Topkapi

I’m blocked.

I’ve been sitting on a review of TOPKAPI for a week now, looking for a way into this messy, flawed heist picture cum travelogue. How do you confront a movie whose rakish hero is prettier than its femme fatale, whose forced bonhomie lands with such a thud, whose Oscar – winning supporting performance showcases all the subtlety of a drive thru menu?

TOPKAPI is a ‘60s-cool / Euro-cool double-whammy of a heist picture. This Jules Dassin -directed movie is an OCEAN’S 11 kind of film, the kind that lines up a bunch of super-cool characters, puts them in an exotic location, and wants us to roll along with the good time.

But something about it doesn’t quite work. The movie stars Melina Mercuri as a woman so convinced of her sexiness that we’re almost willing to overcome the certain knowledge that she smells like ashtray, along with Maximilian Schell as a master thief whose greatest talent is smiling winningly while resembling a better looking Ben Affleck. But Mercuri looks like she’s been riding the life train too hard for too long, and she’s got that “smoker’s face” and brittle, gin-soaked thing going on. Schell is supposed to be a brilliant master thief, but he just seems shallow, more Jude Law than Carey Grant. As for the rest of the gang, well, they hit their marks and say their lines, but I just don’t understand Peter Ustinov’s Best Supporting Actor award here. Sure, he’s the Once and Future Poirot, and he’s great fun in THE MOUSE THAT ROARED. But he’s flat here, playing the rube as nothing but a rube, and there’s no joy in him.

But hey, the movie looks fine, even if it could use a remaster. And much of it was filmed on location in Istanbul and in the Topkapi palace itself (At least, it looked authentic to me, and I was there when I added it to my Netflix queue.). So there’s that. And it has an early acid-era opening sequence which is sure to earn your bemused attention. It’s just not as fun as it thinks it is.

Rififi

Tony le Stephanois (Jean Servais) has problems. He's old, he's tired, his girl left him while he was in prison, and he sucks at poker. When his protege suggests a smash-n-grab at a local jewelry store as an easy way to make a few bucks, things seem as bad as they can be. He's a serious jewel thief, for pete's sake! Is he going to allow himself to be reduced to smalltime crook? Oubliez lui! le Stephanois has a better idea. Rather than waste his time on a smash-n-grab, he plans a serious heist of the most secure jeweler in town. Thus, we're all set up for one of the best heist pictures ever.

RIFIFI is the grandfather of the heist genre, a wonderful high noir look at the criminal world and its denizens. There's been plenty written on it, and there are folks right here on this list who are well qualified to discuss its historic significance. I'll leave that aside and say that RIFIFI is a just plain terrific movie. Servais has a face that looks like it's been lived in, and he does a fine job of keeping us engaged in a character that is, almost any way we look at it, a very bad man. The supporting cast is equally wonderful, taking now-stock characters like "top safecracker" and imbuing them with life and individuality. The heist itself, a sequence around thirty minutes long, takes place without a word of dialogue or a note of scoring support and reminds us just how effective silence can be. This is edge-of-your-seat stuff, very well executed, and a flat-out great time at the movies. I'm glad I rented it.