Arabesque

Plot synopsis:
Professor Ragheeb (George Coulouris) is taken aback that his regular optometrist is not working, Sloane (John Merivale), a man who he has never met, taking his regular optometrist's place. During the eye examination, Sloane places drops in Ragheeb's eyes, blinding him in pain after a few seconds. After Ragheeb collapses and dies on the floor, Sloane takes off Ragheeb's glasses, and breaks them open to reveal a small piece of paper with crude drawings - seemingly hieroglyphics - on it.At Oxford, Professor David Pollock (Gregory Peck), an American, has taken over an absent Professor Ragheeb's class on ancient hieroglyphics. David makes a crude remark to wake up one of his sleeping students, Fanshaw (Gordon Griffin). At the end of the class, David is approached by Sloane, now referring to himself as Major Sylvester Pennington Sloane, a retired British military man now working as the private secretary for Middle Eastern shipping magnate, Nejim Beshraavi (Alan Badel), who would like to see him immediately on a lucrative business matter. David politely declines without knowing the specifics.David is out for a run when he is ambushed and forced into a Rolls-Royce limousine. He is taken aback by what just happened, until he notices that one of the men in the limo is Hassan Jena (Carl Duering), the Prime Minister of the Middle Eastern country where Beshraavi lives. David is in awe of Jena. The other man in the back of the limo is Mohammed Lufti (Harold Kasket), Jena's ambassador to Great Britain. Jena asks David to accept Beshraavi's offer so that he can find out what exactly Beshraavi's plans are specifically with some opposition to Jena's government policies. In doing this task, David is not to tell anyone he has met Jena, or that Jena is already in Great Britain. There is also some personal risk to David as Beshraavi is a dangerous man. Regardless, David accepts in his admiration for Jena.David meets with Beshraavi in a luxurious and expansive house in London, Beshraavi who has a menacing presence with a peregrine falcon with a penchant to kill if need be. Beshraavi asks David to decode a Hittite inscription - the piece of paper Sloane removed from Ragheeb's glasses - for a payment of $30,000. It should take David no more than a few hours, but Beshraavi gives David a veiled threat that he will be a prisoner at the house until the job is complete.In the library of the house, David is eating individually wrapped candies while he works on decoding the cipher. An exotically beautiful woman who David does not know, enters the room unannounced. She is Yasmin Azir (Sophia Loren), the owner of the house and Beshraavi's lover. Beshraavi, who later enters, infers that David can look but cannot touch with regard to Yasmin, with who he was immediately infatuated.There are four at the dinner table: Beshraavi, Yasmin, David and an English businessman named Beauchamp (Ernest Clark). As Yasmin accidentally knocks over a tray, she is able secretly to slip David a few pieces of paper. David accidentally reveals those papers, Beshraavi who wants to know what they are. David is able to conceal their contents, not wanting to get Yasmin into trouble. David immediately excuses himself, followed closely by Yasmin. Beauchamp and Beshraavi now alone together, Beauchamp remarks that Prime Minister Jena's signing of a business treaty with the British in two days will ruin Beshraavi's shipping business, Beshraavi who, in turn, says that the treaty will not be signed as told to him by a dependable soothsayer.Alone in a bathroom in the house, David reads the two pieces of paper slipped to him by Yasmin, one a news clipping about Professor Ragheeb's accidental death, the other a note from Yasmin asking him to meet her in her bedroom. As David meets Yasmin in her expansive ensuite and she turning on the shower just in case they could be overheard, Yasmin tells David that Beshraavi had Ragheeb killed, and will do the same to David once he decodes the cipher. Their conversation is interrupted as Beshraavi tries to get into the ensuite. As David hides in the shower stall with the water still running, Yasmin lets Beshraavi in. Yasmin and Beshraavi talk about issues such as David's work, and the cipher. Not to arouse Beshraavi's suspicions, Yasmin is forced to take her shower, exposing her naked self to David. Sloane then telephones Yasmin's bedroom phone, he telling Bashraavi that David and the cipher are missing. Overhearing that conversation from the ensuite, Yasmin confirms from David that he has the cipher in his possession. To hide it and without telling Yasmin, he wraps it in one of the candy wrappers he has been eating, a red wrapper with the number "9", which he places in his pocket among some other candy. As some in Beshraavi's employ go searching for David through the house, Beshraavi demonstrates to one of Yasmin's employees, Hemsley (Jimmy Gardner) that he can buy people for their loyalty or else exact extreme revenge. From that encounter, Hemsley tells Beshraavi that he saw David earlier come into this bedroom. Forced to show himself, David and Yasmin emerge from the ensuite, David seemingly abducting her at scissor-point. They escape together, with one of Beshraavi's henchmen, Mustapha (Larry Taylor), on their trail. That chase takes them to the Zoological Gardens, where among other things Mustapha shoots an aquarium, breaking the glass and killing the fish inside. Eventually, Mustapha and David get into a struggle, when a man from behind kills Mustapha. He identifies himself as Inspector Webster (Duncan Lamont) with CID, he who had placed Yasmin's house under surveillance. When a gardens guard approaches asking about who they are and who will pay for the damages, Webster kills him as he would not have been able to show him police identification. Because of this act, David surmises that Webster is not CID, and can't be working for either Beshraavi or Jena. It is then that Webster reveals that he is working with Yasmin.David awakens in the back of a moving panel van after being knocked unconscious by Webster back at the gardens. Webster and Yasmin are now with another man, who is in a loving embrace with Yasmin, he identifying himself as Yussef Kassim. All he wants to know is where the cipher is. David, seeing that they have emptied out his pockets of the candies with the cipher which are now on a shelf in the van, tells Yussef that Beshraavi has the cipher. They decide to use truth serum on David, after which, in a drugged stupor, he talks what they believe is gibberish about the number "9". Believing that he was telling the truth that Beshraavi has the cipher, Yussef tells Yasmin to work on Beshraavi to find out where it is, while they dump David out of the moving van in the middle of the highway. Still in a hallucinatory drugged state, David is almost killed several times over as he largely believes he's a bullfighter and the passing cars are bulls. Eventually, he stumbles across a bicycle and cycles away.The next morning, Yasmin arrives home to Beshraavi's loving embrace. They talk about why David took her hostage - she explaining that it was to escape from Beshraavi's threats to keep him a prisoner at the house until the job was complete - and both David and Mustapha having been killed at Yussef's hands. In the discussion, Yasmin implies that Beshraavi stole the cipher, which was intended for Yussef from Ragheeb, and that Yussef does not yet know the coded message. While Yasmin tells him that neither David or Yussef have the cipher, Beshraavi states that he doesn't have it. He also states that David is not dead, but was seen alive arriving back home on bicycle. Yasmin also tells him that Yussef kept her alive as he thinks she is working with him to get the cipher from Beshraavi. Believing David still has the cipher, Beshraavi sends Yasmin to get it from him as he believes her feminine methods would work better on David than Sloane's more violent ones.At David's apartment, he, still groggy from the drugs, is awoken by the telephone ringing. It is Jena, to who David tells that he doesn't know what's going on with Beshraavi yet, and that he does not have the cipher. Despite his near death encounters, David is reinspired after speaking to Jena. At the end of their conversation, Yasmin bursts into the apartment. Incredulous that she would show up after doing nothing while watching him almost get killed by her "boyfriend" Yussef, Yasmin is able to convince him that she hates Yussef and that the only reason she is in cahoots with him is that his boss, a general back home named Ali orchestrating a military takeover, has her mother and sisters hostage and will kill them if she doesn't cooperate. Likewise, she is only being friendly to Beshraavi on Yussef's orders. She is then able to convince him that what he needs to do is break the code of the cipher so that she can report that information back to the embassy, which will ensure both their safeties. It is then that both realize that neither has the cipher, and that it is still in the back of the van.David and Yasmin are at the construction site Yussef uses as his front. They spot the van. Before they can get to it, they see Yussef then Webster heading for the van. Before the two men leave, Webster, hungry, takes all the candy including the one in which David wrapped the cipher. Following Webster as he eats one candy after another, they pick up the discarded wrappers, to see if it is the red number 9 with the cipher. Some of the wrappers are more difficult to get to than others. They notice that Webster ate the red wrapped number 9 candy and spotted the cipher inside. He goes to a telephone booth to make a call, looking the number up in the telephone booth, meaning that the call is not to Yussef, whose number he already knows. Going to the booth after Webster has left, they see he has scribbled "3:30" underneath the listing for Beshraavi Shipping, meaning that Webster has joined forces with Beshraavi and will be meeting him at 3:30. Knowing Beshraavi's routine, Yasmin knows their meeting place.At Ascot, a decked out Yasmin is with Beshraavi, while a decked out David is looking for Webster. David and Yasmin are able to talk briefly to make plans to meet at 9 o'clock that evening at Trafalgar Square after David gets the cipher from Webster. David spots Webster rendezvousing with Sloane, to who he will hand over the cipher. David is able to poke the paper out of Webster's hand, the paper flying in the air and landing in the middle of the horse track with the horses in a race approaching. As David and Webster scuffle with each other, Sloane gets out a knife to stab David. He misses and instead stabs Webster dead. David risks his life by running out onto the track to retrieve the cipher. He is able to do so just before the horses gallop by, David running away with cipher in hand. This entire situation is visible not only to the entire crowd but more specifically Yasmin and Beshraavi.On a train, David is tracing a copy of the cipher, he who still has not been able to decode it. After he completes the copy, he places the original into a self-addressed stamped envelope which he posts immediately after getting off the train. There, he sees the headlines of the newspaper, which implicates him as Webster's murderer. He telephones Jena for help in this matter, Jena who can offer none except for the advice to stay clear of the police, which David does as he notices a bobby heading toward the telephone booth.Yasmin and Beshraavi are back at her house, he who has bought her several pairs of new shoes. As he helps her try on each pair caressing her legs in the process, they discuss what happened at Ascot. He believes this situation is perfect as she can get close to David, find out what decoded message is from him, and bring that information back to Beshraavi. Beshraavi threatens her in the process, implying that he will kill her if she doesn't succeed.David goes to Ragheeb's house, wanting to speak to his widow (Malya Nappi) as he figures that Ragheeb, who was murdered because of the cipher, may have told her what the decoded message is, or at least mentioned where he got it or have some notes somewhere among his possessions about it. He tells her of Ragheeb's death being murder by Beshraavi. Looking at the copy of the cipher, Ragheeb's widow tears it up in frustration, she finally at least implying that she knew that Ragheeb was working on something dangerous. David also tells her that he is working with Yasmin, her mother and sisters in danger at the hands of General Ali. On this news, Ragheeb's widow states that Yasmin is lying in that she has no mother or sisters, only a father who happens to be General Ali himself.At 9 o'clock that night at Trafalgar Square, David hops into Yasmin's just arrived car and they drive off. They are being tailed by one of Beshraavi's men, but Yasmin is able to lose him. Yasmin, grateful that David is still alive and not in jail, tells him of her discussion with Beshraavi. She asks directly if he still has the cipher. He responds that he no longer needs it as he has decoded the message as, "The peg will not pass until the swans fly high in the kingdom of vesta", he getting much of this made up idea from a billboard they just passed. He says he has done his job, he not needing to know what the message actually means. Rather than she dropping him off for his own safety while she goes to the embassy to report the information, he convinces her that it would be safer for him to stay with her, and that she can telephone the information to the embassy at a pay phone, which she does. She in turn convinces him that she does have to go to the embassy to deal with the aftermath, so he that he needs to find his own way from here as the police at the embassy would arrest him on sight. Following their arrangement to meet at the Knightsbridge Hotel where he is staying, he gets out of the car and she drives away, but he flags down a taxi to follow her. They follow her to Yussef's construction site, she obviously having telephoned him to arrange this meeting. However, hiding in the shadows, David can see Yasmin looking for Yussef in the building, and can see Yussef operating the wrecking ball, he who is planning to kill Yasmin with it. David rushes to save her, just before the wrecking ball comes crashing to where she was standing. Yussef, with wrecking ball, has the two of them on the run through the semi-demolished building, with one near miss after another. David eventually is able to maneuver himself to a spot where the wrecking ball hits an electrical power source, sending a major jolt of electricity through the wrecking ball machine to its cab, electrocuting Yussef to death.As David and Yasmin drive off, they argue, David mad at her for lying about going to the embassy and lying about her mother and sisters, he having got the truth from Ragheeb's widow. Yasmin then figures out why Yussef lured her to the construction site. She tells David that Ragheeb's widow is in cahoots with Yussef, Mrs. Ragheeb who lied to David about Yasmin's family and she who telephoned Yussef to tell him that Yasmin was double crossing him. Learning that Yasmin was telling the truth, David confesses that the story he told her of the decoded message was made up, and that he has not yet decoded it.At David's hotel room, David has worked through the night trying to decode the cipher, while Yasmin has been asleep in the bed. He wakes her up with a loving kiss when he has figured it out. It is not Hittite hieroglyphics as he initially believed it to be but rather a simple children's code. The decoded message is the nursery rhyme "goosey goosey gander", which is probably a red herring for something else. Remembering that Ragheeb's widow tore up a copy of the cipher upon seeing it, David finally realizes that it is not the drawings themselves, but rather something else on the original piece of paper which contains the message. Retrieving the original from the Hammersmith post office where he mailed it, David, in Yasmin's car while she is driving, tries several theories before he hits the jackpot: the cipher was written with dissolvable ink, which leaves the message remaining after dissolved. What remains is a microdot, when under a microscope reveals, "Beshraavi plans assassinate Jena twelve thirty June eighteenth", which is in twenty minutes time. They don't know where to go until Yasmin sees on a newscast that Jena has just landed at the airport. Facing road obstacles, David and Yasmin are able to make it to the airport a few minutes before 12:30. They, however, have problems trying to gain access to the press conference currently taking place. In the background, Jena, who has just been asked by a reporter about the business treaty he is about to sign with the British government, states that he will not be signing the treaty upon review of its contents. Fighting the police and the crowd, David is able to get to Jena and knock him to the ground, when bullets, from Sloane's machine gun, land where Jena was just standing. Jena is grateful to David for saving his life, David in turn telling him that the coded message stated that Beshraavi was going to kill him. Shocked, Jena asks to speak to David in private. Then, Lufti, as Jena is trying to make his way into a private room, shoots Jena dead. Yasmin whisks David off among the melee. She tries to convince him that the man who was just shot is not Jena. David is incredulous to this as he tells her that he knows Jena, has met him, and talked to him several times in the last few days. Yasmin, who now knows the entire picture of David's involvement, knows now that Beshraavi hired this man to impersonate Jena to David, without Beshraavi disclosing to the imposter that it would be a suicide mission. What tipped Yasmin to he not being Jena was that there was no recognition on his face of who she was, she who is a spy working for the real Jena.Making their way to a surveillance truck monitoring all of Jena's movement upon landing, Yasmin asks to see all the footage shot thus far. Reviewing that footage, Yasmin figures that the switch was made in the car transferring Jena from the plane to the terminal, as he was no longer wearing his trademark slippers after emerging from the window darkened car. Rushing off to where the car is located, they notice a large trunk being transferred from the car to a truck, they figuring Jena being inside the trunk. Yasmin figures Beshraavi needed the fake Jena to denounce the treaty before being killed in order to save his shipping business. Able to slip in the back of the truck as it takes off, David and Yasmin open the locked trunk to find the real Jena inside, bound and gagged but otherwise all right. The truck is headed to Yasmin's house and a waiting Beshraavi. The trunk removed from the truck, David, Yasmin and Jena are able to hide inside the truck while Beshraavi and his men transport the trunk to the house. Beshraavi, however, notices that the trunk's lock is broken. Suspicious, he orders the trunk to be opened right then and there, to find it devoid of Jena. By that time, David, Yasmin and Jena are able to run from the truck but are spotted off in the distance. A chase ensues, first through a low wheat field, where David, Yasmin and Jena are tracked by Beshraavi's men in various harvesting machines, one whose thrashing blades almost kill the three. Arriving at the stables, the three are able to secure some horses. At this time, Beshraavi and Sloane among others are following them in a helicopter with machine guns in hand. When the three arrive at a bridge, David figures they have better cover on foot among the bridge's structure. Beshraavi and Sloane are able to get some shots on the three as they race across the bridge, the helicopter making pass after pass underneath the bridge span. Getting to the mid span, the three are forced to stop due to construction work on the bridge. David, standing up to grab a construction site ladder, is an open target for Beshraavi and Sloane's next pass, they who end up missing David. As the helicopter makes its pass right underneath them on the bridge span, David drops the ladder into the helicopter's rotor. Disabled, the helicopter crashes below them into a burning blaze.David and Yasmin are in a romantic mood as they float leisurely in a canoe on a lake. Oblivious to what is going on around them as they kiss and embrace, they crash into a row boat. The male of the male/female couple in the row boat is angry at David, that is until he sees that it is Professor Pollock, the rower being his "sleeping" student, Fanshaw. To get the out of their crashed predicament, David uses a pole jabbed into the lake bottom to push off. He pushes too hard, leaving himself suspended on the pole away from the canoe. David tells Yasmin he can't swim as he falls into the water. Concerned, Yasmin jumps in to save him. "Swimming" David emerges from the water, he telling her that it was his turn to lie in what has been the major characteristic of their shared history. They embrace in the water.

Tags: murder

Review:
Both of them adrift in a tourist-eye as well as beautifully photographed London and on the run from sinister crooks and death-dealing , double secret agents who want to take a hieroglyph .This is a sparklingly sophisticated comedy/thriller/romance with Donen's stylish direction and full of plot twists , suspense , fast moving , red herrings and adding enough effects gimmicks .
Enjoyable score by Henry Mancini , including catching musical leitmotif .This espionage adventure picture was stunningly directed by Stanley Donen who made in similar style ¨Charade¨ with Gary Grant and Audrey Hepburn who was never more beautiful .
If director Stanley Donen's classic 1963 comedy-thriller CHARADE is Hitchcock Lite, then ARABESQUE is Hitchcock Lite after taking a few classes in James Bond 101 (including an opening title sequence by Maurice Binder, who also did the honors for CHARADE as well as for most of the Bond movies).
As the hieroglyphics expert embroiled in Middle Eastern intrigue while decoding the cipher everyone's after, the usual slightly wooden note in Gregory Peck's delivery is oddly effective as he tries to loosen up and deliver Cary Grant-like witticisms (from co-scripter "Pierre Marton," a.k.a. CHARADE alumnus Peter Stone).
Highlights of Arabesque are Gregory Peck playing the somewhat bumbling type, Sophia Loren's exotic beauty, and some memorable humorous situations like Pollack hiding in the shower with Jasmin while being questioned and later the two of them trailing the guy who drops the candy wrappers.
His performance isn't nearly as bad or hammy as some other reviews have indicated, but where Loren's charisma and beauty aid her in creating a completely different character than Audrey Hepburn's in "Charade," Peck comes off as an unfortunately blurred carbon coby of Grant in that earlier film.
If I had the impossible task of naming one film as "My Favorite Most Enjoyable Movie" this and it's bookend, "Charade," would be it.It is Stanley Donen's near perfect blend of Alfred Hitchcock meets James Bond.
Both feature classic Henry Mancini scores, stylish female ward-robing by the likes of Givenchy and Christian Dior and both feature memorable titles by 007's legendary title master, Maurice Binder.But it's Arabesque's wildly inventive cinematography which sets it apart from virtually every other action film.
The cinematography in Arabesque fascinates me and entertains me no end to this day.Gregory Peck's square yet hip college professor plays perfectly with Sophia Loren's chic spy - and Sophia was never more flat-out stunning.
The whole look and feel just oozes what you imagine the '60s to be--intrigue, mysterious/swarthy foreign spies, a totally cool/hot babe (Sophia Loren could not be any more gorgeous) and a handsome yet bumbling professor (Gregory Peck out harrison Ford-ing Harrison Ford years ahead of the curve).
Sophia Loren and Gregory Peck team up in this virtual re-make/sequel to director Stanley Donen's Charade, made three years earlier.
Like the Grant character in Charade, it is impossible to work out just which side Loren is on until the film's final stages.
With Gregory Peck knocking off one liners and Sophia Loren for eye candy, this film is a good one to catch if you have never seen it before...The villains in the film are a bit over the top and a tad campy but this only adds to the charm of the film..
They're all after the meaning of that message, it could upset the balance of power in the Middle-east circa 1966.In a role originally intended for Cary Grant before he announced that Walk Don't Run would be his final film, Gregory Peck ably fills the role of the debonair professor with a disarming quip for all occasions.
He invites Pollock to travel to London to meet the wealthy Nejim Beshraavi (Alan Badel) to translate a cipher in a hieroglyphic, but Pollock refuses the work.Soon Pollock is summoned by the Arabian Prime Minister Hassan Jena (Carl Duering), who is unofficially in England and asks him to accept the assignment and spy the activities of Beshraavi that might be plotting something evil.
Pollock meets Beshraavi's mistress Yasmin Azir (Sophia Loren), who tells him that he is in danger and Beshraavi will kill him in the end of his work the same way he did with Professor Ragheeb.
The story of a clumsy professor from Oxford that is involved in an international conspiracy in London has hilarious moments, like for example the shower scene with Sophia Loren that makes this movie worthwhile.
Grant wore humor like a glove and wallowed in it- Peck is much more serious.At times we forget that this film is a spy thriller, due to the comedy elements.
The film has only three major character--a professor of Wgyptology played tongue-in-cheek and beautifully by Gregory Peck; a gorgeous and mysterious female who may or may not be bad, played with style by Sophia Loren; and an understated British-accented Arabic villain, brought to life by Alan Badel.
Gregory Peck is far better as a professor here in my judgment than Cary Grant was an advertising executive in "North By Northwest", for instance; Sophia Loren has one of her most charismatic and successful roles in the film, given how little there actually was for her to work with.
This is a very enjoyable MOVIE; Gregory Peck puts on his best Cary Grant face and Sophia Loren is simply stunning.
Peck shows a nice balance between comic and dramatic acting in this film - compare his scenes where he trying to prevent a political assassination and the scenes where he finds himself hiding from the bad guys (in this case Alan Badel) by standing in the shower while Sophia Loren takes a shower - Peck is obviously enjoying that scene.Loren was good too, playing an impossible role: one moment a conspirator, the next the kept woman of the villain, the next Peck's ally and friend.
If it got great after the drug scene, then I will never know.Sophia Loren: there is no question she was drop-dead gorgeous, and even the site of her naked back in the shower is enough to steam up any room, but she is wasted in this stupid movie and all I could do was feel bad for her predicament.
***SPOILERS*** Gregory Peck as visiting American Oxford language professor David Pollock has his hand full chasing that fast filly and mystery woman Yasmin Azir, Sophia Loren,all over London and it's surroundings.
As noted many times before,ARABESQUE is a rehash,if virtually not a sequel,to the same director's CHARADE made several years earlier.It is not as good as the previous effort,a superbly scripted and cast comedy thriller with the incomparable Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn.Grant was apparently intended for the lead here,and although he would have been in his early sixties if this casting had gone ahead,he would have been a more assured lead than his replacement Gregory Peck.Peck,a fine straight actor,seems a little uncomfortable handling the various wisecracks and witticisms abound in the script,something which the ever-youthful Grant would have handled with more aplomb.That said,at 50,Peck's performance is perfectly acceptable,and he is a credible,handsome romantic lead to the alluring Sophia Loren,whose English by this time was fluent enough for her to give a more charming,rounded performance than in previous UK or US films.The best performance though comes from Mancunian actor Alan Badel,who despite an excess of gravy-stained make-up and dark shades,remarkably manages to make his villainous,suave Arab character almost entirely convincing.Badel wisely doesn't give the part a cod foreign accent which would have turned the role into a crude caricature but a deliberate,carefully modulated standard English accent which gives the part a depth and menace it didn't necessarily have in the script.Badel dominates the film,but oddly enough another Mancunian actor,George Coulouris,also plays an Arab character in the opening scene.The script by Peter Stone has much similarity with CHARADE with it's various twists and turns,but tends to lack it's predecessor's surprises and cleverness,though amusing lines and incident do usually compensate.Stanley Donen's direction is commendably brisk and pacey,though by this time(the mid 1960's),directors of spy thrillers like this thought it was the right thing to add flashy,kaleidoscopic camera tricks and angles to it's content.Donen is no different here,filming many scenes behind various pieces of furniture,glass,etc.
which were somewhat pointless even four decades ago and date such films pretty badly now.It's main technical achievement is sumptuous photography by Christopher Challis,one of the best colour cameramen of his day if not the best.If Donen hadn't fallen into the trap of trying to be trendy and directed ARABESQUE in a more restrained,yet effective way like CHARADE,it would probably have been rather better,but despite it's flaws,ARABESQUE is still a largely enjoyable,fast-moving and amusing comedy thriller..
You've guessed it: apart from a construction site, a railway station, a stud farm and a few roads, that's where this film is set.David Pollock, (Gregory Peck), an Oxford University lecturer in hieroglyphics, is hired by an Arab shipping magnate to translate an ancient Hittite inscription, which is really a secret code.
While engaged in this task he meets a mysterious Arab woman (Sophia Loren) who is the magnate's girlfriend.There then follows a series of adventures involving some of the weirdest characters ever seen in a mainstream film thriller.
Peter Stone's script is absurdly convoluted and too "clever" for its own good; Donen's direction is gimmicky, lacking the simplicity and effectiveness of his work in the earlier film; Gregory Peck delivers his supposedly witty lines flatly and makes an unsuccessful effort to imitate Cary Grant's mannerisms; and Sophia Loren basically exists in the movie for the one scene where she shows off her gorgeous legs.
Problem is Greg wasn't too good at goofy comedy (the part was meant for Cary Grant who thankfully must have realized he was too old for it), the plot seems to have been concocted in nightly installments - by different people, the timing is awful - some scenes look like rehearsals or outtakes & the acting is the pits.
A Panavision/Technicolor production with music by Henry Mancini and cinematography by Christopher Challis.Hieroglyphics expert David Pollock (Peck) is thrust into a world of shifty political intrigue involving a Middle Eastern Prime Minister, a beautiful spy and a sinister rich businessman.There's quite a bit wrong with Arabesque, with white actors made up as Arabs, a scatter-gun plot, weak finale, a barely threatening villain and Peck is no action hero!
Professor David Pollock (Gregory Peck) is kidnapped by Beshraavi (Alan Badel) to decipher some hieroglyphics that contain state secrets (or something).
The plot concerns about a cryptic hieroglyphic message, and I don't want to spoil the details but it would be a quite disappointing turnover for the fuss, and the adventures are arranged one on the heels of another , an expedient strategy to cover up the ludicrousness of the happenings, jammed with comic reliefs, unexpected twist and arduous action set pieces, on a similar scale, the movie is a crowd-pampering blockbuster of its time, money is splurged to a keep the ever-present fatigue at bay.On a technical level, DP Christopher Challis's cinematography dares to go out on a limb to be occasionally hypnotic (when Pollock is drugged and left walking in the highway), menacing (the opening sequence where a blatant murder is carried out in an eye-doctor clinic), or ominous (a night chase in a zoo with flashes on awaken creatures); Henry Mancini's score concerts seamlessly with the story to establish a pleasant viewing experience albeit its larger-than-life goofiness.
With this movie adding the exotic charm of Sophia Loren as Peck's leading lady, rich technicolour hues, swinging London settings and a soundtrack by Henry Mancini, all the elements appear to be present for another entertaining exercise in suspense and skullduggery, there's even a cryptic one word title too, (although it probably looks less than P.C. with today's hindsight) and a decent Saul Bass-lite title sequence.From there though, it pretty much all goes west, or should that be far east given the intrigue at the heart of the story.
Of course it's not long before this innocent abroad is inveigled into a plot to assassinate a Far Eastern prime minister, where he runs into Miss Loren, who seems to wear a different glamorous Christian Dior outfit in every scene.Via a circuitous route taking in Horseguard's Parade, Ascot Races and Heathrow Airport, Peck is menaced by being thrown out of a moving car at night on a motorway, attacked by a wrecking ball on a derelict building site and finally by a combine harvester of all things before the day is saved and the now loving couple splash happily ever after.Director Donen has admitted since that he employed every camera trick and angle to cover up the glaring gaps in the script and I suppose if you view it through a trippy psychedelic prism you might get a kick from it, but Peck's unconvincing turn as the boffin turned secret agent wings the film mortally and its sad to see this fine actor overcompensate for the film's deficiencies by mugging frantically to paper over the cracks.
Love thriller with a touch of comedy and have a lot of respect for Gregory Peck, Alan Badel, Sophia Loren, Stanley Donen and Henry Mancini.
Peck plays an American professor, and when he's recruited to help stop an assassination attempt on a Middle Eastern Prime Minister, he meets Sophia Loren.
Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren star in "Arabesque," directed by Stanley Donen, who gave us "Charade." This isn't "Charade" - nothing could be - but this derivative film has its roots in Hitchcock and "Charade." Gregory Peck is the common man - in this case, a professor - who is more or less kidnapped to translate a cipher.
"Arabesque" is one of those 60's films that mixes political intrigue with tongue-in-check humor that benefits from a stellar cast, featuring Oscar winners Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren.
while this film is often compared unfavourably to charade, with good reason, it is an entertaining film.Charade is almost perfect and it would be difficult for any other movie to match its iconic status.Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren cannot compare to Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn but they are solid stars in their own right..Loren is not the world's best actress but she is exquisite to look at.
Peck is aging but still a major star and there is an old pro's grace about him.OK so arabesque is not charade but its a beautifully shot piece of entertainment with a good central performance from Gregory Peck and its better than 90% of the rest of the movies out there..
Except for the poison eye drops used on a spy at the start of the movie, Sophia Loren's gravity-defying chest, and the realization that the look on Gregory Peck's face isn't from acting but embarrassment, there's nothing commendable about Arabesque, a stupid-cutesy combination of Charade, Bond, and Mirage.Much to the chagrin of Charade, Bond, and Mirage.I saw Arabesque as a kid and got bored with it.
I think if they'd gotten Grant and a leading lady with a lighter touch (and some more convincing Arabs) "Arabesque" might have been a minor romantic adventure classic, instead of a major bad movie classic.The film, though not a big success at the time of release, and not fondly remembered now, does seem to have been pretty influential on future makers of action-adventure romance flicks.
An Odd Title draws attention to this bit of Fluff from Director Stanley Donen as He Followed Up the Enormous Success of the Similar "Charade" (1964), this time it's Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren.1966 was a Time of Hollywood in Flux being Swept up in Cultural and Political Turmoil.
GREGORY PECK and SOPHIA LOREN make a handsome couple, even though Peck was pushing 50 at the time and still looked good enough to play romantic leads with the best of them.
And when one of the final revelations involves a man pretending to be another, it makes you think of Hitchcock and the assassination attempt in FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT.In other words, don't expect too much originality in the various plot devices, nor expect too much wit in the cornball exchanges between the villains (KIERON MOORE, ALAN BADEL, JOHN MERIVALE) and the out of his depth hero (PECK) who finds that trying to decipher a Hittite code can be a dangerous thing when so many enemies want to get their hands on the encrypted message.It moves briskly under Donen's stylish direction.
After the success of his Hitchcock homage "Charade", director Stanley Donen made this very similar comedy-thriller with Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren in the lead roles.
Gregory Peck handles the "man thrust into the middle of a mystery" role very well, Sophia Loren's performance, as the mysterious Yasmin, is excellent but easy to overlook, due to how beautiful she looks, and Alan Badel makes an excellent villain, -complete with ever present dark glasses and a hawk!
Mr. Donnen probably thought this movie would be as appreciated as the latter one, but alas, even though it's by no means, a dud, on second viewing, there are signs that perhaps he should have sticked to the other genre where he excelled.It must have seemed to be a great idea to throw Gregory Peck, an aging star, who always gave a good performance, against Sophia Loren, at the height of her beauty.
Alan Bates is way over the top as the thoroughly evil Beshraavi and Kerion Moore with his "hip" dialogue doesn't come across."Arabesque" has its moments and it certainly has Sophia Loren but Gregory Peck is more at home in serious dramas..
I especially liked the performances of both Gregory Peck and the lovely Sophia Loren.
Considering that this film featured Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren, I expected more than I got.
There are just so many similar elements, though Sophia Loren is playing the role played by Cary Grant in the previous film and Gregory Peck is taking Audrey Hepburn's!
This one feels very much like CHARADE, and merely recasts the central roles in the form of Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren.