Whatever its perceived shortcomings upon its 1958 release (1960 in the U.S.), “The Man Inside” offers plenty of delights for the classic film buff of today.

It’s got veteran screen heavy Jack Palance, cast against type as a drawling, wisecracking film noir detective. He’d win an Oscar for being even funnier than this in “City Slickers.”

There’s gorgeous Swedish starlet Anita Ekberg as a femme fatale, joking about her “concealed weapons” and giving Palance’s character a running gag he just wouldn’t let go of.

Future James Bond producer Albert “Cubby” Broccoli signed the checks of not one but TWO future Bond villains — Donald Pleasense and Walter Gotell — for this pre-Bond bounce around Europe.

And here’s future Grammy winner Anthony Newley, slinging a not-wholly passable accent as a Spanish cabbie and singing a Spanish patter song. Well, the song is looped, but that may have been him singing.

“The Man Inside,” based on a novel by M.E.Chaber, is a pre-“Pink Panther,” pre “Topkapi” diamond heist thriller. A solitary, man-of-few-words Brit (Nigel Patrick, terrific) and New York diamond-trade insider walks in on a colleague of 15 years, locks the man in his safe and steals the coveted Tyrana Blue from a display case in his office.

Silent Sam Carter shoots the elevator operator to make his escape.

He’s become entranced, “obsessed” with the jewel, the colleague tells the police, who summon their Man in Dallas (Palance), Mr. “heart of asbestos,” to chase this Sam Carter down and retrieve the treasure.

Milo March marches in on Carter’s dumpy old New York apartment to find Trudie (Ekberg), dressed to the nines, has rented it. She can’t be mixed up in this, or can she?

Milo realizes she is when his car, parked outside, blows up, killing the guy he’d given the keys to move it. And he figures out someone ELSE, someone serious, is tracking Carter and covets the diamond as well.

The story takes us to the alleys of Lisbon and the parks and backstreets of Madrid, where Milo’s cabbie/guide to the city (Newley) is his driver on a car chase in an attempt to get away from goons led by Lomer, the man with the scar (Bonar Colleano, in his final film).

Paris comes next, then a train ride to London, as March gets close to Carter, they compete for Trudie and we pick up hints about the murderous robber’s personality. He’s a classic loner, but he does magic tricks for the children of Madrid, who steal the object he has the diamond hidden in and lead him on a merry chase through the Plaza de Espana of Franco-era Spain.

When a child hands the cabbie Ernesto a rabbit at the conclusion of all this, it’s hard to imagine a better punchline.

It’s all something of a violent lark, with scores of Brits employed in roles of various nationalities (mostly in soundstage interiors) for this Warwick Production, distributed by Columbia. I laughed at quite a few sight gags, pithy noir-speak exchanges and pretty much every time Newley shows up.

The plot’s problem-solving — getting our heroes in and out of jams, parlaying information into being in on the deal, etc .– has a few holes thanks to the production’s overall briskness, probably reflected behind the camera.

The music — composed by Richard Rodney Bennett and conducted by Muir Mathieson — swings. The lighting, camera blocking and cinematography (by early Bond favorite Ted Bennett) are sharp, the action beats are well conceived. Nicolas Roeg is one of the credited assistant directors (IMDb has him as a camera operator).

Pleasence duels Newley for “Scene Stealer” honors. He plays a Portuguese organ grinder “much too GRIEVED” to talk about his dead friend, the document-forger, whom Carter also murders. Insert bribe here.

Patrick, one of the great character players of his era, is all beady-eyed mustachio’d menace here. Carter is someone all involved might underestimate but the classic example of the title’s aphorism, a man with a public face but whose “man inside” we don’t grasp until he acts on his innermost obsession, that “tyrana blue” (it’s a black-and-white Cinemascope film) stone he has coveted for 15 years.

How Ekberg — a great beauty who achieved screen immortality just a couple of years later in Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita” — never became a Hitchock Blonde is a mystery for the ages. She hits just the right notes in a role that could have just been another skirt for Newley to leer at.

Palance has a light touch in the Ekberg and Newley scenes, a two-fisted one in the fights. It took decades for filmmakers to fully appreciate everything he could play, but he hints at that range in “The Man Inside.”

Whatever expectations this lightweight thriller carried with it in 1958, now it can be appreciated for the tone, the action beats and travelogue narrative template for 60+ years of Bond films, and imitation Bonds, to come. It’s witty, with cool locations, colorful supporting players and a two fisted hero who might get the girl, but always after getting his man.

Rating: “approved,” violence, double entendres

Cast: Jack Palance, Anita Ekberg, Nigel Patrick, Donald Pleasence, Bonar Colleano and Anthony Newley.

Credits: Directed by John Gilling, scripted by David Shaw, based on a novel by M.E. Chaber. A Columbia release on Tubi, etc.

Running time: 1:29