Topkapi (1964)

director Jules Dassin
starring Melina Mercouri, Peter Ustinov, Maximilian Schell

Melina Mercouri stars as Elizabeth Lipp, an uninhibited fetishist who’s found a way to smuggle a priceless gem encrusted dagger out of Istanbul, if only ex-lover Maximilion Schell can help her steal it from the Topkapi palace museum. With Swiss efficiency Schell decides the heist is so daring it will bring Interpol down on all known criminals. His solution: assemble a hodge-podge team of amateurs who’ve never been caught, and in a feat of misdirection pin the crime on a pathetic con-man Arthur Simpson, played by Peter Ustinov in an Oscar winning role. This “schmo” is hired to drive a car stocked with weapons (for the deception) across the border, but because of passport problems the car is searched and the weapons found. Suspecting he is an unwitting mule for terrorists the police force Simpson to become a double agent, and report the thieves’ conversations and whereabouts.
…more about Melina Mercouri: Topkapi