Topkapi (1964)

Topkapi is an American comedy thriller film first released in 1964, directed by Jules Dassin.  The film is based on a novel by Eric Ambler and stars Melina Mercouri, Peter Ustinov, Maximilian Schell, Robert Morley and Jess Hahn.  Our overall rating for this film is: very good.


Elizabeth Lipp and her lover Walter Harper plan to steal a priceless emerald-encrusted dagger from the Topkapi museum in Istabul.   To that end, Walter assembles a team which includes: Cedric Page, an expert in all things mechanical and electrical; Giulio, an acrobat; and Hans, a man of exceptional strength.  Arthur Simpson, a small-time British crook, is hired to drive a car containing the hardware for the heist to Istanbul.  At the Greek-Turkish border, Simpson is arrested when police find weaponry concealed in the car.  Believing that Simpson is working for terrorists, the police let him go on condition that he acts as their agent, reporting on the activities of his employers.   This creates a conflict of interest when Walter offers Simpson a huge sum of money if he will participate in the robbery...

Jules Dassin was on something of a roll when he made Topkapi.  Several critical and commercial successes in Europe had made him an internationally renowned film director and he was no longer regarded as an American living in exile following his Hollywood blacklisting in the early 1950s.  Ironically, Dassin’s return to the United States in the mid 1960s would mark the beginning of his decline as a filmmaker.  Topkapi, considered his most entertaining film, would be his last success.

Based on Eric Ambler’s novel, Topkapi is a comedy caper film that feels like a parody of Dassin’s 1955 crime classic Du rififi chez les hommes (1955).  It shares the meticulously staged heist set-piece of that earlier film but is much lighter in tone, with far more laughs than thrills.  Mélina Mercouri, Dassin’s wife, heads an international cast that includes such stars as Peter Ustinov and Maximilian Schell.  The film earned Ustinov the Oscar for the Best Supporting Actor in 1965, in spite of the fact that he was playing one of the leads in the film.  Buoyed up by its talented cast, inspired direction and sumptuous location, Topkapi is stylish, sensual and fun.

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