Movie review - "It Happened in Athens" (1962) **1/2

Part of Spyros Skouros' Greek kick when he was the top dog at 20th Century Fox. It's not a bad idea for a film - the story of the Greek shepherd who won the original marathon at the Olympics - but it's hurt by lack of star power. Although Fox had plenty of young contract players they picked random Trax Colton and unknowns like Maria Xenia. Don't laugh but this would've made an ideal vehicle for someone like Pat Boone - wholesome, positive, maybe some songs.

I'm guessing they did it for budget reasons. Failing that they should have had Nico Minardros play the lead and had an English or American actor play the rival.

The money did extend to cover location footage and CinemaScope... the locations are gorgeous and in colour. But it's too "foreign" - at least I think it was for English speaking audiences. The biggest American actor after Mansfield was Bob Mathias.

Story wise there's too many scenes of people watching events and it's kind of hard to care too much about the romance between Colton and Xenia. It needed a real villain or another subplot or something. Three's about thirty minutes of story here.

Mansfield is fun and looks gorgeous in her outfits, either like a doll on a wedding cake, or in some lingere. It's fun how she tries to seduce Colton - they could've had more fun with this.

The spectacle of the crowd is fun, as is the colour. And it's hard not to feel roused as Colton runs into the stadium and all the Greeks leap to their feet to celebrate. It's pleasant enough I just wish it was better.