Zorba the Greek (1964)
Zorba loves life, you should too.
“You’ve got everything—except madness.” That’s how Alexis Zorba (Anthony Quinn) diagnoses his boss, the bookish Basil (Alan Bates). Basil has come to the island of Crete to run his father’s mine, and en route, he meets Zorba, who gets Basil to take him along as a factotum.1 Reserved intellect meets unbridled spirit and their relationship changes them both.
On Crete, Zorba begins a romance with Madame Hortense (Lila Kedrova), an older French widow.2 Zorba’s stridently anti-marriage but Basil eventually tricks him into marrying her. She soon dies, but Zorba’s learned his lesson.
Meanwhile, Zorba finds the shy Basil a widow (Irene Papas) of his own. When they hook up, another of her suitors commits suicide and a mob murders her in retaliation. It’s not a banner day for gender politics on Crete.
On the business side, Zorba has the idea of building a grand contraption to bring lumber down to the mine. The film ends with its grand unveiling, but it completely falls apart the first time it’s used. Should Basil be mad? Maybe—or maybe he should just take a page out of Zorba’s book and dance.
Rating: 4/10. Whenever Zorba’s not on the screen, all the other characters should be saying, “where’s Zorba?”
Cast and Crew
If any actor we’ve seen in this column has a brand, it’s gotta be Anthony Quinn. That brand? “Ethnic livewire.” We’ve watched him do Mexican, French, Italian, Arab, and now Greek, and it has always felt like his characters belong in an opera for how vividly they feel their feelings—feelings of love, of hate, or of just wanting to dance.
From Quinn’s start in Hollywood in 1936 to 1947, he made over 50 movies, many of which are noteworthy.3 But it was in the 1950s and ‘60s when he started getting starring roles and when his supporting roles began receiving Oscar hardware.
SUPPORTING: He won statues for Viva Zapata! and Lust for Life, but his most renowned role might be as the clown in La Strada (1954), a film routinely considered one of the greatest ever. Quinn also gave heat-check performances in The Guns of Navarone (1961) and Lawrence of Arabia.
STARRING: He was Attila (1954). He was Barabbas (1961). He was The Magus4 (1968). We watched him lead Wild Is the Wind (1957), which wasn’t great, but perhaps he was better in Requiem for a Heavyweight5 (1962), The Shoes of the Fisherman6 (1968), and A High Wind in Jamaica (1965).
Quinn’s final film, a direct-to-video Sly Stallone action flick, came out in 2002. Jeopardy last asked about him in 2010. But you know what? Quinn burns up the screen, for better or for worse, every single time he’s on it. I’m glad we watched five of his films.
Zorba the Greek is based on a novel by Cretan author Nikos Kazantzakis (1883 – 1957). Besides that 1946 novel, he also wrote “The Last Temptation of Christ” (1955), which was notably turned into a 1988 Martin Scorsese film with Willem Dafoe as Jesus (?) and Harvey Keitel as Judas (??).7
The Trivia
Zorba the Greek takes place on Crete, the largest of the Greek islands and fifth-largest island in the Mediterranean.8 Its capital and largest city is Heraklion. Besides Nikos Kazantzakis, other famous Cretans include artist El Greco (1541 – 1614) and Jennifer Aniston’s father (1933 – 2022).
Having covered Jennifer Aniston’s father, we can move on to the Minoans, a Bronze age civilization that flourished on Crete from roughly 2000 to 1450 BC. They are sometimes considered the first civilization in Europe. We know lots about the Minoans from their extant pottery and frescoes, but what we don’t have is the key to their script: it’s called Linear A and we still haven’t cracked it (though AI is working on it).9 One of the most famous Minoan archaeological sites is the Palace of Knossos, which is just outside Heraklion.
The Minoans get their name from the mythical King Minos of Knossos. Minos is a big deal in Greek mythology, so let’s talk some of his greatest hits:
King Minos has his prisoner Daedalus construct a labyrinth for the Minotaur, his half-man half-bull stepchild10, and orders the Athenians under King Aegeus to send tributes to sacrifice to the Minotaur every nine years.
King Aegeus’ son, Theseus, volunteers to go fight the Minotaur.11 Minos’ daughter Ariadne falls in love with Theseus and gives him a ball of thread to use to not get lost in the labyrinth. Theseus successfully kills the Minotaur and escapes with Ariadne and another daughter of Minos’, Phaedra.12
The imprisoned Daedalus later crafts wings for himself and his son Icarus to escape Knossos, but that…doesn’t go so hot.
Odds and Ends
Basil hopes to produce lignite from the mine; lignite is the lowest grade of coal, with higher ones being bituminous and anthracite…Zorba plays the santouri, a Greek dulcimer…the word “cretin” etymologically has nothing to do with Crete…director Michael Cacoyannis also worked with Irene Papas on his “Greek tragedy” trilogy of films: Electra (1962), The Trojan Women (1971) and Iphigenia (1977)…we’ve seen Alan Bates in The Entertainer and we’ll see him again when he snags a Best Actor nod…“Crete” was President Garfield’s nickname for his wife Lucretia…the film invented the tradition of the Sirtaki dance, which is also called Zorba’s dance.
Also, one last thing on Anthony Quinn: he won a Tony for originating the role of King Henry II in “Becket” on Broadway. We’ll be seeing the movie adaptation of that play very soon.
A factotum is a jack-of-all-trades, someone who serves many functions for an employer. When Basil asks Zorba what he does, Zorba replies, “I got hands, feet, head. They do the jobs. Who the hell am I to choose?” It’s just one of his many folksy sayings.
Because Madame Hortense had had relations with many admirals, Zorba calls her “Bouboulina.” While sounding like a cutesy term of affection, it actually references Laskarina Bouboulina, a Greek naval commander during the Greek War of Independence that Wikipedia suggests might have been the first female admiral ever.
A taste: They Died with Their Boots On (1941), Blood and Sand (1941), The Black Swan (1942), Road to Morocco (1942), and The Ox-Bow Incident (1943). We drew the line at 1947 because that’s when Quinn briefly left Hollywood to take over for Marlon Brando in “A Streetcar Named Desire” on Broadway.
Well, Michael Caine is top-billed but Quinn’s the title character. The Magus is based on a John Fowles novel and it sounds like Zorba the Greek if Zorba was gaslighting Basil the whole time.
Requiem for a Heavyweight is an adaptation of a “Playhouse 90” drama written by Rod Serling. Cassius Clay played one of the main character’s early boxing opponents.
The Shoes of the Fisherman is about a Russian who becomes pope. It’s based on a book by Morris West.
For his jarring and odd performance, Keitel was nominated for a Razzie.
After Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and Corsica.
Unlike Linear A, Linear B, the script of the Mycenaean civilization, has been deciphered.
The Minotaur is the offspring of Minos’ wife and the Cretan Bull. That love affair happened because Poseidon sent Minos the bull, Minos didn’t sacrifice it, and Poseidon made Minos’ wife fall in love with it. Don’t ever piss off the gods.
One of Theseus’ many adventures. If you’re interested in more, might I recommend Plutarch’s “Life of Theseus”?
It doesn’t work out for either of these girls. Theseus decides to ditch Ariadne for Phaedra and strands Ariadne on an island (though she’s eventually rescued by the god Dionysus). Then Phaedra falls in love with Theseus’ son Hippolyta; when Hippolyta rebuffs Phaedra’s advances, Phaedra tells Theseus that he raped her. Theseus kills Hippolyta and Phaedra kills herself out of grief.
"A High Wind in Jamaica" (which, incidentally, featuring a young Martin Amis before he became a novelist) was based on a novel that viciously deconstructed children's adventure stories. The plot summary suggests that it's not really a "children's film."