International jewel thief Elizabeth Lipp (Melina Mercouri), whose idea it is for the Istanbul heist, recruits her burglars and first hires her old flame William Walter (Maximilian Schell). He suggests that the rest of the team be amateurs. They include Cedric Page (Robert Morley), an English lord, who is an eccentric scientist and an expert at building gadgets; Giulio (Gilles Segal) is to be the acrobatic fellow who is lowered into the dagger room by rope and switches the phony dagger for the real one that the museum’s wax sultan carries; Hans Fisher (Jess Hahn) is the strongman who will hold the rope for Giulio; and Josef (Joseph Dassin) is the fairgrounds worker who will smuggle the real dagger across the border to Greece. Arthur Simpson (Peter Ustinov) is the poor “schmo” of a tourist guide in a Greek seaport who is roped into driving their car, with a hidden rifle and smoke grenades, to Turkey. He’s the only reason for seeing the film, as he carries it on his back with his delightfully bumbling antics and bad case of vertigo.