Sultanic Caper

The heist is ever so meticulously planned, the gang goes into the most minute, elaborate details ... this I thought resulted in the pace of the film being too slow, it really did drag on a long time before it reached the act. In the part where Arthur drives the Lincoln Continental into Istanbul, the film takes on a travelogue aspect, the camera is allowed to roam for an extended time from one side of Sultanahmet District to the other blandly taking in all the tourist features - great for tourists but doesn't add to the story. Peter Ustinov does a wonderful comic turn as "the schmo" and intended fall guy caught straddling the law & the thieves. The gang's ruse, attending the tournament with all the oil-soaked wrestlers takes on a distinctly homo-erotic feel, whilst curiously at the same time Elizabeth (Mercouri) positively salivates at the sight of all that male flesh on display! The theft of the jewelled sultan's dagger by the human fly using ropes & a roof entry to avoid activating the museum's alarm system is replicated in later movie caper scenes including Mission Impossible. The ending does telegraph the message that a sequel is in the offing (suggesting even the Kremlin's Crown Jewels in Moscow as a possible target), but it just never happened.