Triple Cross ** (1966, Christopher Plummer, Yul Brynner, Trevor Howard, Romy Schneider, Gert Fröbe, Claudine Auger) – Classic Movie Review 13,871

Terence Young’s 1966 British/ French real-life spy thriller film Triple Cross stars Christopher Plummer, Yul Brynner, Trevor Howard, Romy Schneider, Gert Fröbe, and Claudine Auger. Great cast, great story, just not here.

Director Terence Young’s 1966 British and French co-production biographical war spy thriller film Triple Cross stars Christopher Plummer, Yul Brynner, Trevor Howard, Romy Schneider, Gert Fröbe, and Claudine Auger.

Triple Cross is a largely sluggish, mostly unconvincing and only fair espionage thriller, based on the autobiographical true-life wartime exploits of Eddie Chapman (Christopher Plummer), a Jersey Channel Islands safecracker who spies for both the British and the Nazis in World War Two. The Germans believed he was their top spy in Britain, but he was an MI5 double agent known as Zigzag.

Unfortunately the muddled, clichéd script doesn’t ring true with its cardboard caricatures of smooth super-agent hero and implausibly gullible Nazis. Director Young plus the acting from smoothie Plummer, Yul Brynner as the monocled Baron von Grunen, Trevor Howard as the distinguished MI5 man Freddie Young and Goldfinger himself (Gert Frobe) as Colonel Steinhäger take it into James Bond imaginary spy territory when it should occupy John Le Carré realist country.

Nevertheless, it is entirely watchable though, and certainly looking good in gifted Henri Alekan’s cinematography. It is filmed in Eastman Color, with the print by Technicolor. 

It runs an overlong 140 minutes but was cut to 126 minutes for its US release.

The screenplay by René Hardy and William Marchant is based on Eddie Chapman and Frank Owen’s book The Eddie Chapman Story.

Chapman’s signature to show the Germans that he was transmitting freely was a Morse code XXX (the title Triple Cross).

It is shot on-location in London and Paris, and at Victorine Studios in Nice, France.

Cast: Christopher Plummer, Yul Brynner, Trevor Howard, Romy Schneider, Gert Fröbe, Claudine Auger, Georges Lycan, Jess Hahn, Harry Meyen, Gil Barber, Jean-Claude Berecq, Howard Vernon as German embassy official, Anthony Dawson as Major Stillmann, Edward Underdown as Air Marshall, Francis De Wolff as Generaloberst, Jean-Marc Bory as Resistance leader, Bernard Fresson as Raymond, Hubert Noel, Jean Bertrand, Gordon Jackson as British interrogator.

Release dates: 9 December 1966 (France) and 8 September 1967 (UK).

© Derek Winnert 2026 – Classic Movie Review 13,871

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