From the opening credits, it's plain that director Stanley Donen is prepared to resort to all the tricks in the cinematic trade to make this as riveting a thriller as his earlier 'Charade'.

Donen's enthusiasm for making the best of his material lends pace and sustained interest to a rather fatuous tale about a university professor involved in sinister goings-on around a Middle East oil state.

Gregory Peck is amusingly bewildered, if surprisingly tough, as the professor and Sophia Loren provides the glamorous mystery element in the plot.

Perhaps the biggest mystery is how she manages to change her Dior dresses (sometimes in the same sequence) at a rate bordering on the miraculous.

Good, it makes for relaxing entertainment.