The film "Milo Milo" was my second attempt to return to Greece. When I told my friend Joe Hembus that I was thinking of shooting a movie on the island of Milos he tried to dissuade me. Statistically, he said, films shot on islands are artistic and commercial failures. He even named some of these flops, but I countered with "Zorba" and "The Guns of Navarone". In the end statistics won the argument.

I started writing the script with Vassilis Alexakis as a satire, before Mathias Seelig joined the team, a hot name then in German dramaturgy. When the scenario grew too long, we asked Veith von Fürstenberg to edit it down, and finally I went to Milos with Christopher Doherty to rewrite the final script in English.

A co-production put together with tax refunds, bonuses, money awards, and television, government and foreign participation requires delicate balances. Our first problem was that the Salt Pit Directorate of the Ministry of Industry, to which the cinema belonged in 1979, could not find the circular of a recent law with favorable terms for foreign co-productions, and our would-be co-producer retired.

The second setback was the negative response of Thanasis Veggos – a very popular actor – whom we had proposed for the role of Thanasis, and indeed had written the part to fit him like a glove. My experienced Greek associates had warned me that Veggos would never agree to play a cuckold. The third blow came from the producing country. For the role of the German archaeologist Barbara, I had found in Rome a young completely unknown model with a Teutonic name and look. I had seen her on some of Joe's slides when he was writing promotional copy for the new King Kong re-make. Before I could call her agent, my co-producers asked me to cast a well-known, beautiful, German, model and actress since Barbara was the only national presence in the movie. So we ended up with beautiful and famous Veruschka von Lehndorff, who had already played in four films. The fact that her father had been executed for his participation in the failed bomb attempt on Hitler made her particularly attractive.

The coffeehouse owner Thanasis was played by Mario Adorf, who finally agreed to do it to repay me for coaching him for the role of the Greek hotelier in Billy Wilder's 'Fedora'. Wilder had appreciated the laminated plastic ID card and the ink stain on the pocket of the translucent short-sleeved shirt that Mario wore for the role.

Andréa, Andreas and Julien came from Paris to reinforce the multinational troupe. More about this in SCRIBBLES and ASIDES.