Editing Topkapi (film)

{{Short description|1964 American film directed by Jules Dassin}}
{{Use American English|date=January 2025}}
{{Infobox film
| name           = Topkapi
| image          = Topkapi 01(1964).jpeg
| caption        = Original film poster
| director       = [[Jules Dassin]]
| producer       = Jules Dassin
| based_on       = {{based on|''[[The Light of Day (Eric Ambler novel)|The Light of Day]]''<br />1962 novel|[[Eric Ambler]]}}
| writer         = [[Monja Danischewsky]]
| starring       = [[Melina Mercouri]]<br />[[Peter Ustinov]]<br />[[Maximilian Schell]]<br />[[Robert Morley]]
| music          = [[Manos Hadjidakis]]
| cinematography = [[Henri Alekan]]
| editing        = [[Roger Dwyre]]
| studio         = [[Filmways]]
| country        = United States
| distributor    = [[United Artists]]
| released       = {{film date|1964|9|2}}
| runtime        = 120 minutes
| language       = English
| budget         = 
| gross          = $7,000,000<ref name="numbers">[http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/1964/0TPKP.php Box Office Information for ''Topkapi''.] The Numbers. Retrieved May 19, 2013.</ref>
}}

'''''Topkapi''''' is a 1964 American [[Technicolor]] [[heist film]] produced by [[Filmways]] Pictures and distributed by [[United Artists]].<ref name=NYT>{{cite web|work=[[The New York Times]]|url=https://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=EE05E7DF1739E377BC4052DFBF66838F679EDE|title=Topkapi (1964) TOPKAPI|first=Bosley|last=Crowther|authorlink=Bosley Crowther|date=September 18, 1964}}</ref> The film was produced and directed by the émigré American film director [[Jules Dassin]].<ref name=NYT/> The film is based on [[Eric Ambler]]'s novel ''[[The Light of Day (Eric Ambler novel)|The Light of Day]]''<ref name=NYT/> (1962), adapted as a screenplay by [[Monja Danischewsky]].<ref name=NYT/>

The film stars [[Melina Mercouri]], [[Peter Ustinov]], [[Maximilian Schell]], [[Robert Morley]] and [[Akim Tamiroff]]. The music score was by [[Manos Hadjidakis]],<ref name=NYT/> the cinematography by [[Henri Alekan]]<ref name=NYT/> and the costume design by [[Theoni V. Aldredge]].  The film won an Academy Award in 1965, with [[Peter Ustinov]] taking home the trophy for [[Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor|Best Supporting Actor]], his second such award in four years.

==Plot==
[[File:Topkapi Knife 04 1993.jpg|thumb|The real dagger of Mahmud I.]]
Elizabeth Lipp ([[Melina Mercouri]]) visits [[Istanbul]], where she sees a traveling fair featuring replicas of treasures from the [[Topkapı Palace]].  Next she cases the Topkapı, fascinated by the [[Topkapi Dagger|emerald-encrusted dagger]] of [[Sultan]] [[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]]), master of all things mechanical; Giulio, "The Human Fly" ([[Gilles Ségal]]), a mute acrobat; and the burly Hans ([[Jess Hahn]]), 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 finds 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, and 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]], 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 and is trapped inside the room when the window is closed.

The gang delivers the dagger to Joseph ([[Joe Dassin]]), 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 knows is 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 [[Regalia of the Russian tsars|Russian Imperial Crown Jewels]] in the [[Moscow Kremlin|Kremlin]]. The end title sequence shows them apparently having escaped from jail sometime later and walking in the snow by a Russian city.

== Cast ==
{{castlist|
* [[Melina Mercouri]] as Elizabeth Lipp
* [[Peter Ustinov]] as Arthur Simon Simpson
* [[Maximilian Schell]] as Walter Harper
* [[Robert Morley]] as Cedric Page
* [[Jess Hahn]] as Hans Fisher
* [[Akim Tamiroff]] as Gerven, the cook
* [[Gilles Ségal]] as Giulio
* [[Titos Vandis]] as Harback
* [[Joe Dassin]] as Joseph (credited as "Joseph Dassin")
* {{Interlanguage link|Ege Ernart|tr}} as Major Ali Tufan
* [[Senih Orkan]] as first shadow
* [[Ahmet Danyal Topatan]] as second shadow
* [[Despo Diamantidou]] as Voula
* [[Jules Dassin]] as Turkish policeman at Istanbul Hilton (uncredited)
* [[Cahit Irgat]] as Selçuk
* [[Yılmaz Güney]] as Muhsin
* [[Hulusi Kentmen]] as Münir
}}

==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]] as Simpson,<ref>{{cite interview | url=http://www.julieandrewsforum.com/Word/1982Dec_PlayboyInterview.doc | title=Playboy Interview: Julie Andrews and Blake Edwards | first1=Julie | last1=Andrews | first2=Blake | subject-link1=Julie Andrews | last2=Edwards | subject-link2=Blake Edwards | work=[[Playboy]] | date=December 1982 | interviewer=[[Lawrence Linderman]] | via=JuliaAndrewsForum.com | format=DOC | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120425235657/http://www.julieandrewsforum.com/Word/1982Dec_PlayboyInterview.doc | archive-date=2012-04-25}}</ref> 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.  It was his second win in the category, which he had won four years previously for ''[[Spartacus (1960 film)|Spartacus]]''.

Appearing in supporting roles were [[Gilles Ségal]] as the “human fly" and [[Joe Dassin]] 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 (1966 TV series)|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]], [[Turkey]], in [[Kavala]], [[Greece]], and in Paris at the [[Boulogne-Billancourt]] Studios starting on August 12, 1963.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058672/locations/ | title=Topkapi (1964) - Filming & production - IMDb | website=[[IMDb]] }}</ref>

==Reception==
The film earned $7 million at the box office,<ref name="numbers"/> earning $4 million in US [[Gross rental|theatrical rentals]].<ref>"All-Time B.O. Champs", ''[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]'', 3 January 1968 p 25.</ref>

[[Bosley Crowther]] of ''[[The New York Times]]'' applauded the film as well acted, "adroitly plotted," and abounding in brilliant Technicolor that Dassin exploits "like a child with a new paint box," but he saved his greatest praise for Ustinov:<blockquote>[I]t is his misadventures and confusions and frights that truly make this picture something more than melodrama with a farcical edge. He makes it a joyous sort of travesty of the bad art of burglary. To see Mr. Ustinov sweating through his mischance encounters with the Turkish police, or playing the role of stool pigeon while running with the gang, or climbing about the roof of the palace under the heavy influence of vertigo, with the [[Golden Horn]] in the distance, is to see first-class comedy.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/09/18/the-screen-recruiting-jewel-thieves.html|title=Recruiting Jewel Thieves|first=Bosley|last=Crowther|date=18 September 1964|access-date=28 December 2024|work=The New York Times}}</ref></blockquote>

==Legacy==
''Topkapi'' later inspired the ''[[Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series)|Mission: Impossible]]'' TV show,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.blu-ray.com/Topkapi/164406/|title=Topkapi (1964)|via=www.blu-ray.com}}</ref> and the scene in which a character hangs by a wire in order to steal a dagger inspired a similar scene in [[Mission: Impossible (film)|the 1996 ''Mission: Impossible'' film]], where [[Ethan Hunt]] ([[Tom Cruise]]) rappels into a secure room to access a computer.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://christopherlbennett.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/topkapi-1964-the-proto-mission-impossible-not-exactly/|title=TOPKAPI (1964): The proto-MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE? (Not exactly…)|date=January 11, 2012}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.slashfilm.com/1331731/oral-history-mission-impossible-cia-langley-heist-scene/|title='Silence Builds Tension': An Oral History Of Mission: Impossible's Iconic CIA Heist Scene|first=Ben|last=Pearson|date=July 11, 2023|website=/Film}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.tvinsider.com/1086837/mission-impossible-fun-facts-series-finale-50th-anniversary/|title=10 Declassified Facts About 'Mission: Impossible,' Which Ended 50 Years Ago|first=Dan|last=Clarendon|date=March 30, 2023|website=TV Insider}}</ref>

==Quote== 
* ''"Mekoofsoonooz"'' (Arthur Simon Simpson){{what|date=May 2025}}

==See also==
* [[List of American films of 1964]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{commons category}}
* {{IMDb title|0058672|Topkapi}}
* {{TCMDb title|id=25736}}
* {{AFI film|id=22696|title=Topkapi}}

{{Jules Dassin}}

[[Category:1964 films]]
[[Category:1960s crime comedy films]]
[[Category:1960s heist films]]
[[Category:American crime comedy films]]
[[Category:American heist films]]
[[Category:Films based on British novels]]
[[Category:Films featuring a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award–winning performance]]
[[Category:Films directed by Jules Dassin]]
[[Category:Films set in museums]]
[[Category:Films set in Istanbul]]
[[Category:Films set in Turkey]]
[[Category:Films set in Greece]]
[[Category:Films shot in Kavala]]
[[Category:United Artists films]]
[[Category:Films scored by Manos Hatzidakis]]
[[Category:Filmways films]]
[[Category:1964 comedy films]]
[[Category:1960s English-language films]]
[[Category:1960s American films]]
[[Category:English-language crime comedy films]]