Jules Dassin, film director, dies aged 96

By Our Foreign Staff

Last Updated: 2:18am BST 02/04/2008

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Jules Dassin, the controversial veteran film director who fled the US during the anti-communist witch-hunts of the 1950s, has died aged 96. Born in Middletown, Connecticut in 1911, he earned a reputation as an innovative director and was one of America's best young filmmakers with his early work, including the films "Brute Force" (1947) and "Naked City" (1948). But as an active Communist who never compromised on his beliefs, he was blacklisted at the height of the witch-hunts on Leftists unleashed by US Senator Joseph McCarthy.

In 1949 Dassin left the US for Europe, arriving first in London, where he filmed "Night in the City" starring the American actor Richard Widmark, who died last week. The film is now considered a landmark of the film noir genre. After moving to France, he made the 1955 film "Rififi", which is best known for a 32-minute sequence safe-cracking scene, which features no dialogue or music and was rumoured to have worried police because it was so instructive in its detail that it could have aided thieves.

In 1960, Dassin made "Never on Sunday" - a story about an American in Greece trying to save a kind-hearted prostitute. Dassin was nominated for Best Director and Best Script, but did not win, but composer Manos Hadjidakis won Best Song for his work on the film, which is considered one of the finest movies ever made in Greece.

It was during the filming that he fell in love with Melina Mercouri, the famous Greek actress, and the couple later married. They helped organise Greek resistance among expatriate politicians and artists in Paris against the Right-wing junta that ruled Greece between 1967 and 1974. After Mercouri retired from film-making she entered politics, rising to become the country's culture minister in the 1980s.

She made the return of the Elgin Marbles, which were taken from Greece in the 19th century and are now on display in the British Museum, a lifelong quest. After Mercouri's death in 1994, Dassin headed a foundation bearing her name established to secure the marbles' restitution to Greece and was awarded honorary citizenship for his efforts in 1997. He had two children from his first marriage to violinist Beatrice Launer.