Triple Cross (1966)

User Rating:

6.3/10   

Director:

Terence Young

Writers:

Frank Owen (book)
René Hardy (screenplay)

Release Date:

9 December 1966 (France)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Thriller | War | Drama

Tagline:

MASTER-CRIMINAL! SUPER-SPY! AND ALL TRUE!

Plot:

Loosely based on a true story, Christopher Plummer plays British bank robber Eddie Chapman who finds himself caught between the waring parties in WW2...

Plot Keywords:

Airplane | British Agent | Reconnaissance | Agent | Uniform

Cast

Christopher Plummer	...	Eddie Chapman
Romy Schneider	...	Countess
Trevor Howard	...	Distinguished Civilian (Freddie Young)
Gert Fröbe	...	Colonel Steinhager (as Gert Frobe)
Claudine Auger	...	Paulette
Yul Brynner	...	Baron von Grunen
Harry Meyen	...	Lt. Keller
Georges Lycan	...	Leo
Jess Hahn	...	Commander Braid
Gil Barber	...	Bergman
Jean-Claude Bercq	...	Major von Leeb
Jean Claudio	...	Sgt. Thomas
Anthony Dawson	...	Major Stillman (also as Tony Dawson)
Robert Favart	...	Gen. Dalrymple
Bernard Fresson	...	French Resistant (Raymond)

Also Known As:

Fantastique histoire vraie d'Eddie Chapman, La (France)
Terence Young's Triple Cross (UK) (complete title)

MPAA:

Rated PG for language, violence and sensuality.

Runtime:

UK:140 min | USA:126 min

Country:

France | UK

Language:

English | Portuguese

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Australia:PG | Iceland:L | USA:Not Rated | Finland:K-12 | Norway:15 | UK:A (original rating) | UK:PG (video rating) (2002)

Filming Locations:

Studios de la Victorine - 16 avenue Edoard Grinda, Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, France

Company:

Bercol Films

Goofs:

Factual errors: The Lusitania is pictured on the newspaper's front page, with two stacks. But the Lusitania had four.

Quotes:

Eddie Chapman: I'm a realist. I'm in prison and I want to get out! I don't give a damn for Germany, or for England either. Why should I? What have they done for me lately?

Soundtrack:

Triple Cross

Raffles Goes to War

Triple Cross tells the story of professional thief Eddie Chapman who worked as a double agent for the Germans and the British during World War II. He's charmingly played by Christopher Plummer who was at the height of his career with The Sound of Music on the horizon for him.

Chapman was some piece of work and he was only able to accomplish this whole thing by dint of the fact that he was operating on the Channel islands when World War II broke out. By that time he'd eschewed opening safes by cracking combinations, he was using controlled amounts of gelignite in his work.

Sent to prison on the Isle of Jersey, Plummer is there when the Germans take over those islands and promptly offers his services to the Nazis. After taking him up on the offer despite the stern objections of Gert Frobe, Plummer gets an assignment back in the United Kingdom. Of course upon landing there he promptly offers his services to the British and they take him up on it as well.

I love to watch Christopher Plummer on screen. He's so suave and professional in everything he does whether it's the Duke of Wellington in the film Waterloo, to Baron Von Trapp in The Sound of Music, to even the villainous hypocritical reverend in Dragnet. He's never anything, but at his best for his audience.

His handlers at the British and German ends are Trevor Howard and Yul Brynner. Howard is in the stiff upper lip tradition of his country and Brynner provides an air of melancholia for his part. It ends in tragedy for him as he's part of the bomb plot to kill Hitler in 1944.

By the way it is just that somehow Plummer was conned biggest of all in the end. To see what I'm talking about by all means catch Triple Cross.