A memorable scene that sees Holloway and Guinness scampering down the staircase of the Eiffel Tower has a Hitchcockian, vertiginous quality.

Alfie Bass and Sid James, playing the other criminals, are classic supporting turns; like Holloway, they are the kind of organic, garden-grown character actors that Britain may not produce any more. This is tremendous fun – one of the finest of caper-gone-wrong movies.

A before-she-was-famous cameo from Audrey Hepburn is a surreal frisson.

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