Best movie of this year hands down!

Simply A Masterpiece

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

This film involves a collection of rogues who set out to steal a fabulous jewel encrusted dagger from an Istanbul museum, protected by an "Indiana Jones" style nest of security features and traps, not knowing they are being watched by Turkish undercover agents mistakenly believing them to be terrorists.Filmed on location in Turkey and Paris, this film is a droll sparkling delight, a skillful blending of humor and suspense, with a touch of the exotic, making, at times, magnificent use of Istanbul for its scenic backdrop. Unlike the same director's most famous heist film, the legendary Rififi, Topkapi is light hearted in tone, but its big heist sequence is genuinely ingenious and suspenseful.Aside from the film's physical attractiveness with its color photography, much of its appeal lies with its cast of players, headed by Maximilian Schell as the mastermind behind the robbery, Melina Mercouri, Robert Morley, a spectacularly bizarre and slovenly Akim Tamiroff and, above all, Peter Ustinov as a small time hustler who becomes involved in the scheme. Ustinov's delightfully bumbling everyman (called a "schmo" by Schell when first spotting him) won him his second Academy Award as best supporting actor.

Topkapi is one of those movies in which it is fun to look in the background at the colourful array of gadgets and gizmos. The film's sets are a thing of beauty, full of beautiful, understated colours. This is the kind of movie to watch to watch on a hot summer's day, or to escape the winter blues. The movie was filmed on location and acts like a time capsules for 1960's Turkey and Greece, and capturing in a documentary like for the nitty, gritty street corners of Istanbul.The production code was all but gone in 1964, thus the movie is able to explain and able to show in detail how they are able to commit their crime with explanations of the security system in place and how to bypass them, as well as their undercover scheme and the heist plan; I just delight in that kind of exposition. There were the days before security cameras, therefore they aren't an obstacle to get around. I also imagine they probably could have chosen to have the criminals get away scot free if they had desired. Peter Ustinov steals the show, in one of those performances which brings me levels of respect towards an actor playing a lovable sucker and the most unconvincing conman who can't fool anyone to save his life. Oh the other hand I've heard reviewers criticise the casting of a 44 year old Melina Mercouri as a flirt who is not very attractive, I disagree. I find it's an interesting character dynamic to have a somewhat maniacal nymphomaniac who isn't particularly attractive yet has a lover who appears to legitimately sees something in her.Topkapi may have the best heist sequence I've seen in a film. By this point in the film I've already attached a strong emotional interest in these characters, but during the heist itself the characters played by Ustinov and Maximillian Schell develop an unexpected emotional bond which raises the stakes higher than they are. With a clumsy fool who is afraid of heights, a lighthouse being controlled from afar by other operatives and precise rope movements to moving an entire glass enclosure, I'm left with that glorious feeling of clenching your hands when something almost goes wrong.

It's been many decades since Topkapi or the wonder of Peter O'Toole and that apogee of chic herself Audrey Hepburn delighted us in How to Steal a Million. These are exceedingly clever movies starring very attractive people wearing seriously good clothes while hanging out in exotic and/or luxurious locations and driving autos as erotic as the white Lincoln suicide-door convertible in Topkapi or Peter O'T.'s mint XKE sportster. Hey, life was good! Not only that, the dialogue was witty and multi-leveled. I'd forgotten the homoerotic subtext in Topkapi, made pretty damn explicit in the Turkish Wrestler sequence, which is not even remotely gay, but definitely hot, and a hoot, to boot! Observe Melina Mercouri struggle to contain herself watching the big oiled-up dudes in leather pants writhe about as the Turkish secret police are equally preoccupied. We're almost talking NC-17, but happily Topkapi predates that absurdist system. Most contemporary comedies—even the dominant gross-out variety—seem old-maidish by comparison. Both mastermind Maximilian Schell (never more handsome) and the hunky gymnast Gilles Ségal flirt with everybody in sight irrespective of gender. Even the bumbling, Oscar-collecting "schmo" Peter Ustinov gets an ardent male admirer. Nor is there a whiff of homophobia to dampen the mood. It may have been 1964, but these people are way more hip and sophisticated than, say, George Clooney, to cite a typical example from the current talent pool.Gilles Ségal never speaks a word in the English language Topkapi, yet he deftly steers clear of mime's clichés for an eloquent performance. Albeit unknown in the States, he's terrific, yet but one of many pleasures in this classic of the caper genre. The formidable Melina Mercouri usually gets all the attention, and very true: movie stars of the stratospheric Sophia Loren variety have vanished from the cinematic heavens. Still, it's the men who not only pull off the heist, but likewise effortlessly do the heavy lifting that keeps this picture as satisfying as good champagne.Here's a conversational gambit for a phellow philm phreak: How would you cast the remake? What about your choice for a director? I'd say Topkapi is at least as ripe as Ocean's 11 for a revisit. Just don't give Clooney the Maximillian Schell role. For one, he's too old, and for another, it really should be a Euro. How about Nicolas Cazalé? Or Jean Dujardin was brilliant in the OSS-117 spoofs, which hardly anybody saw outside of France or pre-Artist. Then again, Tom Hardy seems like he can do anything, especially a slightly dangerous sexuality.I'm stumped, though on the Melina Mercouri, and my best guess so far is Angelina Jolie. Don't snicker. She was amazing in Salt.

Topkapi (Jules Dassin, 1964) 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 Peter Ustinov and drunken servant Akim Tamiroff (one of the great character actors of the Golden Age, whose fans included Orson Welles) also buzz around. Ustinov's an unwilling plant for the cops, who thinks the group are terrorists. Tamiroff comes with the villa where they're staying; he's convinced they're "Russische spies". It takes a little while for the film's disparate pieces to slot into place, and the variety of European accents can be a struggle, but the second half is utterly superb, with a heist sequence that's tense, funny and mirth-inducingly ingenious, and a gem of an ending. Ustinov got an Oscar for his hilarious turn as the incompetent Arthur Simpson, but the whole ensemble does a neat job, and Tamiroff is very amusing as the bitter, suspicious, misguided, constantly slurring would-be informant. Particularly when he starts talking about fish.