Arabesque

Swell!

Arabesque is directed by Stanley Donen and collectively adapted by Julian Mitchell, Stanley Price and Pierre Marton from Gordon Cotler's novel The Cypher. It stars Gregory Peck, Sophia Loren, Alan Badel, John Merivale and Harold Kasket. 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! Yet if you can just run with it, to ...

Fun little espionage-romance-thriller featuring the wonderful duo of Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren. Gets a bit confusing and still don't quite understand the point of the cipher to begin with, but has some thrilling scenes and a solid finale. Nothing terribly memorable and certainly has shades of Charade (same writer and director) released three years prior, yet still worth checking out. 3.5/5

This is quite an enjoyable romantic thriller that brings out the best in both Gregory Peck - as the hapless academic and Sophia Loren as the duplicitous girlfriend of our baddie Alan Badel. The premiss is a shade too convoluted - the professor is recruited to help track down and decipher an hieroglyphic scroll that may prevent the assassination of a Middle Eastern Prime Minister. There are loads of red herrings and a pithily paced dialogue - that reminded me of one of the better episodes of "The Man from UNCLE" - to help keep us amused as he navigates the waters of international political intrigue; and manages to fall in love a bit too. It's not the most original storyline you'll ever watch, but there is much more for Loren to get her teeth...