I've just watched this movie on TV on a wet afternoon, and the time passed very quickly. Gregory Peck handles the "man thrust into the middle of a mystery" role very well, Sophia Loren's performance, as the mysterious Yasmin, is excellent but easy to overlook, due to how beautiful she looks, and Alan Badel makes an excellent villain, -complete with ever present dark glasses and a hawk! - who wouldn't be out of place in a Bond movie. There are some genuinely funny lines and more twists than at a chubby checker concert. The only (small) criticism I would offer is that it could have probably lost 10 minutes or so to make it a little punchier, and some of the action scenes now require some suspension of close examination ( why does one man select a mechanical wrecking ball as a murder weapon, rather than the slightly more practical knife or gun, and an Ascot race crowd push British reserve to the limit by largely ignoring a stabbing in the middle of them) but overall this is a very entertaining film, which I am sure you will enjoy if you liked North by Northwest or Charade.
Review of Arabesque
