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Terence Young directed the first two James Bond films and magnificently set the style of the series. He tries to bring some of that flamboyance to "Triple Cross", down to a title song which should have been sung by Shirley Bassey. But this wartime shaggy-dog espionage yarn resisted the 007 treatment and laid a big egg.

Compared with, say, "Five Fingers" or "I Was Monty's Double", "Triple Cross" is sluggish. It's a European co-production, always a difficult diplomatic problem, and the cast is a mini-United Nations: a Canadian as the secret agent, a British spy master, Germans, an Austrian love interest and Yul Brynner, whose origins (like those of the slab in "2001") were still a total mystery.

Christopher Plummer is sleek and sardonic as Eddie Chapman, a master safe cracker and in reality a working class charmer from North East England who had been a Guardsman; here he seems more of a toff, like Raffles or Bond. The bare bones of his story were true and incredible enough not to need polishing.

Eddie was in jail in the Channel Island of Jersey when the Germans occupied it in 1940 (by air, not as shown here from ships docked directly under Chapman's cell). He offered himself as a Nazi spy to get back to England. There he immediately re-ratted and got sent to Germany, where he trained other agents whom the British caught and turned. The unsuspecting Nazis were so pleased with his apparent perfidy that he was given the Iron Cross. Hence the film's title.

Brynner is a "good German" colonel, an anti-Nazi aristo who pays the price of involvement in the Hitler assassination plot. Among other heel-clickers who think they are controlling Chapman is Gert Frobe-- so that's what Goldfinger was up to before he became a card sharp in Miami. Trevor Howard sports an ugly little ginger beard. Romy Schneider, no longer the plump little ingenue of the Sissi trilogy, is sharp-jawed and wan as Eddie's aristocratic girlfriend.

Their lack of chemistry underscores Plummer's lack of sex appeal. He was losing the kudos he had gained as Baron von Trapp-- maybe he'd have felt more at ease in Brynner's part-- and his stellar status was as brief as Julie Andrews's. Eddie Chapman fared better. Given a blanket amnesty at the war's end, he married and lived long, prosperously and respectably.

These international films were big in the '60s, and Triple Cross is no exception. It stars Christopher Plummer, Romy Schneider, Trevor Howard, Yul Brynner, Gert Frobe, and Claudine Auger.

Triple Cross is loosely based on the exploits of Eddie Chapman, a successful thief who becomes an agent for the Germans and then an agent for the English, though he keeps working for the Germans.

The story is even more fascinating because it's true, but somehow, the film falls flat. Instead of being on the edge of your seat, you relax on the couch. Its pace was somewhat slow, the editing jumpy, and the film is short on action.

Christopher Plummer is a wonderful actor, but one gets the feeling that Eddie Chapman was scrappier and lower class than he's portrayed here. The beautiful Romy Schneider is wasted.

The film is directed by Terence Young, responsible for some wonderful films: Wait Until Dark and some James Bond films, and then some not as successful, such as one of the worst films ever made, Bloodline, and another bomb, Mayerling. So one can say he was inconsistent. Unfortunate.

There are apparently two books on Chapman which are probably more interesting.

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.

I like Triple Cross mainly for two reasons - the cast (Plummer, Fröbe, Brunner, Schneider) and the production value. But what Triple Cross always dragged down for me - even if it's based on a true story - is the fact that I cannot believe that the Germans would have trusted a character like the Eddie Chapman aka Franz Graumann of the movie: he is a romantic and a gambler. Would you trust such a man with secretive and dirt work?

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.