Heel Turns Hero and Tide Of War

Christopher Plummer Loots Safes and German Secrets in Triple Cross (1966)

Jewel thieving Christopher Plummer hires out to the Germans, then sells espionage service to Allies for increased gain. One of those rotter-take-all studies that so typified a 60's landscape. We're supposed to admire Plummer's nihilist ways, and darned if we don't. Triple Cross has odor of international co-producing, a United Nations of bloat, and maybe I should thank Warner Archives for letting out the edited 126 minutes version rather than 140 that were 1966-inflicted. Truculent spy Plummer moves among James Bond cast refugees: Gert Frobe, Claudine Auger, and Anthony Dawson for three --- they may have been reason some attended Triple Cross, especially as it played between smash Thunderball and much anticipated You Only Live Twice. The story was based on truth: director Terence Young (another 007 alumnus) had worked British Intelligence during WWII and knew real-life Eddie Chapman as amorally sketched by Plummer here. There's a neat sense of war winding down in Triple Cross, the fact of Chapman being a double agent not even mattering to German high-commanders more interested in getting out from under defeat and reprisals. Warner Archive's DVD is 1.85 and looks fine.