THE MAN WITH THE CARNATION

The Civil War is over, and one of the many left-wing resistance fighters forced into exile, Nikos Beloyannis, the man with the disarming smile and the carnation, a former captain in ELAS, returns to his homeland. Using the code name "Kostas", he goes into hiding at the home of a fellow comrade and establishes contact with Nikos Ploumpidis, along with other members of the underground Communist Party. The Plastiras government, seeking to consolidate peace and support the country's reconstruction, adopts a relatively lenient stance toward the communists. The military and the intelligence services, however, determined to undermine the government, fabricate a "communist conspiracy" and give extensive publicity to the arrest of Beloyannis, his partner Elli Ioannidou, and several other members of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). During its original release in the 1980-81 season, the film sold 618,533 tickets in its first theatrical run and it was the best-selling film of the year.