Gambit

Cockney cat burglar Harry Dean (Michael Caine) and his artist friend Emile Fournier (John Abbott (actor, born 1905)) discover exotic Eurasian (mixed ancestry) showgirl Nicole Chang (Shirley MacLaine) in a crowded Hong Kong restaurant. She bears an incredible resemblance both to the late wife of the world's richest man, an Arabs named Shahbandar (Herbert Lom), as well as to a priceless ancient Chinese statuette that he owns; Harry and Emile want to use her in a scheme to rob him of it. The caper—in which Nicole never even speaks—seems to play out flawlessly before it is revealed that this was merely Harry's explanation of his plot to Emile, and the story returns to the beginning. However, nothing in the actual caper works out as smoothly as Harry had planned.