Melina Mercouri made her auspicious film debut in Stella, a central and breakthrough work of the Greek cinema. As Stella, Mercouri defines the so-called "femme fatale" in terms of a ferocious independence. Her roots may be in Carmen, but Stella's determination to experience life on her own terms renders her a rather more modern heroine. A back-street cafe singer, she abandons one lover and deserts a second at the altar. But the latter is as reckless and uncompromising as she is, with tragic results. Cacoyannis, in his first film, sets operatic extravagance in a neorealist setting, amid the squalid flats and nightclubs of Athens' working class, whose pride and vitality Stella represents. Cacoyannis brought in two leaders in the revival of the popular artistic tradition-the painter Yannis Tsarouchis, as art director, and composer Manos Hadjidakis. The film was a crucial step toward the social acceptance of the once-suppressed rembetico music.