Solzhenitsyn’s alleged words “they lie to us, we know they are lying and they know we know that they are lying” is usually applied to the world of politics and situations like mainstream media trying to convince the world that Joe Biden actually runs the US government. But similar examples can be found in the world of cinema, such as the way in which the producers of The Greek Tycoon, a 1978 melodrama directed by J. Lee Thompson, vehemently claimed that its content was purely fiction and had no relation to real events or personalities.
The protagonist, played by Anthony Quinn, is Theo Thomassis, a Greek shipowner who, despite humble origins and a lack of formal education, built a business empire that includes oil tankers and airlines. He gained enormous wealth that allows him to own entire islands, but his private life is far from perfect – his son Nico (played by Edward Albert) is more interested in piloting than the family business, while his wife Simi (played by Camilla Sparv) wants to divorce him, which isn’t that surprising since Theo is having a widely publicised affair with Italian singer Sophia Matalas (played by Marilù Tono). During one of the lavish parties held on his yacht, he meets James Cassidy (played by James Franciscus), an ambitious and promising US senator, and his beautiful wife Liz (played by Jacqueline Bisset). He befriends the couple, which proves useful when Cassidy becomes US President. When Liz loses a baby, she is sent to Greece to recuperate emotionally – an opportunity that Theo will use to woo her. President Cassidy is assassinated, and Liz, after a few years, grows tired of being a grieving widow and ultimately decides to marry Theo.
Unlike younger audiences, Baby Boomers and older generations of viewers won’t have any problem recognising the two main characters of The Greek Tycoon as stand-ins for Aristoteles Onassis and Jacqueline Bouvier-Kennedy, two personalities whose lives in the late 1960s and early 1970s represented a real-life equivalent of a soap opera set in the world of the rich, famous and powerful. The scriptwriters went even further: almost every character and every event were based on their real-life equivalents, which might explain why critics greeted this film with deep hostility, branding it as “exploitative”. The audience’s dislike was even greater, because many of them were reminded of the fairy-tale world of JFK’s Camelot being brutally extinguished a decade and a half ago, only to receive a humiliating epilogue in the form of the martyred president’s widow ending up in the arms of an old, ugly and filthy rich Greek tycoon.
From today’s perspective, less burdened with fresh historical traumas, The Greek Tycoon is not that bad. While those who know history might find the retelling of real events mildly entertaining, the script, which meanders between “soapish” melodrama and a blandness similar to US television biopics, is uninspiring but serves its purpose. J. Lee Thompson tries to compensate for the script’s flaws with high production values that are reflected in many scenes featuring yachts, luxurious mansions and as many attractive Greek locations as possible. Thompson, who had put some of those locations to good use in the war classic Guns of Navarone, uses every opportunity to fill those scenes with attractive young women wearing bikinis, and there is also a relatively long scene featuring nudity. It is ultimately Quinn in the title role who carries the film over the water, doing his best to portray Onassis/Thomassis as a man whose crassness (manifested in unusually strong language) hides both a strong passion for life and deep personal vulnerabilities. Quinn succeeds not only in making his character sympathetic but also creates a certain chemistry with Bisset in her thankless role. For that reason, The Greek Tycoon is much better than its bad reputation might indicate.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
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