Product Description

A 'skillful blend of romance and comedy (The Hollywood Reporter), Topkapi shimmers with hilarity, action and great performances! Fun-filled and suspenseful, it's an incredibly ingenious affair [and] a considerable pleasure to watch (Newsweek)! Trouble brews beneath the exotically curved towers of Istanbul when the equally exoticand equally curvedElizabeth Lipp (Melina Mercouri) recruits her former lover (Maximilian Schell) in a scheme to heist the pride of the city's Topkapi museum: a jewel-encrusted dagger. But the job soon turns into a high-tension, high-wire performanceliterallywhen the bumbling fall guy (Peter Ustinov) and other amateurs they ve hired as help find they'll have to lift their prize while dangling from the museum's vaulted ceiling!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15817 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-12-11
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dubbed, DVD, Letterboxed, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 119 minutes

Amazon.com
Director Jules Dassin (Night and the City, The Naked City) fashioned this breezy and intricate 1964 thriller with a sly comic bent, and it enjoyed international popularity and became an influence for other high-toned European caper films. Peter Ustinov (Spartacus, Death on the Nile) won an Academy Award for his performance as a hapless driver, clueless to the plans of his cohorts, two jewel thieves who plan to steal a priceless dagger from the Topkapi museum in Istanbul, Turkey. Maximilian Schell (Deep Impact, Judgment at Nuremburg) and Melina Mercouri (The Victors, The Gypsy and the Gentleman) play the jet-setting thieves, who choose a motley band of amateurs instead of pros in order to throw off the authorities. But when Ustinov is apprehended by the cops, he agrees to act as a spy in order to thwart the robbery. Eventually, Ustinov must choose between saving his own hide and remaining loyal to the seductive Mercouri as the machinations of the robbery become ever more complex. Sleek and entertaining, Topkapi is filled with intrigue and thrills at every turn. --Robert Lane

Customer Reviews

Great movie, but truly lousy MGM DVD transfer
This '60s heist movie sparkles, dazzles, and charms with its strong international cast, story adapted from an Eric Ambler mystery novel, and typically great direction from Jules (Rafifi) Dassin. Dassin gets a truly captivating performance from his wife Melina Mercouri as a thief obsessed with stealing the Topkapi emeralds, and an Academy Award-winning comic turn from Peter Ustinov. This was my favorite movie of all time when watching it on tv as a child. I waited a while to see it on DVD. Sadly, MGM seems to have transferred the movie through a vat of mud. The source print is faded and looks lousy. The movie is great, as is the theme song.

Wonderfully entertaining, with great Ustinov performance
One of my favorite films, and quite possibly the most entertaining caper movie of all time. A jewell thief (Melina Mercouri) has her heart set on a fabulous emerald-encrusted dagger. The priceless object is being kept at the high-security Topkapi Museum in Istanbul. Mercouri enlists the aid of sometime lover (and professional thief) Maximilian Schell to devise and execute an intricate plan of stealing the dagger. Schell assembles a team that includes Robert Morley as an inventor and electronics expert, and Peter Ustinov as a small-time con man who doesn't realize that he's part of the scheme. Ustinov is persuaded to spy on Mercouri's group by Turkish authorities who think the gang members are terrorists, but he is eventually made aware of the actual intentions of the thieves. The first few minutes of TOPKAPI may lead you to believe that you're in store for one of those hopelessly fluffy "comedies" of the 60's. But don't be fooled. From the moment the jovially frantic music score is played over the opening credits, rest assured that you're about to be treated to a light-hearted, fast-paced movie that expertly combines humor, suspense, and thrills. The international cast is great, but Peter Ustinov is especially delightful to watch in the role that won him the 1964 Oscar for best supporting actor. As Arthur Simpson, a shifty yet sympathetic character who gets used by just about everyone in the film, Ustinov easily steals the movie (although Akim Tamiroff also has his share of funny moments as a drunken cook). This film has all the elements for a first-rate piece of entertainment: an engaging cast, exotic locales, good dialogue, and artful direction by Jules Dassin whose earlier work in RIFIFI partly inspired this movie. TOPKAPI is a wonderfully entertaining motion picture that should appeal to everyone.

Excellent Adaptation of Eric Ambler Book
The 1964 movie Topkapi was based on British novelist Eric Ambler's 1962 best seller "The Light of Day". I am often wary of watching movies of books I have liked but director Jules Dassin has done a terrific job. He has taken one of Ambler's more lighthearted, almost whimsical, suspense novels and turned it successfully into a lighthearted, funny suspense movie.

The plot is straightforward. Elizabeth Lipp and Walter Harper (wonderfully played by Melina Mercouri and Maximillian Schell) plan to pull off the heist of a lifetime. They want to steal a priceless, jewel-encrusted knife and scabbard from the famed Topkapi palace/museum in Istanbul. Harper realizes that if they are successful the world's police will go after every known jewel thief in the world. Harper and Lipp decide to recruit non-professionals with useful skills to pull of an ingeniously planned heist. To that end they recruit Arthur Simpson. Simpson is something of a part-time con man. Part English and part Egyptian Simpson makes a living hustling tourists in Greece.

As the plot develops Dassin takes us on a grand tour of Istanbul as it looked in the early 1960s. Dassin and his cinematographers do a great job conveying the sights and sounds of the city. Although the movie is played for laughs in some respects the planning and execution of the robbery makes for great viewing. The robbery itself is bold and audacious and Dassin and the cast do a great job in creating a feeling of tense anticipation as the movie reaches its climactic moments. It should not be a surprise that the creator of the TV series Mission Impossible was inspired by Topkapi. It may be a surprise to find out that there was a museum robbery in New York six months after Topkapi whose planning and execution was based on the film.

The acting throughout is excellent. Peter Ustinov won a Best Supporting Actor Academy award for his portrayal of Simpson. Mercouri was both funny and flirtatious and carried off her role flawlessly. The great character actor Akim Tamiroff also did a great job playing a the always drunk, raging chef to the jewel thieves.

Topkapi is a fun, lighthearted movie. It is well worth seeing.
L. Fleisig