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If you didn't see his name onscreen you'd never peg this early American Independent feature for a Radley Metzger film. This tale of a brooding Greek sailor (Athan Karras) who jumps a shipmate then jumps ship to New York to satisfy a personal vendetta looks more like the loose, street-shot cinema of Morris Engel (
The Little Fugitive,
Lovers and Lollipops) than the erotic romps Metzger became famous for. The sailor's plans seems to become temporarily derailed when he meets a nice Greek-American girl (Jeanne Jerrems), whose mix of politeness and forwardness disarms the tradition-bound Karras and he becomes torn between his mission and the possibilities of a relationship in the New World. Metzger and his collaborator William Kyriakis play with the contrasts between dour, humorless Karras, whose Old World values are spinning in the "permissive" social landscape of modern America, and the modern Jerrems. Some of the performances are inexpressive or clumsy and the story at times seems slight, but the location shooting and easy pace create a vivid world of the Greek-American community in New York City that gives life to the drama.
--Sean Axmaker
