It Happened in Athens

It Happened in Athens (1962)

When Jayne Becomes the Olympic Prize...It's An Outdoor Variation on an Inside Sport!

In 1896 it is announced that the Olympic Games will be revived in Athens. A young shepherd, Spiridon Loues, decides to enter the 26-mile marathon. Once in Athens, he meets Christina Gratsos, a young woman from his hometown who is now the personal maid of Eleni Costa, Greece's most glamorous actress. Though he has arrived after the qualification date, Spiridon's athletic prowess so impresses Coach Graham of the American team that he is permitted to enter the contest. Eleni informs the press that she will marry the victor, confident it will be her lover, Lieutenant Vinardos.

Date of release
1962-06-20
TMDB
5.5 / 10 (9)
Runtime
1h 40m
Genres
Comedy, Drama
Director
Andrew Marton

Casting

Interesting facts

It Happened in Athens is a 1962 American sports comedy-drama film released by 20th Century-Fox. It is directed by Andrew Marton and features Jayne Mansfield, newcomer Trax Colton, Maria Xénia, Nico Minardos, Roger Browne in his debut, and Olympic champion Bob Mathias.

Production

The project was originally announced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1951 from a story by Laslo Vadney which had been turned into a script by Everett Freeman. Sidney Sheldon was to produce with Ricardo Montalbán, John Hodiak or Fernando Lamas to star. It was intended to film in Greece. MGM eventually decided not to proceed with the film.

In 1960, it was announced 20th Century-Fox had purchased the script from MGM and were going to make it, with Robert Wagner mentioned as a possible star. The title was now And Seven From America, with the plot revolving around seven Americans who helped Spyridon Louis win the marathon. At one stage the film would be known as Winged Victory in Athens.

The film was done under the API banner via producer Robert L. Lippert. API produced low-budget films for Fox, although the budget for It Happened In Athens would be higher than most API productions. At one stage Dean Stockwell was announced in the cast. In the earliest stages, Juliet Prowse was considered a possible contender for the female lead, but Fox decided to go with Jayne Mansfield instead.

Filming commenced in October 1960 in Greece. It would end up being Mansfield's last film with Fox before her career setback to low-budget British and European melodramas and comedies. Newcomer Trax Colton was given the lead role of Spyridon. He had been discovered in a drug store and only made one film beforehand – a brief appearance in the 1961 film version of The Marriage-Go-Round.

Although thought of as one of Mansfield's later low-budget films, It Happened in Athens was given a substantial budget and was shot in DeLuxe Color and CinemaScope. The end of the final race in the stadium was shot on October 23, 1960 with over 50,000 extras. When principal photography was completed in late 1960, the film was shelved for almost two years.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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