Forced out of Hollywood by the blacklist, noted noir director Jules Dassin (Brute Force [1949], Rififi [1954]) took a detour from his customary genre to make this entertaining comedy on a shoe-string budget. To his surprise, it became an international hit. The story, a twist on the legend of Pygmalion, concerns an academic type (Dassin) who journeys to Greece in hopes of understanding why it's lost the kind of cultural weight it had in the days of Plato and Aristotle. As his part in the battle against cultural illiteracy, he decides to tutor down-to-earth prostitute Melina Mercouri in her country's heritage. Despite the familiarity of its high-concept premise, this hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold comedy gets a great deal of mileage from the contrast between the owlishly earnest Dassin and his real-life spouse, the spirited, live-for-today courtesan.
The film is Mercouri's show all the way, however, and in giving the best comic performance of her career, she demonstrates that the Greek people already know as much philosophy as they need to know.