Triple Cross: La fantastique histoire vraie d'Eddie Chapman

Fascinating thriller of espionage and how to survive the most impossible circumstances by simply collaborating with any criminal and make him trust you, even if he doesn't. This is no James Bond entertainment but bloody war and a true one, and Eddie Chapman existed for real and managed to trick his way through the war by selling his soul to any devil that offered a price. He was doomed from the beginning and would have passed the entire war in jail for burglary on an advanced scale if he hadn't offered himself as a spy for the Germans. There it all began.

The main character of the drama however is not Chapman/Christopher Plummer but Yul Brunner as his main employer in Germany, the Baron von Grunen, who has no illusions about the war and admits defeat when there is one. Gert Frobe is another, an honest policeman who survives by his honesty and sticking to it, even when it could be argued away. Romy Schneider is the one woman of some realism who also admits defeat and recognizes a fatal farewell and accepts it even when there is one too many. All actors are good but none outstanding, because a complicated story like this admits no stars, and the grim reality and circumstances of the intrigue play of a war like this lets no star shine through. Only in the end, after the war, when Christopher Plummer finally is able to relax at a pub home in London there is finally room for an ego when it has got through it all alive and kicking after all, – but it took many difficult twists and turns to get there.

What seems sometimes like an incredible tale of how a con man easily convinces the British and the Germans that he's working for them during WWII, with very little effort, is given rather routine treatment under the direction of Terence Young.

Christopher Plummer, fresh from playing the Captain in "The Sound of Music," lends a polished air of humor and sarcasm to the role of Eddie Chapman, a safe cracker who makes himself useful to both the British and the German armies by acting as a go between who uses his skills to thwart Germany's war plans for bombing London. Based on a true story, I'm sure it embellishes the truth with lots of fictional twists and turns that serve the purpose of keeping a viewer tuned in to find out what happens next.

A shorter running time would have helped, but the performances are all on a good level with special nods to Yul Brynner, Trevor Howard, Gert Frobe and Romy Schneider. Much of the story seems unconvincing despite the fact that the basic ingredients are based on a true story.

Somehow, Plummer's casting seems slightly off for this kind of material. Gert Frobe is a standout as a doubting Nazi who suspects Plummer is not quite what he pretends to be. Brynner is more low key than usual as an anti-Nazi German officer who knows the end of the war is near. Romy Schneider is excellent as Plummer's love interest.

Could have been a much tighter, more suspenseful tale than it is.

The film has an excellent true life story about Eddie Chapman. His exploits during World War Two are an excellent read and offer great potential for a film about his exploits.

Director Terence Young of 1960s James Bond films fame brings together an ensemble cast like a Bond alumni. Lead by Christopher Plummer who plays his role adequately but a pound shop Sean Connery from said Bond films.

The film drags in places and with better direction and casting could have been a great war film. As it is, what we have is a very average film of a story deserving a classic film. A shame because in places the story is suspenseful, makes you think as Chapman crosses the English to the Nazi's, then vice versa all for personal gain as well as for King and country? A film that is crying out to be remade?

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.

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.