The Day the Fish Came Out
Encyclopedia
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
- British comedy film
Comedy film
Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...
directed and written by Michael Cacoyannis who also designed the film's costumes. The film stars Tom Courtenay
Tom Courtenay
Sir Thomas Daniel "Tom" Courtenay is an English actor who came to prominence in the early 1960s with a succession of films including The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner , Billy Liar , and Dr. Zhivago . Since the mid-1960s he has been known primarily for his work in the theatre...
, Colin Blakely
Colin Blakely
Colin George Blakely was a Northern Irish character actor. He was considered an actor of great range.-Early life:...
and Sam Wanamaker
Sam Wanamaker
Samuel Wanamaker was an American film director and actor and is credited as the person most responsible for the modern recreation of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London...
.
Plot summary
The film was inspired by an actual incident; a B-52G Stratofortress collided with a KC-135 Stratotanker over PalomaresPalomares, Almería
Palomares is an agricultural, fishing and tourist village on the Mediterranean Sea in the Almería province of Andalusia, Spain. It is about 20 meters above sea level...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
on January 17, 1966, and four B-28 FI 1.45-megaton-range nuclear bombs aboard the B-52 were briefly lost. In a title sequence shot by Maurice Binder
Maurice Binder
Maurice Binder was a film title designer best known for his work on 14 James Bond films including the first, Dr. No in 1962 and for Stanley Donen's films from 1958. He was born in New York City, USA, but mostly worked in Britain from the 1950s onwards...
, a chorus of Spanish Flamenco
Flamenco
Flamenco is a genre of music and dance which has its foundation in Andalusian music and dance and in whose evolution Andalusian Gypsies played an important part....
dancers explains why the film has moved from Spain to Greece.
Life on the remote Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
resort
Resort
A resort is a place used for relaxation or recreation, attracting visitors for holidays or vacations. Resorts are places, towns or sometimes commercial establishment operated by a single company....
island
Island
An island or isle is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, cays or keys. An island in a river or lake may be called an eyot , or holm...
of Karos is forever changed when atomic bombs are dropped there by a NATO plane rapidly losing power. Life on the island is so bleak that the inhabitants stage a mass exodus on news that Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
has opened Greenland
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
to Greek emigration. The pilots drop their payload - which includes atomic weapons, but also a mysterious package called simply "Container Q" - over land, because they are under orders not to drop at sea. The hapless pilots bail out and reach the island with no equipment or means to contact their headquarters, and only their underwear. Lacking resources, money to buy food (or pay for a long distance call to base) or even their clothes, the pilot and navigator of the lost bomber scour the island like vagabonds. Unknown to the pilots, the Americans have already deployed their own operation - a team of agents disguised as resort developers. The pilots are clueless as to the fact that American agents are also on the island searching for their cargo.
Meanwhile the island is suddenly filled with clamoring, hedonistic tourists who believe the developer is going to build the best resort in the area first. Unknown to all of them, a poor farmer and his wife find Container Q and, presuming it holds some treasure, they try to open it. Unsuccessful at first - because Container Q is virtually impregnable - the farmer eventually steals a device that sprays acid that will eat through anything. Expecting gold, the farmer and his wife instead find strange looking rocks. The Americans are eventually led back to the farmers, but not before the panicking farmers ditch Container Q into the sea, and the rocks into a cistern that provides water to the rest of the island. The contents of Q - presumably highly toxic - thus contaminate all the water used by the islands inhabitants.
By nightfall, as tourists revel, the waters surrounding Karos are dotted with the bodies of dead and dying fish. The Americans sent to recover the lost payload of the stricken jet realize that they are too late. The pilot and the navigator, having saved enough small change to call home, are shocked to be booted from the long distance phone in the post office by the American developers. Too late, the pilots realize that the developers are Americans. The revellers continue dancing wildly as a voice from a PA system vainly pleads for their attention, presumably to warn them of their imminent end.
Cast
- Tom CourtenayTom CourtenaySir Thomas Daniel "Tom" Courtenay is an English actor who came to prominence in the early 1960s with a succession of films including The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner , Billy Liar , and Dr. Zhivago . Since the mid-1960s he has been known primarily for his work in the theatre...
as The Navigator - Colin BlakelyColin BlakelyColin George Blakely was a Northern Irish character actor. He was considered an actor of great range.-Early life:...
as The Pilot - Sam WanamakerSam WanamakerSamuel Wanamaker was an American film director and actor and is credited as the person most responsible for the modern recreation of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London...
as Elias - Candice BergenCandice BergenCandice Patricia Bergen is an American actress and former fashion model.She is known for starring in two TV series, as the title character on the situation comedy Murphy Brown , for which she won five Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards; and as Shirley Schmidt on the comedy-drama Boston Legal...
as Electra Brown - Ian OgilvyIan OgilvyIan Raymond Ogilvy is an English film and television actor.-Early life:He was born in Woking, Surrey, England, the son of advertising executive Francis Ogilvy and actress Aileen Raymond .He was educated at Sunningdale School, Eton College and at the Royal Academy of...
as Peter - Dimitris NikolaidisDimitris NikolaidisDimitris Nikolaidis – January 1993 in Athens, Greece) was a Greek actor.-Career:He was born in 1922 in Asia Minor and died on January 1993. His journey of life began on a ship that headed from Constantinople to Piraeus, between them two youngsters, Eftalia and Nikos. His family that married...
as The Dentist - Nicolas Alexios as Goatherd
- Patricia Burke as Mrs. Mavroyannis
- Paris Alexander as Fred
- Arthur MitchellArthur Mitchell (dancer)Arthur Mitchell is an African-American dancer and choreographer who created a training school and the first African-American classical ballet company, Dance Theatre of Harlem...
as Frank - Marlena Carrer as Goatherd's Wife
- Tom Klunis as Mr. French
- William Berger as Man in Bed
- Kostas Papakonstantinou as Manolios
- Dora StratouDora StratouDora Stratou was a significant contributor to Greek Folk Dancing and Greek Folk Music. She issued one of the largest series of folk music in the world with 50 records and is the founder of the Greek Dances-Dora Stratou Society....
as Travel Agent - Alexander Lykourezos as Director of Tourism
- Tom Whitehead as Mike
- Walter Granecki as Base Commander
- Dimitris Ioakeimidis as Policeman
- James Connolly as Tourist
- Assi Dayan as Tourist
- Robert Killian as Tourist
- Derek Kulai as Tourist
- Alexis Mann as Tourist
- Raymond McWilliams as Tourist
- Michael Radford as Tourist
- Peter Robinson as Tourist
- Grigoris Stefanides as Tourist
- Peter Stratful as Tourist
- Kosta Timvios as Tourist
- Herbert Zeichner as Tourist