Great comics have their tragic roles to play for us and so it was for Thanassis Vengos, the Greek cinema's most creative comedian. A little man with a rubber face who is forever involved in matters beyond his control, he became the personification of the oppressed, yet restless and wily Greek. What Did You Do in the War, Thanassis? was made at a crucial moment when the resistance against the military Junta began to take root in the national conscience. It evaded the censors by being about the German Occupation, however the viewer could not but identify with the hero as a contemporary individual, and an ironic one at that. Thanassis is a worker who is mistakenly taken for, and tortured as, a member of the factory's resistance movement. Filmed on real locations-such as an abandoned factory where such events routinely did take place-the film creates humor and meaning from remarkably economic means. It was a little film that had a big impact at the box office.