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.

When I saw the cast of this movie and the Director, I kind of expected to see a tale of intrigue and action. That is not achieved here. Still the film has it's moments. I think the problem here is the adaption of the real life story. It could have been adapted better for the screen than it is.Still, it is watchable though I think Christopher Plummer is the biggest weakness in the cast. He never seems to get totally into this effort. He seems too smug to really play this role properly. There are major connections here with the film Goldfinger as Gert Frobe played the Bond nemesis.This if the script had been done better has enough star power to be another "Great Escape" but misses making that level. Still, Yul Brenner playing a Nazi is one of the most interesting twist of role for him. The film opens with safes being blown up. It fails in the beginning to stimulate the viewer with an interesting story.Sometimes, the structure of a film loses the interest of the viewer. This film is a prime example of that.

This espionage-Flic based on fact concerns about astute safe-cracker named David Chapman(Christopher Plummer) who encounters himself working for both contenders in the 40s , as German secret service commanded by a baron(Yul Brynner) and a colonel(Get Frobe) and British military(led by Trevor Howard and Jess Hahn). Meanwhile he falls in love with a gorgeous resistance fighter(Claudine Auger) and a mysterious German countess(Romy Schneider). Chapman attempts to cheat both sides and play each other. The he's sent a dangerous mission and parachuted at England with objective to reconnaissance and factories sabotages. He's even decorated by General Von Runstedt(Marcel Journet).Based on real events starred by a real bank robber named Eddie Chapman, this film packs action, suspense, warlike feats and is quite entertaining. First rate main cast as Christopher Plummer as amoral but sympathetic double agent adding a bemusing touch , Yul Brynner as disillusioned German officer, a Von Stauffemberg-alike, and a splendid Get Frobe as cunning Colonel. Ample and stunning supporting cast with a magnificent Trevor Howard, and beautiful Claudine Auger and Romy Schneider, among others. Appear uncredited prestigious secondaries as Gordon Jackson, Howard Vernon,Bernard Fresson and Gordon Jackson. Colorful and evocative cinematography by Henry Alekan, Terence Young's usual cameraman(Mayerling,Poppies are also flowers). Enjoyable musical score by George Garvarentz in a James Bond style. The motion picture is regularly directed by Terence Young but contains some flaws and gaps, though tension at times, as well. The film was realized in his best period when he made the classic Bonds films(Dr No, From Russia with love and Thunderball). Rating : Acceptable and passable.

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.