Topkapi

Bruce Geller, the series' creator, took inspiration from Topkapi's elaborate, carefully planned heist structure and adapted it into an espionage setting: a team of specialists, minimal dialogue, precise execution, and suspense built around timing.

From the Turner Classic Movies discussion of Topkapi, which explicitly describes Topkapi as Dassin's return to the heist genre after Rififi. It identifies the climactic heist sequence as the major element carried over: both films stage the robbery with virtually no dialogue, using the mechanics of the theft itself to generate suspense. The BFI is even more explicit: it describes Topkapi as Dassin having “refined the heist movie in Rififi” and then deliberately taking the form in a different direction—away from noir and toward a lighter, colorful caper.