Terence Young's Triple Cross

source: Terence Young's Triple Cross

Trailer—Triple Cross

Proudly declaring itself in the opening credits 'Terence Young's Triple Cross', the first half is basically James Bond With Nazis, reuniting Gert Frobe from 'Goldfinger' and Claudine Auger from 'Thunderball' (with Anthony Dawson from 'Dr No', Francis de Wolff from 'From Russia with Love' and Edward Underdown from 'Thunderball' in smaller parts). Christopher Plummer seems to having more fun here than in 'The Sound of Music', and the gun with a curved barrel for shooting round corners suggests someone's tongue was initially in their cheek. But Young's direction is lazily dependent on pans and zooms, it all goes on for far too long, and becomes increasingly plot-heavy as it grinds it's way towards the two-hour mark.

ok, it has its flaws...and it's too long but nevermind that. 'fantastique histoire..' features a stellar international cast with christopher plummer playing the amoral eddie chapman playing the enemies against each other. it's dialogue and style is quite 'tongue-in-the-cheek', quite humorous at times. one of the more light-headed yet very entertaining WW2/spy-movies. definitely worth seeing, but don't take it too seriously.

Disappointing 1966 film with Christopher Plummer as an imprisoned safe cracker who begins dealing in espionage and counter-espionage, respectively with Nazi Germany and England. Plummer is extremely cocky in the film and in certain scenes acts as if he is Captain Von Trapp of "The Sound of Music" fame the year before. Romy Schneider, a German operative, is given little to do here other than some bed scenes with Plummer. Goldfinger's Gert Frobe, a suspicious German officer, is relatively subdued here. Yul Brynner, as a major German officer, throws his weight around only to be victimized in the end in the plot to assassinate Hitler. The film can become confusing at certain intervals as you may not know whose allegiance Plummer really is for. The ending at the bar is contrived and really inane.

The ghost of Bond is fairly obvious here. Plummer as the real life safe cracker Eddy Chapman is suitably suave and charming and Yul Brynner is his normal stiff martinet (with added monocle)and Romi Schneider is "okay" (the love scenes are mostly a dud and show little chemistry between Romi and Chris). The production design is pretty good, lots of authentic uniforms and arms, plus plenty of genuine WW2 trucks and cars, the naughty Nazis are a tad stereotypical, but the conference scenes in the Paris hotel are well produced. Perhaps an aircraft buff can identify the twin engined plane used in several sequences, it certainly didn't look German! Overall an entertaining way of passing the time with few phony heroics.

Quite right, it is definitely not a German plane. The aircraft is a 1946 French SNCAC Martinet. This was enjoyable to watch on a quiet evening at home. It was particularly interesting for me because I knew nothing of Edward Chapman's charmed life and wartime exploits so now I would like to know more about him and I'll be tempted to read up a bit and do some research about him. The film was well made with good production values and direction. My complaint is with the editing which was off kilter at times. The story line was abrupt and frequently resulted in too many fast changes. For instance we needed to see how Edward Chapman got passage on the vessel to Lisbon.

War is loaming for England. In London, jewel thief Eddie Chapman (Christopher Plummer) uses self-made explosives to blow up safes proclaiming to be the Gelignite Gang. He goes to the popular holiday location Jersey Islands and gets arrested by the police. After ten months in solitary, the Germans occupy the islands. He offers his services to the Nazis. Apparently, this is a true story... sorta. Plummer is playing him like James Bond. It would be more compelling for him to be a darker criminal with murky morality. In the real story, the Germans are completely taken by him which is so dumb. Of course, nothing is more unbelievable than true life. The problem is that this is an unbelievable story. It's hard to see why they would trust this man. As a movie, the story unfolds in a series of unconvincing incidents. Tension is limited. It's all rather flat.