''Topkapi'' is a 1964
Technicolor
Technicolor is a series of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes, the first version dating back to 1916, and followed by improved versions over several decades.
Definitive Technicolor movies using three black and white films ...
heist film
The heist film or caper film is a subgenre of crime film focused on the planning, execution, and aftermath of a significant robbery.
One of the early defining heist films was '' The Asphalt Jungle'' (1950), which ''Film Genre 2000'' wrote "alm ...
produced by
Filmways
Filmways, Inc. (also known as Filmways Pictures and Filmways Television) was a television and film production company founded by American film executive Martin Ransohoff and Edwin Kasper in 1952. It is probably best remembered as the production c ...
Pictures and distributed by
United Artists
United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the studi ...
.
The film was produced and directed by the émigré American film director
Jules Dassin
Julius "Jules" Dassin (December 18, 1911 – March 31, 2008) was an American film and theatre director, producer, writer and actor. A subject of the Hollywood blacklist in the McCarthy era, he subsequently moved to France, and later Greece, whe ...
.
[ The film is based on ]Eric Ambler
Eric Clifford Ambler OBE (28 June 1909 – 22 October 1998) was an English author of thrillers, in particular spy novels, who introduced a new realism to the genre. Also working as a screenwriter, Ambler used the pseudonym Eliot Reed for book ...
's novel '' The Light of Day''[ (1962), adapted as a screenplay by ]Monja Danischewsky
Monja Danischewsky (28 April 1911 – 16 October 1994) was a British producer and writer, born in Archangel into a Russian-Jewish family who left Russia for England in 1919 and who produced and wrote the films '' Topkapi'' and ''Rockets Galor ...
.[
The film stars Melina Mercouri, Peter Ustinov, Maximilian Schell, ]Robert Morley
Robert Adolph Wilton Morley, CBE (26 May 1908 – 3 June 1992) was an English actor who enjoyed a lengthy career in both Britain and the United States. He was frequently cast as a pompous English gentleman representing the Establishment, of ...
and Akim Tamiroff. The music score was by Manos Hadjidakis
Manos may refer to:
Films
* ''The Hands'' (Spanish: ''Las manos''), a 2006 Argentinean-Italian film
* '' Manos: The Hands of Fate'', 1966 horror film
Music
* Manos (band), German Black metal band
* ''Manos'' (album), by The Spinanes
Other use ...
,[ the cinematography by ]Henri Alekan
Henri Alekan (10 February 1909, Paris – 15 June 2001, Auxerre, Bourgogne) was a French cinematographer.
Life
Alekan was born in Montmartre in 1909. At the age of sixteen he and his brother became travelling puppeteers. A little later he ...
[ and the costume design by ]Theoni V. Aldredge
Theoni V. Aldredge (August 22, 1922 – January 21, 2011) was a Greek-American stage and screen costume designer.
Biography
Born Theoni Athanasiou Vachliotis in Thessaloniki in 1922, Aldredge received her training at the American School in Athe ...
. The film won an Academy Award in 1965, with Peter Ustinov taking home the trophy for Best Supporting Actor, his second such award in 4 years.
Plot
Elizabeth Lipp ( Melina Mercouri) visits Istanbul
Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...
, where she sees a traveling fair featuring replicas of treasures from the Topkapı Palace
The Topkapı Palace ( tr, Topkapı Sarayı; ota, طوپقپو سرايى, ṭopḳapu sarāyı, lit=cannon gate palace), or the Seraglio
A seraglio, serail, seray or saray (from fa, سرای, sarāy, palace, via Turkish and Italian) i ...
. Next she cases the Topkapı, fascinated by the emerald-encrusted dagger of Sultan
Sultan (; ar, سلطان ', ) is a position with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", derived from the verbal noun ', meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it ...
Mahmud I. Leaving Turkey, she recruits her ex-lover, Swiss master-criminal Walter Harper ( Maximilian Schell), to plan a theft of the dagger. They engage Cedric Page (Robert Morley
Robert Adolph Wilton Morley, CBE (26 May 1908 – 3 June 1992) was an English actor who enjoyed a lengthy career in both Britain and the United States. He was frequently cast as a pompous English gentleman representing the Establishment, of ...
), master of all things mechanical; Giulio, "The Human Fly" (Gilles Ségal
Gilles Ségal (13 January 1929 – 11 June 2014) was a French actor, mime, and playwright. He performed on stage with Marcel Marceau, and in more than sixty films since 1954. He was born in Fălticeni, Romania. Among his most notable roles is that ...
), a mute acrobat; and the burly Hans (Jess Hahn
Jesse Beryle Hahn (October 29, 1921June 29, 1998) was an American-French character actor who mostly starred in French films.
Biography
After serving with the Marines in the Second World War, he moved to France in 1949 and took French citizen ...
), who will provide the muscle needed for the job.
Harper and Lipp then hire small-time hustler Arthur Simon Simpson ( Peter Ustinov) to drive a car into Turkey to transport hidden explosives and firearms for use in the burglary. Simpson, knowing nothing of Harper's and Lipp's plans, is arrested at the border when Turkish Customs find the firearms. Because Simpson has no information for Turkish police, they conclude that the weapons are to be used in an assassination. Turkish Major Tufan decides to use Simpson to spy on Harper and Lipp for the police. Page, picking up the car in Istanbul, is told by a police ruse that only the "importer" Simpson is permitted to drive it in Turkey. While traveling with the gang, Simpson leaves cryptic notes for his police handlers, but most of his intelligence is worthless since Simpson is still ignorant of the plan.
Hans' hands are injured in a scuffle with the drunken cook, Gerven ( Akim Tamiroff), and Simpson is engaged as a substitute, prompting him to confess that the police are watching them. Knowing they face arrest if they try to escape Turkey, or use their equipment, Harper improvises a new plan in which they will give the still-oblivious police the slip, and steal the dagger without using their weapons. Then they'll "surrender" to the police, and claim to have found explosives in their car. Just before they leave, Simpson discards his last note, then leaves with the others.
Harper arranges to give the police the slip. That evening, Harper, Simpson, and Giulio, after attending a competition of Turkish wrestling
Wrestling ( Turkish: ''güreş'') is considered as an " ancestral sport" in Turkey, represented foremost by the annual Kırkpınar tournament in oil wrestling.
Along with various highly esteemed styles of folk wrestling (known colloquially as '' ...
, steal the dagger and leave a replica in its place. Unnoticed by the thieves, during the robbery a bird flies through the window they entered by and is trapped inside the room when the window is closed.
The gang deliver the dagger to Joseph (Joe Dassin
Joseph Ira Dassin (; 5 November 1938 – 20 August 1980) was an American–French singer-songwriter and actor. He was the son of film director Jules Dassin.
Early life
Dassin was born in New York City to American film director Jules Dassin (19 ...
), proprietor of the traveling fair display, who will smuggle it out of the country. The gang members then go to police headquarters to "reveal" their discovery of weapons in the car. The inspector asks Simpson to vouch for Harper and Lipp's whereabouts that day. Simpson, seeming to waver, throws in his lot with the others, and backs up their alibi. Before the police release Simpson and the others, the trapped bird in the Topkapı triggers the alarm, alerting police officers across Istanbul. When word of the Topkapı alarm reaches the police, Major Tufan confronts the thieves, displaying Simpson's last note, which has just enough information to link all of them to the theft. Tufan tells them all that he now knows why they were in Turkey. "A little bird told me," he says.
Ultimately, the gang is seen in a Turkish prison, where Lipp begins to tell them of her fascination with the Russian Imperial Crown Jewels in the Kremlin. The end title sequence shows them apparently having escaped from jail some time later and walking in snow by a Russian city.
Cast
Production
Ambler's novel is different from the movie on several counts, with the story narrated by Simpson (named Arthur ''Abdel'' Simpson in the book), so that the reader only gradually comes to work out what Harper and his associates are really up to. Simpson in the book is blackmailed into driving the car to Istanbul after Harper catches him trying to steal Harper's travelers' checks. The book features frequent flashbacks to Simpson's schooldays in England, which help to explain his character and motives more clearly than in the film.
According to Jules Dassin, he originally planned to cast Peter Sellers
Peter Sellers (born Richard Henry Sellers; 8 September 1925 – 24 July 1980) was an English actor and comedian. He first came to prominence performing in the BBC Radio comedy series ''The Goon Show'', featured on a number of hit comic songs ...
as Simpson, but Sellers refused to work with Maximilian Schell, who he claimed had a reputation for being difficult. Dassin was not prepared to dispense with Schell, and so cast Ustinov in place of Sellers.
Peter Ustinov won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Simpson.
Appearing in supporting roles were Gilles Ségal
Gilles Ségal (13 January 1929 – 11 June 2014) was a French actor, mime, and playwright. He performed on stage with Marcel Marceau, and in more than sixty films since 1954. He was born in Fălticeni, Romania. Among his most notable roles is that ...
as the “human fly" and Joe Dassin
Joseph Ira Dassin (; 5 November 1938 – 20 August 1980) was an American–French singer-songwriter and actor. He was the son of film director Jules Dassin.
Early life
Dassin was born in New York City to American film director Jules Dassin (19 ...
as Joseph, who runs the traveling fair display that is supposed to smuggle the dagger out of Turkey. The athletic Ségal later inspired other 'trickwire' stunts, including a few used for the '' Mission: Impossible'' TV show and movie. Joe Dassin was the son of the film's director Jules Dassin: he appeared as an actor in a handful of films, but was better known as a singer-songwriter.
The film was shot on location in Istanbul
Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...
, Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
, in Kavala
Kavala ( el, Καβάλα, ''Kavála'' ) is a city in northern Greece, the principal seaport of eastern Macedonia (Greece), Macedonia and the capital of Kavala (regional unit), Kavala regional unit.
It is situated on the Bay of Kavala, across ...
, Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...
, and in Paris at the Boulogne-Billancourt Studios.
Reception
The film earned $7 million at the box office, earning $4 million in US theatrical rentals.["All-Time B.O. Champs", '']Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'', 3 January 1968 p 25.
See also
* List of American films of 1964
A list of American films released in 1964.
''My Fair Lady'' won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
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See also
* 1964 in the United States
References
External links
1964 filmsat ...
References
External links
*
*
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{{Jules Dassin
1964 films
1960s crime comedy films
1960s heist films
American crime comedy films
American heist films
Films based on British novels
Films featuring a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award-winning performance
Films directed by Jules Dassin
Films set in museums
Films set in Istanbul
Films set in Turkey
Films set in Greece
Films shot in Kavala
United Artists films
Films scored by Manos Hatzidakis
Filmways films
1964 comedy films
1960s English-language films
1960s American films