A movie-spoof that has become a cult classic. The plot was created out of largely improvised situations (shot in Italy), but the script with which Truman Capote and John Huston emerged is both outrageously farcical and mincingly literate in its treatment of the standard clichés of the Maltese Falcon-like international thriller. As a pack of swindlers and royal imposters shipwrecked off North Africa, Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, Jennifer Jones and a superb international cast all play the joke to the hilt.