NCMA Cinema: Topkapi (1964)

Directed by Jules Dassin, adventure/comedy/crime, 2 hr., NR

Beautiful thief Elizabeth Lipp and criminal genius Walter Harper put together a plan to steal an emerald-encrusted dagger from Istanbul’s Topkapi Palace. They hire small-time hustler Arthur Simon Simpson to act as their fall guy. When the Turkish secret police capture Simpson at the border, they persuade him to spy on his partners in crime, mistakenly believing that they’re Communist agents plotting an assassination.

Film still: Licensed from Park Circus; owned by United Artists