Wordiezett So much average

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Vijay Kumar Since the museum's floor is completely pressure-alarmed how come it did not trigger when the glass case was lifted!!! Brilliant movie otherwise, ending needs time to digest. Great - Locations Music Editing Photography & Peter Ustinov 10/10.Quite a feat for the sixties and the bold attempt with robbery as the focus fantastic.Scenes from this movie copied all over but not with the same result.The cook also performed well,albeit a bit over acted in some parts.All characters well chosen and screenplay and dialogues top class.The editor is the real winner here because of the tension that s generated in the final scenes.Definite watch for all who like a solid performance with lot of location and humour.

robert-temple-1 Jules Dassin directed this film, starring his wife Melina Mercouri, supported by Peter Ustinov and Maximillian Schell, who were all big names in those days. The film was very successful when it came out. But seeing it now, it is a shoddy piece of work. Melina Mercouri's talents, which were very great, were misused and largely wasted. She plays a woman who is obsessed with stealing an Ottoman sultan's dagger inlaid with huge emeralds which is on display to the public at Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, but under the most stringent security. Although there are some wonderful shots of Istanbul as it was in the 1960s (alas, how many of those old wooden Ottoman houses have been pulled down!), the story is nonsensical and the film is mostly devoted to the procedures of the theft, how to get into Topkapi, how to evade detection, and all that usual sort of thing which is so hackneyed and ultimately so boring. (OK, so they nearly fall off the roof several times and it is all very tense, but frankly, who cares.) Schell has little acting to do, and so doesn't. The only saving grace of this film, apart from the location shots, is the wonderfully funny performance by Peter Ustinov, who really did a most superb job. I suppose the film is worth watching just to see that.

lasttimeisaw My second Jules Dassin's film after NIGHT AND THE CITY (1950, 7/10), and out of my expectation it's an exotic Turkish heist adventurer with a blithe tone and meticulous detail- solidification with regard to the theft action.The film starts with a tawdry but foxy Melina Mercouri (Dassin's muse and future wife) enigmatically introducing her craving to steal the most precious jewelled dagger from Topkapi museum, her kitschy costume and the settings are antiquated enough to divert the film into a burlesque frivolousness, but when her entire team assembles (including the male-counterpart mastermind Maximilian Schell), with an additional interlope, a small-con "schmo" (the Oscar- winning Peter Ustinov), the film regains its vigour and flair in its strongest form to manoeuvre a seamless treasure-replacement theft, benchmarks an exemplar of its genre which haven't been overshadowed since then, the escape strategy during a Turkish old-wrestling (Kırkpınar) pageantry is no less pleasant to watch against the trickery's predictability, and far more thrilling is the actual stunts which thoroughly generate a gravitating magnetism on the screen lest as little as one needle's dropping would scupper the plan. But the pathos-bathos irrefutably comes in the end, in the public media, where no one should dare wrote an ode to theft, no matter how benevolent those convicts are in person, thus the finale has to be a received compromise which still is in line with the filmic light-hearted air. Ustinov, is so congenital and always oozes a screen-friendly affability and warmth in his presence, whose second Oscar win of a borderline supporting role is well-earned by lifting the entertainment-heavy film onto a stratum of character-engaging experience. An appearance combo of Debra Messing and Anne Bancroft, the nymphomaniac Melina Mercouri stands still as the shallow and narrow-written role of an anti-femme fatale brain, and a gorgeous Maximilian Schell is shamefully eclipsed by his chubby sidekick, whose circumscribed performance nevertheless at least arouse my curiosity to delve into his filmography a bit deeper.

dougdoepke I hope they paid Ustinov by the bucket load. Because he sweats more than any human should be allowed. It's tongue-in-cheek the whole way as a motley gang of thieves steals some big Turkish jewels. No doubt about it, the cast is having fun, especially Mercouri who mugs it up as the gang's, uh, girlfriend. But why shouldn't they be enjoying it. Here they are in scenic Greece and Turkey, no doubt on an expense account, and with all these assorted European types to entertain one another. Looks to me like director Dassin is redoing his classic Rififi (1955), but this time for chuckles. Still, the heist's a real nail-biter, getting across the rooftops of downtown Istanbul or hanging spider-like from a domed ceiling. As I recall, the movie caper was a smash hit back in '64, and still holds up pretty darn well. Just don't let any of that sweat get on you.