Arabesque is a 1966 American thriller spy film directed by Stanley Donen and starring Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren, written by Julian Mitchell, Stanley Price, and Peter Stone based on The Cipher, a 1961 novel by Alex Gordon (pseudonym of Gordon Cotler [fr][4]).

Major Sloane kills Professor Ragheeb, an ancient hieroglyphics expert at Oxford University and steals a hieroglyph-encrypted message.

Sloane then asks David Pollock, another professor working there, to meet with shipping magnate Nejim Beshraavi on a business matter.

He is later kidnapped by the prime minister of a Middle Eastern country, Hassan Jena and his ambassador to the United Kingdom, Mohammed Lufti.

The next morning, Yasmin tells Beshraavi that Yussef, for whom the cipher was originally intended, killed David and the henchman but does not yet know the coded message.

Yasmin convinces him that she hates Yussef and that she pretends to help him because his boss Ali, a general orchestrating a military takeover, has her mother and sisters hostage.

David and Yasmin later overhear Webster and Beshraavi planning to meet at the Ascot racetrack to betray Yussef.

David and Yasmin hide in the truck and free Jena as the van arrives at Beshraavi's country estate.

David, Yasmin and Jena escape on horses from his stables, being pursued through crop fields by a farm combine with blades.

While crossing the disused Crumlin steel-girder railway viaduct, David drops a ladder down into the helicopter's rotors as Beshraavi and Sloane pass underneath, causing them to crash and burn.

"[6] With Peck and Loren already contracted to do the film, Challis recalled that Donen told him "Our only hope is to make it so visually exciting the audience will never have time to work out what the hell is going on".

Sophia Loren's request for 20 different pair of shoes for her character led to her lover in the film being described as having a foot fetish.

[5] In a chase scene Peck, who had been injured years earlier in a horse-riding accident, could not run fast enough to keep up with Loren, who kept pulling ahead.

At the time the building was a disaster recovery site owned by the ANZ Banking Group and was largely unused and unfurnished.

Arabesque received mixed to positive reviews from critics and audiences, earning a 74% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

[5] Boxoffice Magazine called it "a spy adventure par excellence" and wrote that it was "in the best Alfred Hitchcock vein and ranks among the year's best.

"[10] Variety wrote, "Arabesque packs certain salable ingredients...but...fault lies in a shadowy plot line and confusing characters, particularly in the miscasting of Peck in a cute role.