CAIRO (1963)

Major Pickering (George Sanders) arrives in Cairo seeming a bit paranoid. A career criminal who is getting on in years, he just got out of a Greek prison and he's in Cairo for one last job: stealing $250,000 worth of valuables from the King Tut exhibit at the Cairo Museum. His first stop is a visit to Willy, an old acquaintance who used to work as a safecracker for Pickering. Willy, now a family man, is reluctant to join up but the estimated amount of his take for just an hour's worth of work convinces him to help. Nicodemos, a slimy casino owner, is Pickering's chief contact and helps him find the rest of his crew, including Kuchuk, a shady businessman who puts up the cash for the operation, and Kerim, a coffee shop owner who will serve as the driver. Ali (Richard Johnson), a shifty hashish smoker with a belly-dancer girlfriend and who owes lots of money to some dangerous people, joins in, hoping to take his money and go back to his boyhood village along the Nile to reclaim his family's sugar cane farm. The robbery seems to go off without a hitch until the explosives they use to break into the museum resonate all over the neighborhood and set off alarms in the area. As you might predict, the best laid plans go awry, leading to tragic consequences for all. 

It took me until about the 30-minute mark to figure out that this is a remake of THE ASPHALT JUNGLE, with Sanders in the Sam Jaffe role, Walter Rilla (Kuchuk) in the Louis Calhern role, and Richard Johnson (Ali) in the Sterling Hayden part. Sanders is top billed, and he's fine, but it's Johnson (pictured) who is the heart of the movie, both his character and his acting. He could have played the part in a very surface way, looking tired and unhealthy, but he is absolutely riveting, even getting our sympathy despite his unwholesome aura. It's a bit astonishing to realize that Johnson played the relatively suave lead ghost hunter in THE HAUNTING the same year. Visually, this has a less urban look than most noir films—it was filmed on location in Cairo—but a handful of shots mirror closely some shots from ASPHALT, including the memorable ending. Though most of the roles are taken by British actors, many supporting parts are filled by Egyptian actors, including iconic Egyptian actress Faten Hamamah as Ali's girlfriend. The director, Wolf Rilla, is the brother of Walter Rilla. The film bogs down a bit in the middle, but it's worth sticking to the end, largely for Richard Johnson. [TCM]