Triple Cross (1966)

Christopher Plummer a respected stage and screen actor won an Oscar for best supporting actor at the age of 82. A victim of the curse of Canadian actors who tend not to get Oscar nominated, he was only nominated for his first Oscar at the age of 80!With director Terence Young who also made Dr No and several actors who have appeared in Bond movies, I wonder if Christopher Plummer was auditioning for 007 in case Connery stepped down at short notice? The film has certain Bond elements, Triple Cross is based on true facts. Burglar and explosive expert Eddie Chapman is imprisoned in Jersey. When the Nazis invade the island, amoral Chapman requests to work for the Germans. However one Nazi suspects he has been put there by British intelligence. Chapman has guile, cunning, he charms the ladies, quick witted and thinks on his feet. Apparently Chapman used his position to trick the Nazis by giving them the wrong information.Unfortunately the film wastes its interesting premise and intriguing opening. It soon becomes rather confusing, not helped by choppy editing and flat storytelling. Some strong support by Yul Brynner, Gert Frobe and Trevor Howard. Brynner steals the film as a conflicted Nazi aristocrat.

According to IMDb, this film is loosely based on a real historical incident--though how much, I have absolutely no idea! When the film begins, Eddie Chapman (Christopher Plummer) is hanging out on the island of Jersey during WWII. Although British, the island (off the French Coast) was seized by the Germans long before this. Any way, Eddie ends up getting arrested by the Germans and instead of acting afraid, he's very smug. He then announces that he's more than willing to work for the Nazis as a spy...provided they pay well! The Germans are a bit skeptical to say the least, but over time he earns their trust. But what is Eddie to do when they actually drop him into Britain and order him to blow up a defense plant?! And, for exactly WHO does Eddie work?This is a very unusual and interesting espionage film. Much of this is because for so much of the movie, you aren't sure who Eddie works for or what's in store for him. Christopher Plummer is very nice in the lead and it helps that he has the likes of Trevor Howard, Gert Fröbe, Yul Brynner and, especially, Romy Schneider in the film as well. My only complaint, and it's very minor, is that the film might have worked a bit better if the story was tightened up a bit...but it still was interesting and worth seeing.

To anyone interested in the true story of Eddie Chapman I suggest that they round the book "Agent Zigzag".This film is an attempt to do a clone James Bond film complete with inappropriate 60s song blaring out over the credits.The first problem is that Christopher Plummer is totally miscast as Eddie Chapman.A couple of years later it would be Michael Caine who would have been chosen.The story veers so far from the true Chapman story as to be a complete fiction.There was no countess in the real story.It really is absurd particularly when she appears in a different haute couture creation in every scene.Chapman actually got very friendly with his German spy master,not as shown in the film.He was kept in a secret house in Hendon whilst in the UK.Along with his mistress.A lot of damage was done to a dummy factory,not to De Havillands itself.So in the end this tiresome fabrication ends up falling flat on its face.

Eddie Chapman was a career criminal.A safe breaker stealing from mugs like you and me because it paid well and he never fancied getting his hands dirty with real work like the rest of us.He was a hard man from the north - east of England who ran with some of the most ruthless criminals of his day.He wasn't "Raffles",he wasn't in any way,shape or form like the upper - class knob Mr C.Plummer turns him into.His sole ambition was to be let out of prison and he did what he considered he had to do to achieve that aim.Conning the Germans,playing them off against the Brits,he had a whale of a time as an international swordsman on both sides of the channel.Or so Terence Young would have us believe. Was Mr Young just another victim of Mr.Chapman's self - mythologising? Decide for yourself by watching "Triple Cross" with Mr G.Frobe as the pragmatic Nazi ex - cop for whom Chapman is just a shade too good to be true and Mr Y.Brynner as the anti - Nazi German officer,a breed that proliferated as the war neared its end.Where were they when we needed them in 1939? The movie suffers from some serious arse - licking towards its hero who is shown to be suave,sophisticated,erudite and awfully handsome.A positive dreamboat as he drops into the arms of German Intelligence - a gift horse,almost,as Herr Frobe rightly suspects. Based on Mr Chapman's perhaps slightly biased autobiography,"Triple Cross" unlike "David Copperfield" leaves us in no doubt from page one as to who the hero of the story is going to be.