Pote tin Kyriaki
In Piraeus, the port city of Athens, Greece, a free-spirited woman named Ilya (Melina Mercouri) is the most popular with all the men because she is a prostitute who isn't only interested in the highest-paying client.She never sets a price, and she must like the man before she will go with him. A young philosophical intellectual Homer Thrace (Jules Dassin) arrives from America in search of the truth behind the fall of the greatness of ancient Greece when Plato and Aristotle lived. He is introduced to Ilya by his friend the Captain (Mitsos Ligizos) in the local taverna as she meets and dances with her male friends/clients. Homer is immediately smitten by Ilya and her spirit and - when he sees her leave with an English sailor after negotiating a price for the evening - equally horrified by her lifestyle. There is also a subplot regarding the other prostitutes, who admire Ilya for her freedom; however a local pimp named No Face (Alexis Salomos) keeps the women in high-priced apartments and isolated so they don't "get ideas".Homer can't accept Ilya's earthy feel-good philosophy, particularly when he finds that she has made up her own happy endings for the classical Greek tragedies, and refuses to accept the real plots even when she sees them performed at the annual festival. "A whore can't be happy, a whorish world can't be happy!" Homer exclaims. He believes that if he can show Ilya the cultural side of living for two weeks she will leave prostitution for a better life. Since Ilya cannot go for two weeks without a steady income, Homer pays her handsomely in return for her agreement to study the great art and philosophy of the world.She agrees partly because she is beginning to fall for one of her clients, a handsome half-Italian named Tonio (Giorgos Foundas) who is sincerely in love with her. Little does she know that No Face offers Homer a large amount of money to complete his task. The two weeks is a long affair in which Ilya endures her agreement to study instead of her regular activity, especially missing her Sundays when she has traditionally kept Open House for all her friends. Then her friend Despo (Despo Diamantidou), a prostitute who lives in one of No Face's apartments, discovers the source of Homer's educational fund and tells Ilya, and the experiment is over. Ilya furiously turns on Homer, then leads the other girls in a united revolt just as the Navy fleet comes into port; they blockade themselves inside the apartment block and throw mattresses and bedding down onto the heads of the frustrated sailors. They're jailed, and No Face's attorney arrives to bargain with them. The women hold the cards, and a satisfactory agreement is reached.Ilya returns to the taverna, where Homer has created a crisis by telling Taki, the virtuoso bouzouki player, that he's not a true musician because he can't read music. Taki has locked himself in the bathroom, but on the suggestion of one of the others, Ilya asks him through the door if the birds can read music. If they can't, should they stop singing? Taki comes out, happy to play again, and everyone joins in joyful dancing. Homer, a little drunk, admits to Ilya in front of all the others that he's wanted her since the first time he saw her. "Oh, Homer, why didn't you say?" she wonders. But Tonio intervenes. Sweeping her up in his arms, he cries, "It's too late!" and carries her out into the night. The Captain tells Homer that with love, anything is possible. Soon Homer, sadder but much wiser, is leaving for home. His ship pulls away from the pier, and he watches as Ilya and her friends dive into the water and wave a farewell, just as they'd greeted him at the beginning of the film.
romantic