Zorba the Greek (1964)

How did I miss this? I loved the book when I read it 25 years ago, yet I never sought out the movie.
If ever the abundance of life force in man has been poured forth on the screen, it is done in the brilliant performance given by Anthony Quinn in the title role of the film that Michael Cacoyannis has made from Nikos Kazantzakis's classic novel, "Zorba, the Greek." Anthony Quinn delivers one bold portrayal of a rugged and weather-worn old Greek of uncertain age and origin, indefinite station and career, but of unmistakable self-possession and human authority. He presents us with a picture of man as he might be in the world were not so much with us and civilization had not forced us into molds.
His Zorba possesses all the energies and urges of the great ones of history and myth. He is Adam in the Garden of Eden, Odysseus on the windy plains of Troy, and you want to know him. Immediately. Love for all kindly fellow mortals surges in his breast. Hate and contempt for the mean ones flame in him like a roaring fire. Lust seizes him without resistance. Pathos moves him to tears. When the pressures pile up too much within him—either of joy or of sorrow—he must dance.
The viewer is likely to be staggered and appalled all the way through the film at the wildly ingenious, conceptions and attitudes of the old Greek. His greedy and gallant courtship of an ancient French courtesan who to a cheap little island hotel maintains her memories of conquests; his mad and irreverent maneuver to terrify a monastery full of monks into letting him cut a stand of tall trees off their isolated hillside to provide timbers for shoring up the mine; his spendthrift foray into a brothel and dalliance with a young prostitute—these are grand scale adventures of Zorba that the viewer will not forget.
So large and fantastic is the character that he all but overwhelms the total scene and tends to flatten, whatever personal conflicts and dramatic crises occur.
There are incidents when the meanness and ignorance of the people of Crete surge up like a flow of molten lava to confront Zorba's cheerfulness and strength. One is when the fierce and angry people rise up in vengeance to destroy a lonely widow who has dared bestow her favor on Zorba's timid friend. The other is when the old women—the old ghouls—strip bare the room. and then the house in which Zorba's aged mistress has just died in his comforting arms.
If there is a the weakness of the picture—as a dramatic exercise, that is. It lacks a significant conflict to prove its dominant character. Zorba is powerful and provocative, but nobody gets in his way. Nothing provides competition, except mob rule for a moment—and the hand of death. This classic is a must see.