1964 Directed by Jules Dassin
Arthur Simon Simpson is a small-time crook biding his time in Greece. One of his potential victims turns out to be a gentleman thief planning to steal the emerald-encrusted dagger of the Mehmed II from Istanbul's Topkapi Museum.
A Topkapi kincse, Топкапи
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Kaleidoscopic, spinning wheels, Éntekhno (orchestral Greek folk) music, "It can be done; it can be done!" Peter Ustinov, small time crook caught up in a big-time caper. Are you strong enough? Pull the loveseat toward you with the rope. Try not to think of Melina Mercouri, curled up like a cat, purring, hungry huge Cheshire smile, eyes full of promises, as you pull her closer. And then there's Robert Morley, surrounded by his mechanical toys, his parrot that remembers. And all around, Istanbul, city of a thousand minarets. Lose the cops at the Turkish wrestling match, as they watch engrossed in the spectacle of these half naked strong men wetly oiled and grappling each other. On the rooftop of Topkapi…
A feel-good heist movie? Yes, and a certified classic to boot. Not much unlike Rufufú, the joyfully goofy Italian parody of his own Rififi, director Jules Dassin makes a comedy out of the story of a couple of relentless professionals (Melina Mercouri and Maximilian Schell) who plan to rob a national treasure inside an extremely secured museum in Istambul.
However, Dassin doesn't make fun of either the antiheroes, so well delineated and performed that the audience can't help to like them almost right away, nor the plot, which is plenty of edge-of-your-seat suspense and demonstrates the very best skills in both the execution of the larceny and the make-believe recreation of this thrilling kind of scenarios. The staging is gritty…
Energy is everything.
Whenever I watch a film like Topkapi I am expectantly waiting for it to take over my reality and immerse me in this other, carefree reality we need to go to sometimes. This usually only works when the film carries with it the kind of energy that resonates with its audience. And this is the very thing that makes Topkapi so wonderful.
With an almost anarchic opening, Dassin has his female hero break the fourth wall in a caleidoscopical piece of exposition that shouldn't work, but does. It sets the tone, we will be watching a carefree crime romp.
And that's exactly what this is, but by branding it just that we still do it a disservice…
A fun little caper film with Peter Ustinov and Robert Morley. This is Ustinov's film. He was slated to play Inspector Jacques Clouseau, and I can see why from this. It's not outrageous, but it is funny even though some scenes seem to go on much too long. And Robert Morley isn't given enough to do.
Some folks gather in Istanbul to steal a jewel-encrusted dagger. Ustinov gets drug into the plot unwittingly. He drives their car across the border where they find weapons and he ends up a double agent so to speak.
There's also some giant wrestling match where a bunch of guys cover themselves in olive oil or something and then wrestle each other till there is just one man standing. Some of you may like that.
One of the finest heist sequences ever put on film, plastered at the end of a long, mediocre movie, and gosh, I will never tire of seeing lush Mediterranean location Technicolor footage in films. As ideas for heist films go, this is a belter and it is part of what attracted me to the film in the first place. It's often fun and it's suspenseful as well. The acting is outrageously hammy but it fits neatly (Schell and Ustinov are highly entertaining, Melina Mercouri is awful) into the general atmosphere, which is almost always excessive: the music, the performances, the flamboyant tourist attractions, the stunts, the ridiculous opening and ending, the jokes, the impossible caper itself.
This movie has everything: psychedelic montages, oiled-up Turkish wrestling, nymphomaniacs, emerald heists, belly dancers, lonely lighthouse keepers, mute acrobatics, mechanical parrots, and Robert Morley’s eyebrows. Not to mention the DNA of Ocean's Eleven and the inspiration for Tom Cruise’s ceiling-suspended CIA break in from Mission: Impossible.
Stupid me had no idea until after watching it that this was directed by Jules Dassin, director of Rififi and father of the modern heist film. If you can make it past the weird (very ‘60s) opening and the pretty terrible direct address monologue by Melina Mercouri, this is a delightful technicolor caper with a light touch. A well-deserved best supporting actor Oscar for Peter Ustinov.
Jules Dassin's comic caper movie stars his soon to be real life wife Melina Mercouri as a thief who assembles a crew to carry out a daring theft from Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. Her crew consists of former lover Maximilion Schell, eccentric mechanically minded toymaker Robert Morley, acrobatic mute Gilles Ségal, strongman Jess Hahn and English hustler Peter Ustinov. As with any caper things don't always go to plan.
The BBC IPLAYER regularly has this great film on and I tend to stick it on if I spot it. Really good fun, with Ustinov deservedly picking up an Oscar for his wonderful comedy turn as a small time hustler who becomes embroiled in the plot. One of my favourite movie scenes is Schell, Ustinov and Segal dashing and scrambling across the rooftops of the Topkapi Palace, with the stunning backdrop of Istanbul, it looks amazing and dangerous.
A real favourite.
This movie has so much going on but is all so much playful fun. It winks and plays coquettish with the audience all the while giving you the drama and intrigue of a solid caper. This thing really delivers on a lot of strong plot devices like team building, location and action. So many great performances from the great Peter Ustinov, Maximilian Schell, but I just love Melina Mercouri's portrayal as Elizabeth Lipp. Honestly I find this movie has so many smart moments in it that the faults I do see are probably clever articulations left to make you ruminate and unfurl in further viewing making it an even better movie. Mr. Dassin is a great director worthy of more accolades.
Cedric Page "I'm being a lighthouse"
Topkapi is among the highlights of the '60s caper-comedy boom, which also produced Charade, Gambit, Arabesque and How to Steal a Million. Helmed by Jules Dassin, the French filmmaker behind heist movie blueprint Rififi (with its legendary silent central set-piece - all 20 minutes of it), it's clever, stylistically showy and deliciously tongue-in-cheek. Maximillian Schell is the criminal mastermind who recruits a team of amateurs as he plots to steal a priceless emerald-studded dagger from an Istanbul museum. He's nicking it for Melina Mercouri, his nymphomaniac former lover, whose fondness for men is exceeded only by that passion for jewels.
Schell's protegees include alarms expert Robert Morley, strongman Jess Hahn and human fly Gilles Segal, while whimpering, half-Egyptian tour guide…
Yes, I watched another Peter Ustinov movie. They call it OBSESSIVE compulsive disorder for a reason. Mind your business.
Scattered thoughts:
-Melina Mercouri is amazing. That voice! She looks and sounds like she just stepped out of an all female remake of The Ladykillers.
-Usually I don't love heist movies but I think this heist movie worked for me because the heist is on a back burner the majority of the time. The film's main concern is introducing its characters and fleshing them out (it gives each character, particularly Elizabeth, Arthur, and Walter, development and quirks, so it doesn't spread itself too thin in character work like the Ocean's 11 movies do). Then the film is concerned with making the…
used yesterday's hubbub as an opportunity to revisit Dassin's *other* heist movie, a Technicolor confection as light and sweet as cotton candy. that it is, incidentally, set in Turkey, also makes it topical, but obviously in a far less silly way. anyway, what I noticed this time around is that the movie doesn't just anticipate Mission Impossible in its central stunt, but also was probably as influential on Soderbergh's Ocean 11 as the original Ocean's 11 was.
among the many endearing things about Topkapi (the way it innocently revels in its exotic setting; the psychedelic, 4th-wall-breaking opening scene; Ustinov's bumbling small-time crook; Maximilian Schell's formidable chin; the way it lets its characters out of a narrative trapdoor at the end because it's fun) is how Dassin casts his wife as a casually sensual siren who men are mesmerized by. he was clearly deeply in love with her and figured everyone else must be too.
Sly and sparkling heist exercise from Jules Dassin, once again establishing templates of the genre for decades to come after having done so already, rather less whimsically, in 1955's comparably enduring classic "Rififi". Perky Melina Mercouri eyes a priceless jeweled dagger and recruits ex-boyfriend/master thief Maximilian Schell to steal it from the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. With the merry confidence of seasoned pros who are only in it for the fun, they set about assembling a small team which eventually includes petty con man Peter Ustinov, while evading the attention of authorities who are secretly using Ustinov to gather intel on the operation. Hijinks ensue!
Smart, smooth, sexy, funny, directed with swanky elegance and playful revelry, and superbly cast, this…
