Topkapi

Geez, I can't get over all the sour comments about this film on this site. Long? Boring? These must be the feelings of MTV kids who can't focus on an image for longer than thirty seconds... For the rest of you looking for the perfect caper film, look no farther. Exotic locale... great cast... memorable score... Topkapi has it all. In my opinion, this is a far superior film to Jules Dassin's earlier Riffifi. Topkapi is glamorous, funny, exciting -- but above all, fun.

The film talks a hold-up to Turkish museum carried out by a motley group : Melina Mercouri , Maximiliam Schell , Jess Hahn , Gilles Segal . They are pursued by a chief policeman who blackmails to Peter Ustinov to get undercover in the band.

From the beginning until ending the good mood and humor is continued . The plot is very amusing and the final has got an extraordinary surprise . In the movie there are comedy , action , tongue-in-cheek , giggles and results to be very bemusing . The highlight and great climax , of course , is the heist which is developed with imposing tension and intrigue . The robbing has been imitated thousand times in European films as well as American movies (Mission impossible). This picture along with ¨Rififi¨(also by Jules Dassin) created during the 60s and forward an authentic genre .

The title of the film refers to the Topkapi palace built by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II in 1459, after the fall of the Byzantine Empire , the Ottoman sultans made their main residence in the Topkapi palace for 400 years , it became a museum in 1924 . The motion picture attained a lot of success and originated copies , rip offs and awful imitations . Actors's interpretation are excellent , Peter Ustinov is magnificent and Robert Morley is top-notch specially . Manos Hadjidakis' musical score is cheerful and enjoyable . The picture was very well directed by Jules Dassin (Melina Mercouri's husband).

The yarn will appeal to comedy enthusiasts and robbery genre fans . Rating : Above average . Well worth watching .

Jules Dassin's Topkapi was one of the lavish heist movies, set in touristy locales, that were all the vogue four decades ago. And Dassin executes the heist itself -- of an emerald-encrusted dagger from the famed museum in Istanbul -- with grace, precision and suspense. But it's a very long time coming.

Dassin seems reluctant even to start the movie, dilly-dallying with a proto-psychedelic opening sequence involving games of chance and glittering gems. Then Melina Mercouri, shot in an iridescent haze, bulldozes her way out to address the audience but fails owing to her thick-as-moussaka accent. Finally we get to the rounding up of the gang of amateurs who will pull off the caper: mastermind Maximilian Schell, Robert Morley, Peter Ustinov, Gilles Segal (as a deaf-mute gymnast), and Mercouri.

The plotting and rehearsing of the crime take up most of the movie, leaving us to be entertained by the characters, none of which is really written. So instead we get each actor's idiosyncratic bag of tricks. And while Morley and Ustinov reliably amuse us, Schell flaunts his Continental-cool duds with a smug smirk frozen on his face. Mercouri, meanwhile, vamps it up like a demented drag queen doing Joan Crawford. What little friction exists among the cast members gets played for laughs -- no subversive subplots, no separate agendas are afoot.

Dassin made his reputation directing tough, unsentimental films in the noir cycle: Brute Force, Thieves' Highway, Night and the City. When forced back to Europe by the Hollywood blacklist, he did a superior caper film, Rififi; Topkapi seems a belated attempt to recapture it. But the chilled-down, ironic style that came into fashion in the early 1960s doesn't suit his earnest talents. Topkapi remains professional and pleasant but is now looking more and more like a period piece.

Jules Dassin directed the classic hard-boiled 'Rififi' in the mid-50s. Ten years later he's at the heist genre again, but 'Topkapi' is a very different kind of movie. Gone is the realism and darkness of 'Rififi', which influenced many subsequent crime thrillers. Instead we have a good old fashioned adventure, which is quite tongue in cheek and very colourful and fun. The eclectic ensemble cast are all very good - Dassin's wife Melina Mercouri, Maximilian Schell, Robert Morley, and especially a knockout performance from Peter Ustinov, an actor I usually have little time for. The robbery sequence was "borrowed" thirty years later by Brian De Palma for 'Mission Impossible', but 'Topkapi' is the better of the two movies by far.

Topkapi is a wonderful caper film that established the genre of the light heist flick. Much copied even to this day, it was a big international hit back in '64. Marvelous international cast (Ustinov's Oscar winning performance among them), exotic settings and a great climax is pure entertainment. Ustinov, Melina Mercouri, Max Shell, Robert Morley, Akim Tamiroff (demented!) and more. What a terrific international all star cast! Exciting movie in it's day, though some of the effects are dated to the 60's. If it seems a bit slow at the beginning (by today's standards), give it a chance. The climax art museum theft scene is one of the great moments in film - don't miss it!