Elizabeth Lipp (Melina Mercouri), grande amatrice de pierres précieuses, convainc son amant, Walter Harper (Maximilian Schell) pour organiser le vol de la dague du sultan incrustée de diamants et d'émeraudes conservée au Palais de Topkapi à Istanbul, en Turquie. Lipp et Harper recrutent un acrobate, Giulio (Gilles Ségal). L'équipe a aussi besoin d'un expert en électronique et gadgets associés qu'ils dénichent en Angleterre avec M. Cedric Page (Robert Morley). Tout ce petit monde se rend à Kavala, dans le nord de la Grèce, en quête d'un pigeon qui devra passer la frontière turque avec le matériel nécessaire au cambriolage et qu'il devrait pouvoir trouver en la personne de M. Arthur Simon Simpson (Peter Ustinov)....
The Ottoman Dynasty extended over three continents, surviving 600 years from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the 20th century. 24 of its 36 Sultans ruled the Empire from Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, for a period of 400 years. The royal residence, which has witnessed moments of great joy and sorrow, became a museum after the founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923 by Kemal Ataturk. Until it opened its doors to visitors from all over the world, the Topkapi Palace had always been a mysterious, shuttered world.
The "Topkapi Palace" series represents the widest-ranging project of its kind ever to be taken. It was in 1990 that all the doors of the Topkapi Palace were opened to a film crew for the first time. Their lights probed parts of the palace still closed to visitors and, indeed, into places that had never seen the daylight..
