TOPKAPI (1964) ** For the first five minutes Jules Dassin demonstrates that he can easily play with any of the French New Wave directors, on their turf. For the next hour, as a reasonably entertaining but standard '60s comedy unfolds, I wish he would have. Finally, things wrap up with a gloriously meticulous, understated and drawn out climactic crime scene, which almost invariably confounds critics into comparing the entire film with Rififi. The scene isn't as good as the one in Rififi, which could mean about anything, but the problem is that it doesn't fit. As a comedy there's nothing wrong with it all, but it lacks the punch of, say The Pink Panther, with which it has for more in common. Melina Mercouri and Peter Ustinov have more than a little comedic presence, but suffer from a lack of lines. She compensates with a big, natural smile that she delights in flashing at will, and he with the sort of stammering that people in Idaho think Londoners do all the time. Between them, and with Maximilian Schell playing straight man, they do well to create a comedy that's safely on the comfortable side of dull. Then, when the big scene abruptly comes on, it ruins the entire rhythm of the film, creating a sensation that is, right up to the closing minutes, more boring than tense. Which is not to say that it's not a good scene. It is, it just...not isn't set up right, is placed where something entirely different has been set up fairly well. The scene is so nicely put together that it's distracting to find yourself looking for what comes next, rather than awaiting the next laugh. It would have been better to drop a turkey in through the roof, or have the walls morph into dragons, or have Luis Buñuel suddenly arise through the floor to make a closing statement about asymmetrical denouement. Almost anything. Dassin and Mercouri were an interesting, admirable couple, but the film's at least as interesting for what they don't try to do (i.e. make an artistic or social statement of any magnitude) as what they do.
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