chaswe-28402
Seems like a potential winner: multi-international star names, interesting settings, cast of hundreds, great Germans. I've been told that it's the director who makes the film, but personally I believe he's also got to have a good script, even if he has to write it himself. Sometimes a competent director gets burdened with an uninspired book, and I think that must be the problem here. Three names are connected with developing the story: Frank Owen, René Hardy, and William Marchant, but they could hardly be said to have delivered.The narrative lumbers along, but never bursts into life. Brynner is good, Frobe is OK, but Plummer doesn't fit the part. He was great as Kipling, superb as Wellington, and magnificent as Atahualpa, but as a dodgy North-East England Geordie crook ? No. A part more suited to Michael Caine, perhaps, as suggested by another reviewer ? Throughout the movie I didn't once believe what was supposed to be happening, and that has to be because Plummer didn't convince. Nor did Terence Young. Romy Schneider didn't convince either, and Trevor Howard had to be wearing the most unimpressive beard of all time. It looked as if it might have been his own.The picture persuaded me to buy a paperback about Eddie Chapman, so perhaps in time I'll find out what really happened. Agent Zigzag: a cracking good read, and much better than this film. Its author, Ben Macintyre reveals that Terence Young knew Chapman quite well, and Macintyre also refers to "a rather poor film, Triple Cross, starring Christopher Plummer". Page 318. It may be that Young was deliberately trying to conceal the truth.
denis888
I love war movies, and especially WWII ones. Also, a theme of a double agent who was involved in some very high levels of power of 2 sides, and was into some very high levels of authorities seems a very captivating plot. Plus, come a great cast of outstanding actors, such as Christopher Plummer as Eddie Chapman, Romy Schneider as Countess, Trevor Howard as British Intelligence Officer, Gert Fröbe as Col. Steinhager, Claudine Auger as Paulette, Yul Brynner as Col. Baron Von Grunen - so, the final result may seem a thrilling watch. Well, it was not, sadly. The very good and promising start of a movie gave us some large hope for better, but then, the film fell onto a trap of slow tempo, very predictable twists and very trite clichés. Plummer is good here yes, cool, polishes, withdrawn, sarcastic ( as he later would prove as a Duke Of Wellington in a great, sadly underestimated 1970's Waterloo), but he cannot save this otherwise plodded and oftentimes messy array of unexpected comic twists, unconvincing drama, very poorly depicted personal conflicts. Generally, the movie makes you yawn and wait for a quicker ending. Yul Brinner is not bad here, too, but this highly comic, artificial accent brings all down to a pure farce. My opinion? Not that bad, sure, but not good at all, either. A very middle-of-the-road run, a very medium try at the highly potential story.
Neil Doyle
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.
ianlouisiana
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.
