From Reuters:

Jules Dassin, the American who directed the film "Never on Sunday" and was married to the late Greek actress and culture minister Melina Mercouri, died in an Athens hospital after a short illness on Monday aged 96.

It was great hearing from Dassin on those recent Criterion discs. His death at 96 can hardly be called unexpected but it's sad news nonetheless. What a life. What a career. What a guy.

And he directed Richard Widmark in NIGHT AND THE CITY.

He also directed NAKED CITY (1948) and the great prison noir, BRUTE FORCE (1947), which I highly recommend. He was blacklisted after NIGHT AND THE CITY and left for Europe and RIFIFI thereafter.

I managed to see two of his films in Bronx neighborhood theaters when they came out, UP TIGHT (1968) and PROMISE AT DAWN (1970). Dassin lived for a while in the Bronx when he was growing up.

UP TIGHT was on a double bill with the recently discussed SKIDOO by Otto Preminger. I'm still astounded that I was attending a Dassin/Preminger double bill at a neighborhood theater in 1968.

I was three when you attended that double bill, Brian. :) And Dassin, age 56, still had miles to go.

I'm depressed. My blog is like a series of tombstones these days as these great talents pass. Pleased to report that memorable NIGHT AND THE CITY co-star Googie Withers is still with us at age 91. I'm not enamored with Dassin's Greek-period films, but those b/w noirs and suspense pictures are tip-top, and his Criterion contributions invaluable. RIP indeed to a scrappy survivor.

THIEVES' HIGHWAY is another great Noir.

I consider NAKED CITY, NIGHT AND THE CITY and RIFIFI Dassin's New York-London-Paris Noir trilogy.

NIGHT AND THE CITY is my favorite Dassin film, my favorite Widmark film and probably my favorite Noir.

RIP Jules

They don't make 'em like you anymore.

Brian, any recollections about UP TIGHT! ? The cast and plot summary cry 'cult film!'

I've never seen anything by Dassin post-TOPKAPI, for that matter. Highlights of his later years, anyone?

I don't know, I'm afraid SKIDOO may actually hold up better! :o
I don't think I've seen UP TIGHT since then, maybe on TV in the early 1970s but I'm not sure. It was pretty ponderous. A lot of serious black actors (Raymond St. Jacques, Ruby Dee, etc.) playing earnest "militants" sitting around passing judgment on the poor informer played by novelist Julian Mayfield. (It's an update of "The Informer" which was set in Ireland during "the troubles.") And there's this whole amusement park scene where the protagonist taunts some gullible white people with a comic fantasy about the tables being turned on white people one day and the characters are all reflected in funhouse mirrors. My older brother was impressed by this "symbolism" at the time, but it's the kind of scene that would probably be laughed at today. My brother also ruled that SKIDOO was the worst film he'd ever seen, so what does he know? (He claims not to recall any of this today.)

But UP TIGHT had a good score by Booker T and the MG's.

Those post-TOPKAPI films are difficult to find. The one that got some attention was A DREAM OF PASSION, with Mercouri as an actress playing Medea and Ellen Burstyn as a woman who had killed her children. It's in the Avco Embassy vault somewhere.

I have seen his final picture, 1980's CIRCLE OF TWO, with Tatum O'Neal pitching woo at artist Richard Burton. A recipe for defeat. I wish he could have been enticed to make more thrillers.

His 1941 short film of THE TELL-TALE HEART, a perennial on TCM when it has about 20 minutes to fill, is outstanding, too.

Thanks, both of you, for filling in the details. I remember now that I did see CIRCLE OF TWO...but buried it deep in that graveyard filled with other late films of Richard Burton. Probably no need to disinter/'revive' it.

I second the vote for THIEVES HIGHWAY. Dassin does very well with excellent material by A.I. Bezzerides, and the cast can't be beat.

. . . one of these called 10:30 PM SUMMER (1966) with Melina Mercouri, Romy Schneider and Peter Finch turned up on DVD last year - I am yet to watch it . . . also last year, we got his 1942 Joan Crawford/John Wayne vehicle REUNION IN FRANCE - this one has Crawford as a rich Parisian who looses her home to the Nazi invaders and must live in the basement servents quarters (the horrors of Nazism are now understood by Ms. Crawford); she soon meets fugitive RAF pilot John Wayne (well, he is actually an American in the RAF) and hides him from the Gestapo - OK, not your typical Dassin film, but sort of fun . . .

10:30PM SUMMER is a pretty strange and overwrought arthouse melodrama; I'm not really sure I want to shell out for the DVD just to see it again, though I'd like to give it another look. CIRCLE OF TWO is perfect late-night TV fare ;)

UP TIGHT! is being screened on July 6 and July 8 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, both shows at 4:30. Ruby Dee will be attending Sunday's show.

. . . it was pretty nice that at least one of those directors who did such excellent work in the 40s - 50s actually had this thoughts recorded regarding his movies . . sad news of his passing, but he certainly left us some great films . . .

A few thoughts on UPTIGHT.