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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)
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!
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
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Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
Release date: 11 December 2001
Number of discs: 1
EAN: 9780792851653 UPC: 027616869418
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