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Topkapi
Elizabeth Lipp (Melina Mercouri) -- not her real name -- is the kind of woman who gets what she wants. Right now, she's got her eye on a little something: the four most precious emeralds in the world, encrusted onto a dagger in the collection at the Topkapi museum in Istanbul. She recruits an old friend, Walter Harper (Maximillian Schell), as her partner, who agrees to help her on one condition: the crew will be made up of all amateurs with no criminal records. They hire crazy toymaker Cedric Page (Robert Morley), mute gymnast Gilles the Human Fly (Gilles Segal), muscleman Hans Fisher (Jess Hahn), and unwitting accomplice Arthur Simon Simpson (Peter Ustinov), who they pay to drive a car across the border into Istanbul. It'd be a perfect plan, if not for the disgruntled chef, the Turkish government, unexpected injuries, shifting schedules...
In 1955, director Jules Dassin (who, fun fact, was an American, despite his French-sounding name) made the film noir heist picture Rififi, frequently cited as one of the most thrilling capers ever made. In keeping with the genre, it's a bleak affair with serious trouble lurking around every corner. Nine years later, he would make Topkapi, a tonal 180 from Rififi, which also centers on a heist but is more in line with the modern Ocean's Eleven series, with colorful, classy people getting together in exotic locations, looking to get rich quick. Frankly, it's got such a simple but effective story and such a contemporary feel that it's surprising that Hollywood hasn't remade it yet (reportedly, John McTiernan developed a remake as a Thomas Crown sequel, but as of last year, Pierce Brosnan said the script was still gathering dust).
Although Elizabeth and Walter are the film's protagonists, Dassin focuses on Ustinov's character of Arthur, who is stopped by the authorities at the Turkish border. When his passport is expired, they strip the car and find six smoke grenades and a rifle, which they suspect will be used for a terrorist attack. Arthur is terrified of going to prison, so he agrees to play Turkish spy and investigate his employers. A low-level con man who's used to hustling fake Egyptian artifacts to clueless tourists, everything seems to make him sweat: the initial job offer to drive the car, the discovery of unexpected weaponry, his release from Turkish authorities, worrying someone has found him out, and discovering no one has. Arthur's a mess (when he's first hired, a bit of belly peeks through his shirt at the bottom where the shirt tails separate), and he provides a delightful bit of contrast to the rest of the team's cool professionalism. It's a delightfully broad performance in a genre that loves the ultra-smooth (something Mercouri and Schell have down pat).
As a director, Dassin understands that clarity is the key to all good suspense. His biggest stylistic flourish comes at the beginning, when Elizabeth speaks to the camera, surrounded by the refractive surfaces of a jewel, as if captured inside a kaleidoscope. All other crucial details are offered to the viewer as bluntly as possible, with timing for wit as necessary. Topkapi contains the same kinds of set-up and training scenes that every heist film is obligated to include, but Dassin executes them with a sly sense of humor, making each fun and funny to watch: a demonstration of the museum's pressure sensitive floors involves a ping pong ball and celebratory music, and a test of strength is performed by pulling Mercouri and the couch she's lying on across the room. During the heist (clearly an influence on Brian De Palma during the making of Mission: Impossible), Dassin makes simple visual information like a white dot on a piece of rope incredibly thrilling, and draws each intense beat out with expert precision, often set to a suffocating silence.
That said, for everything in Topkapi that is straightforward, the story offers several curveballs, each one goosed by the delight with which Walter accepts a new obstacle to overcome. The film repeatedly lays out familiar story threads, building up the audience's expectations, and then rules out the most obvious outcomes, sending the characters off in another new direction (the funniest alteration requiring a stop at a mass oil wrestling match, which Elizabeth has trouble tearing herself away from). Each development simultaneously adds to Topkapi's humor and suspense, but to say more would spoil the film's many surprises. The only real disappointment is that the end of the film seems to set up a sequel that never happened; it would've been great to see this oddball gang of con artists work their way through another intricate attempt to unburden an establishment of some pesky excess wealth.
The Blu-ray
Although normally I appreciate or am indifferent to Kino's standard practice of using original painted poster art as the cover of their Blu-rays and DVDs,Topkapi has a number of poster designs, and they happen to have picked the one I believe looks the worst, with oddly smooth, slightly off caricatures and little sense of what the film is about. The back cover follows their usual white-text-on-black-backdrop format and there is no insert inside the non-eco Viva Elite Blu-ray case.
The Video and Audio
Presented in 1.66:1 1080p AVC, Topkapi is the weakest of the three Kino Classics Blu-rays I've reviewed. It is plagued with the most print damage of the three films, with scratches, nicks, and lines serving as a frequent distraction in the first third of the film (the rest of the movie fares better). Colors are noticeably drab and visibly fluctuate (the image often pulses subtly), and many shots appear to have been taken from a lesser, more DVD-like source (not to be confused with the heavy optical use at the beginning of the film). Still, underneath these flaws is the unmistakable appearance of HD, and there are the occasional shots with a minimal amount of damage that look really great. These are all flaws inherent to the elements that KL or MGM had at their disposal, and not technical errors caused by the people making the Blu-ray. Enough of the film looks good that, had I seen it before I reviewed it and was looking forward to this Blu-ray, I would be satisfied with the upgrade overall (if only barely).
Sound is a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track in about the same condition as the picture, which arguably poses more of a problem. There is a harshness and distortion to some of the dialogue that can make it hard to understand, especially when it comes to Melina Mercouri's thick accent, and all of it is at least a little bit murky or muffled. Worse, this Blu-ray mysteriously lacks English captions or subtitles of any kind, robbing viewers of an easy solution.
The Extras
The only extra is an original theatrical trailer.
Conclusion
Despite 2014 being Topkapi's 50th anniversary, it's packed to the brim with well-written characters, unexpected twists, and plenty of humor that don't just hold up today, but actually feel as modern as any Ocean's film. The Blu-ray is imperfect, but still worth the upgrade. Recommended.
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