Instances of Olympiacos being written into scenarios of Greek films are well-known, including a particularly memorable movie with local stars Nikos Stavridis and Thanasis Veggos, as well as the international classic “Never on Sunday”, starring Melina Mercouri.
“O how I wished to have one and two and three and four children/
who when they grow up they’ll all become fine young men for the sake of Piraeus…» Mercouri sang.
With a cigarette in her left hand and a broad smile on her face, Ilya, as portrayed by Mercouri, lies on her bed after putting a single on the record player, as she sings «The Boys of Piraeus». What she’s looking at is none other than the… boys of Piraeus.
She’s looking at the photo of the Olympiacos football team, which she’s propped up on the turntable. This wonderful scene is part of the classic «Never on Sunday» (1960) by Jules Dassin, for which Mercouri was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role – still the only Greek actress to have such a distinction.
Melina Mercouri as «Ilya» sings «The Boys of Piraeus» as she looks at a photo of the Olympiacos team, in one of the most iconic scenes in Greek cinema. The film «Never on Sunday» has become almost synonymous with the Club.
In the same film Mercouri appears wearing an Olympiacos jersey. «Never on Sunday» eventually won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, written and composed by Manos Hadjidakis. The film was nominated for a total of five Oscars.
During its 100-year history, the Piraeus Club has been referenced in several Greek films. The storyline in «Never on Sunday» is the most memorable, even beyond Greece’s borders, as the film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and made it all the way to the Oscars.
Cannes had previously screened Michael Cacoyannis’ iconic drama «Stella», again starring Mercouri in a title role often identified with the concept of female emancipation. The protagonist can have any man she wants groveling at her feet, she could have a rich and powerful man, and yet she remains faithful to her love, an Olympiacos player by the name of Miltos, played by Giorgos Fountas.
‘Experts on the Football Field’
In 1956 Andreas Mouratis, a legendary Olympiacos player, had a starring role in a now classic film by Vassilis Georgiadis, known as ‘Experts on the Football Field’, in its international name. Mouratis and several other top Greek players at the time, such as Costas Poulis, Stathis Mantalozis, Lakis Petropoulos and Kostas Linoxylakis, recreate a real-life event that involved the national team in the 1950s.
The film draws inspiration from game between Greece and Israel in 1953, followed by the Hellenic Football Federation’s decision to expel Mouratis from national team.
Georgiadis emphasized the then cordial relations between fans who supported different teams, as well as the difficult living conditions endured by most players off the pitch, showing them as breadwinners scratching out a living on the weekdays and giving their all for their teams on Sunday afternoons.
A few years later, in 1959, Georgiadis would direct Nikos Stavridis and Thanasis Veggos in a comedy about two street tradesmen peddling their wares from a motorcycle sidecar.
Olympiacos is included in a humorous scene where Veggos picks up a loudspeaker mic and starts broadcasting a derby between the Piraeus Club and its eternal rival, Panathinaikos.
Diehard Olympiacos fan and film star Nikos Stavridis uttered several lines related to the Club in his movies. Stavridis, left, poses with top Olympiacos striker Giorgos Sideris, center, and another comedic actor, Tasos Yiannopoulos, circa 1960s.
‘Stamatis and Grigoris’
Every Olympiacos fan is aware of the love that late comedian and film actor Nikos Stavridis had for the Piraeus Club.
The «Hooray!» (Zito in Greek) he shouts in a scene of a movie by Giorgos Papakostas – «Stamatis and Grigoris» (1962), concludes with the words «…for Olympiacos».
In another film starring Stavridis, “The Referee» (1963), he plays the protagonist Menelaus, who in one scene is seen officiating an Olympiacos game. A scene of the film, directed by Filippos Filaktos, was shot at the Rizoupolis field during half-time of an actual Olympiacos game.
In the second half of the same game, Stavridis was photographed with Giorgos Sideris, Olympiacos’ top goal scorer, in the 85th minute. The photo of them lying on the grass and Stavridis embracing the player is epic.
‘Trelaras’ or ‘Madman’
Still in 1963, a clash between fans of the two eternal rivals, Olympiacos and Panathinaikos, is the backdrop of a comedic tale with Thanasis Veggos in the title role of «Trelaras (The Madman)» by director Tzanis Aliferis. Veggos plays a fanatic Panathinaikos fan, the reason why Kostas Doukas, an older diehard Olympiacos fan, dislikes him.
The problem for Veggos is that Doukas plays the father of his beloved Dina Trianti, so their clash is inevitable.
The «Hooray!» (Zito in Greek) he shouts in a scene of a movie by Giorgos Papakostas – «Stamatis and Grigoris» (1962), concludes with the words «…for Olympiacos«.
In fact, they meet by chance in the stands of the Leoforos Alexandras stadium during an Olympiacos – Panathinaikos game. When Veggos reveals his team preference by opening an umbrella featuring Panathinaikos’ three-leaf clover, Doukas will declare “war” against him. But Veggos never backs down. On the contrary, his cajoling of Doukas provides some of the funniest scenes in the film until a reconciliation comes about and they live happily ever after.
The only Olympiacos player whose name headlined in a Greek film is Yves Triantafyllos, the French-Greek forward who shined with the Piraeus side between 1971 to 1974. A year after Yves’ arrival in Piraeus, which had become a huge story in the Greek press, Kostas Karagiannis produced the film «Yves!… Yves!…» using the striker’s name in the plot. In the film, Giorgos Papazisis plays an obscure footballer who’s modeled on Yves, and who tries to restore his honor due to an unjust frame-up in a bribery case.
‘Gate 7, the fateful moment’
In the early 1980s, directors such as Nikos Foskolos and Kostas Karagiannis tried to portray the problems affecting Greek football, in films that had some impact at the time, but which are viewed as cheap exploitation films today and gratuitously vulgar.
With «Gate 7, the fateful moment», Foskolos shamelessly revisited the Gate 7 tragedy of February 8, 1981, when 21 people lost their lives in a crush after a game between Olympiacos and AEK. It’s worth noting that the film received a general release in November of that same year, even though a committee of the victims’ relatives appealed to the courts to stop the film from being screened. They branded Foskolos and producer Nikos Papadopoulos as «unscrupulous peddlers who don’t aspire to present a narrative of the events that took place on that day, but rather are intent on speculation.”
In similar low-brow fashion, the film «Hooligans: Hands off the Youth!» sees director Karagiannis naively and frivolously portraying young people being sucked into football hooliganism. The central character, a high school graduate played by Lefteris Gyftopoulos, is an Olympiacos fan.
