. She was a couple of years younger than me, but her red hair was very similar to Melina's... We both had tears in our eyes as the Bach's Tocatta in F (from Tocatta and Fugue in F BWV 540) played on the screen. It was to be the last movie we watched together. Forty-five years have passed... and I still remember "Phaedra" and the first time I was moved by the carillon-like chords of Bach's Tocatta in F... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqnElZ4wk0U

finistere-1 In answer to rrrascall's questions, first the music is Bach's organ Toccata in F Major, BWV 540. Forty-plus years ago when I was in college, the original track recording phonograph album (anyone remember LPs?), which I never owned, was probably one of the most played film records in dorm and fraternity house, because the movie was so sensationally "adult" and torrid, especially for the atmosphere of those dim dark days of the early to mid-sixties (pre- Vietnam era) in the Bible Belt USA where my college was located. Besides, the score by Mikis Theodorakis was superb and the effect of the music served to turn up the temperature of the sex scenes. We randy young men flocked to the film's annual screening in the town's independent "art film" cinema.Second, my failing memory tells me that the record was released on the United Artists label but this may be totally erroneous.As I write this post, news of Jules Dassin's passing has been announced, and curiously the NY Times and NY Sun did not list "Phaedra" among the director's films.

victorsargeant Read all the comments. They all felt what I feel about this dark little treasure...it must be preserved on DVD. The music was as "haunting" as the story. In my youth, Boston in the 60's,..I went to see this film and it opened a new dimension of love/lust, to this Mid-western farm boy. I had just found Felini, Ingamar Bergmann, George Stevens and foreign films as well.Intense, passionate, angst of sexual love and lust, made even "juicer" by it being your father's wife. The sexual betrayal is really about having sex with your father thru his wife's body. Oedipal twist, struggling with jealousy, self-doubt, with one's father's mature sexual powers, his mother's attraction, and needing to be like Dad, to "top" Dad, but too afraid to try, he goes for his father's object of lust/love? Fritz Perls knew what to do.To save the son from his fearful gay feelings for his father, she, the woman "sacrificed herself", for "them"... besides, she lonesome too.And this emotional fog, with all its questions, only makes the story even better and more convoluted and "delicious" to me. haMother feels the struggle between the men, and in a maladaptive action to move toward "wholeness" empathetically, shares her bed with her son.Son finds a "temporary comfort" in having his sexual "audition", with his father's "other half". The son then realizes he has crossed the line, and now all hell breaks loose and he, of course, is sentenced by Life, to die. Praedra must be killed, and Dad must commit suicide I guess?Triangles always are painful. They ALL lose here.The upside-down unconscious gay connection to his father, and by using the female body of his mother, only hides the real problem, and all are destroyed by this sexual adventure. Feelings are facts they say. It would have been "healthier" for the son to be "invited" into his parent's bed and resolve his "ambiguous" sexual orientation issues, in the arms of his father and his mother. There's a huge erotic bomb here for all? ha How would Woody Allen directed this story?I realize this comment is not going to win me any flowers from others, but that's my perception and it could happen just as I have outlined.I am pleased others found this film, a great treasure, and hopefully will be released on DVD.Anthony Perkins's wife, was a photo-journalist,knew he was gay, and was on one of the jetliners that were hi-jacked and flown into the World Trade Center on 9-11. The Perkins' sons are now adults. VSS