I was curious about It Happened In Athens because it featured a storyline concerning the first Olympic marathon held in 1896. That race was won by Louis Spiridon who is the main character in this film. At the end of the film it claims that it is not a biography about Spiridon. Like the movie Spiridon, the real Spiridon came from a humble background. According to the book 26.2 Marathon stories by Katherine Switzer and Roger Robinson Spiridon attained his running prowess because his family had a water transporting business and he would run alongside the cart each day racking up 8 to 16 miles. Unlike the movie Spiridon, the real Spiridon participated in the Greek Olympic trials where he finished 5th out of 38 starters. The actual Olympic race would feature 17 runners and 13 of them were Greek and they had more experience in long distant running than most of the other countries who for the most part featured middle distant runners. These middle distant runners tended to go out too fast and fade during the race which is how it is portrayed in the movie. There is an Irish runner who is shown to imbibe during the race in an apparent attempt at levity via the reinforcement of a tired stereotype. The real Spiridon actually stopped at mile 13 and tipped a glass of wine and announced to the crowd that he would win. In the movie there is a sign at the starting line that reads: 42 kilometers to Athens which is close to the current marathon distance of 26.2 miles. However, at the first modern Olympic marathon the distance was 40 kilometers or 25 miles. Spiridon's real-life girlfriend's cheered him on at mile 23 and her name was Eleni, which is the name of the Jane Mansfield character in It Happened In Athens. If she was half as cute as Xenia Kalogeropoulou who played his girlfriend in the movie, he was one lucky marathoner. Spiridon finished with a time of 2:58:50 (the current world record for men is 2 hours 3 minutes and 38 seconds) and as seen in the movie his victory was an immensely joyful occasion for the Greek people.
Review of It Happened in Athens
